Can Robotics and Aesthetics come together in Education to foster creativity, motivation and new ways of learning?
The project |
Activities |
Our Team |
Contact us |
The project
By designing activities with soft materials, storytelling, and creative robotics, the project aims to rethink the integration of educational robots into the classroom. The research goal is to increase teachers’ motivation to integrate educational robots into their teaching by applying a creative-aesthetic approach, ultimately providing more engaging digital education lessons for pupils.
- ROBOTICS
- Educational robots developed at EPFL are being used and redesigned to understand how teachers perceive the use of these tools. Beyond being functional machines, we challenge their visual and practical affordances so they become more transversal tools for the teachers. We think of educational robots as tools capable of supporting teachers in promoting hard and soft skills, creativity, collaboration, communication, adaptability, critical thinking or problem-solving.
- AESTHETICS
- While rethinking robots so they become more accessible to the general school environment, we strive for soft materials, playful motion, and thoughtful design, aiming to promote curiosity. We create activities for digital education that break with the usual use of educational robots, transforming them into creative experiences. This transformation starts with the documentation of our activities, which goes into the resources available for the teachers, and once adapted to each classroom’s needs, leads to a new educational experience for the students, where hard and soft skills are present symbiotically. In doing so, we aim to redefine digital education as more sensitive, creative, and open to imagination.
- EDUCATION
- Our research examines how combining robotics with aesthetics can reshape not only the teaching but also the learning experience. We aim to understand whether this approach strengthens motivation, self-confidence, and engagement in Digital Education.
Discover some of our activities
The documentation to reproduce the activities are available in the following links
COSTUME I
Learn how to build and transform a paper costume for the Thymio robot. And discover a programming activity to bring your creation to life using VPL3.
COSTUME II
Learn how to build and transform a paper costume for the Thymio robot. And discover a programming activity to bring your creation to life using VPL3.
COSTUME III
Learn how to build and transform a paper costume for the Thymio robot. And discover a programming activity to bring your creation to life using VPL3.
THE SNOW GOOSE MIGRATION
Transform the Thymio into a snow goose on its great migration. Learn how to reproduce the paper costume and animate it using VPL3.
THE DANCER
Documentation coming soon!
THE ANIMATED FRAME
Documentation coming soon!
Our Team
We are a team of researchers from different institutions. Together, we connect technology with pedagogy and creativity, working hand in hand with teachers to imagine new possibilities for education.
Our project is currently supported by the Competence Center BeLEARN .
Contact us
Are you interested in our research project?
We regularly organise workshops and experiments, and we are always looking for collaborations with schools or institutions.
If this applies to you, please use the Google Form below. We are looking forward to getting in touch with you!