Robotics 2000 proposal Robotics Renaissance II: A Formal Course Adapting Theater and Web Robotics PI's Weiman, Wortzel, del Cerro, Wei SUMMARY This project proposes development of a new course which will improve undergraduate Science, Math, Engineering and Technical (SMET) education for both majors and non-majors, extending student diversity. The work is an adaptation and implementation of two technologies, the world-wide-web and robotics, plus a teaching method, in a single course. The teaching method is the use of theatrical performance of robots on the web as class project. Theatrical performance becomes a container for the technologies as well as a medium for dissemination and teaching with world-wide audiences and participants. The proposed course is targetted at all levels of college students and all majors, and could easily be extended to K-12 at some level of participation (but not here). This proposal extends previous course experience and NSF equipment grants by the Investigators. The combined adaptation of the three elements is quite natural. Theater is a frontier for new ideas in culture. Theater is being applied as a vehicle for general education. Recent examples include training in health care and business. Cross disciplinary examples integrate theater with English, psychology, and art. In engineering,  the use of this performative pedagogical tool such as theater supports the recent shift towards experiential, hands-on curricula promoted by ABET. The web is an ideal medium for dissemination in theater. Additionally it enables audience participation, transcending the traditional separation between performer and audience. The web is now a medium in the arts and a common language in the sciences and engineering. For the new course, the web can also host software for complex personal interaction. A robot is the ultimate man-made actor/avatar/agent. Appending robots to the web (or equivalently, the web to robots) frees the web from its desktop quadraplegy via mobility, personification, and action-at-a-distance telepresence. The social-scientific relevance of the course's thrust is particularly significant. Society is increasingly concerned with the coding and control of information, and with issues of visibility, identity, and trust. Human interaction with man-made agents via the Web is an excellent framework to address such issues and ethics. The course would start with introduction to theatrical issues and web/robotic tools. Teams would emerge and develop plans for production, which would then be implemented and presented on the web. Education in web and robotic technologies emerges as a natural outcome for students. A central objective or this proposal is to formalize the design of such a course and disseminate methodology for others to implement. After researching the components and designing the course, the proposers will teach a prototype under the grant. Formative assessment will be conducted via web tools, interviews and questionnaires. Students, aware of the objectives of the course from the outset, will steer the learning experience. Results of this project will be disseminated via journal and conference paper submissions, website posting, and publicity for the ongoing web-robotic artistic productions by the principal investigators 4a. Results from Prior NSF Support This proposal expands a bridgehead built by earlier NSF-supported projects that introduced an adaptation of information technologies with theater as an educational vehicle. Those projects opened opportunities for innovation in interdisciplinary education and collaboration between engineering schools in answering ABET-identified needs for distance learning, design teaming, diversity, and training in the new information technologies. In those projects, the current PIs gained experience and developed a platform for experimental courses whose outcome led to the proposal at hand. 1) NSF Gateway Engineering Education Coalition grant EEC-9727413, started four years ago as a collaboration between Ohio State U., Pennsylvania State U., New York City Technical College, and Columbia U. An outcome related to the present proposal was the development of intercollegiate collaboration, the use of websites for distance teaming, and the development of a new interdisciplinary course at Cooper Union, EID111 Design, Illusion and Reality. The course follows a four-step process to teach students in any major to research, develop, and present an original project, fostering interdisciplinary teaming and design. The four steps are: 1: Instructors introduce resources and issues students, who research resources, interpret and present ideas. 2: Students brainstorm presentation projects, critiqued by peers. Instructors critique and guide. 3: Students focus on projects and team up, reporting weekly to class. Instructors and peers critique weekly progress reports. 4: Formal team project presentations to class and guests. Documentation is archived on web-site. The course is team-taught by instructors from different disciplines (mechanical engineering, art, civil engineering, and architecture) who choose a different theme each semester e.g. Bridges, Inventing the Inventor. The course is open to all levels of students in all majors, generating a rich mixture of artistic talent and technical competency. In Spring 1999, two of the current PIs, Wortzel and Weiman, teamed up with Prof. van der Heijden to teach EID111 under the theme "Robotic Visions and Theater". After researching the technology and mythology of robotics, students designed imaginative projects including: RoboKopf: A removable autonomous robot head for home and office servant. Nanotechnology: Scenarios and tradeoffs for feasibility, impact and policy. RoboFridge: An intelligent active refrigerator for food and meal management. RoboWorld: A virtual robotic game environment for teaching and recreation. Interview: A Kafka-esque script of a human being interviewed by a robot . The framework and methodology of EID 111 will inform the proposed course, described later. 2) NSF Grant ILI-9751617 "An Undergraduate Product Realization and Prototyping Workcell" September 1997 — August 1999, PI Stan Wei. This grant provided equipment for the robotics lab, subsequently used to build parts for robots in ME363 Robotics course, applicable to the Robotics in Theater theme. The laboratory for design and application of robots for ME students has provided a nucleus of talent and workspace for the adaptation technology to be applied in the current proposal. Cooper Union supports this lab, which also hosts the new robots to be applied to the proposal at hand, under the leadership of Professor Wei, a PI in the current proposal. 3) NSF Grant DUE9980873, "Robotic Renaissance", PIs Weiman, Wortzel and Wei, ongoing from January through December 2000. This CCLI-A&I equipment grant purchases off-the-shelf robots for use in teaching and art performances for the Robotic Theater. Three of the four PIs in the current proposal are PIs in this grant. Although ongoing, there are already some outcomes of great value to the new proposal. First, robots have been purchased, which will be used in the proposed course. Second, the publicity generated by this award (for example, a New York Times CyberTimes article by Matthew Mirapaul has increased the visibility of the Robotics in Theater project to the point where several venues have been awarded for performance by world-class art museums in the New York City area, and in international shows and exhibitions in Europe, Brazil, and Jordan. This snowballing publicity is an important dissemination channel that raises interest and an opportunity for private funding of performances. Third, one of the students in the earlier EID111 course has founded a Cooper Union Robotics Club, which will develop a group of students skilled in the application of the new robots. And fourth, the EID111 course will be taught again in Fall 2000 using the robots purchased under the ongoing grant. It will follow the four-step pattern as described above, but this time the theme will be production of a robotic theater piece over the Web. The '99 EID111 course and robotics capstone courses ME 362-363 used extensively the assessment tools developed and applied by co-PI (Gerardo del Cerro) on the proposal at hand. These proved useful in providing feedback to instructors. These tools will be extended to formative assessment roles in the new proposal, providing feedback to the students as well during the execution of the proposed course. See the bibliography for a report to NSF [del Cerro et al]. 4b. Goals and Objectives The project goal is to design an undergraduate interdisciplinary course that focuses on a robotic Web theater production as a class team project. Benefits and rationale are provided later. Serving the overall goal are the objectives of formative assessment to steer the design of the course, exploration of the sociological consequences of its action-at-a-distance properties on the Web, and dissemination of the methodology for others to extend to a variety of educational contexts, such as K-12, although such particular extensions are not within the current scope. 4b.1 Pedagogical Goals The course will be designed to instill the following specific competencies in students ranging from engineering to the arts, at all undergraduate levels and majors: Learn to collaborate on projects with a team consisting of artists, engineers and architects. Gain familiarity and understanding of the philosophy and theory behind the history and development of robotic elements for theater and film in myth and reality – from deus ex machina through Robocop. Examine improvisational and interactive theater from monoloue to dialogue, such as the work of Augusto Boal's "Theatre of the Oppressed. Understand and operate a telerobotic Web site (robots operated remotely over the Web). Understand and operate state-of-the-art robotic hardware, software and programming, including voice and image streaming technologies. Learn to direct action and operate cameras in tandem as in a television studio. Stage and design scenarios with robotic actors for live performance and for the WWW. Understand and practice the importance of text and hypertext for contemporary theater production based on pre-existing writings and/or original writings. Complete a project as a production company that will have venue at the end of the term. The first three of these competencies were developed in earlier interdisciplinary courses taught by the PIs, described earlier (EID111). The rest are aimed directly at education in the Web technologies and their social impact for technical and non-technical majors participating in a common project. 4b.2 Assessment and Analysis Goals The project proposes new methodologies to address ABET-identified needs in the education of science, math, engineering and technology. Formative assessment plays a crucial role in steering the project through new ground as it progresses, and summative assessment will tell whether competency objectives are being reached. The assessment instruments to be used include questionnaires (see Appendix ), interviews, journals, and web bulletin boards which will serve as the common workspace in ongoing work. For a new program, evaluation is vital to assess the impact on the department and university’s educational goals. Faculty will adopt the methodology successfully applied in the NSF Gateway program as exhibited in the Chart for Course Assessment (Appendix ….). Note that in objectives of student development, ABET criteria and outcomes are covered. The measured outcomes will be used by the instructors to steer subsequent courses, and by the chairperson and dean to guide curriculum enhancements. The student questionnaire (also in Appendix B) is administered at the end of the course. It provides important assessment for all three staff groups. The questionnaire elicits their opinions on their development of technical skills, the teaching, the laboratory, and the development of an ability to work in cross-disciplinary projects (so common to commercial projects). Especially objective evaluation will come from audiences viewing the theatrical performances live and on the Web. Audience critiques will be formalized by surveys conducted after performances, via direct contact with live audience, and forms submission over the Web for remote audiences. Finally, an interesting external evaluation of the success of this work will be the demonstration of private and public external financial support, solicited by the principal investigators. Our independent evaluator, Gerardo del Cerro, reports directly to Dean Eleanor Baum. He is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology and Planning at New School University in New York City. As a research associate, he worked on the design and implementation of higher education reform through the Spanish government from 1990-2. Since October 1996, he has been Local Evaluator for the Gateway Program. PROPOSED CHART FOR COURSE ASSESSMENT Course Name and Code: EID111 - EQUALLY AVATAR: HUMANS, MACHINES AND VIRTUAL BEINGS: Developing Robotic Actors And Original Theatrical Scenarios Based On Texts By Charles Darwin, Geoffrey Chaucer, Nikola Tesla, William Shakespeare And/Or Others Department: Mechanical Engineering

 

EID 111. Assessment. Fall 2001

1. Please circle the most appropriate . In the empty rows, please add other skills you think you have developed during the course.

2. Please add any comments and suggestions you may have about the EID 111 course you have taken. 4b.3 Sociological Outcomes (Jean, Adrianne, Gerardo) 4b.4 Dissemination Regular dramatic episodes will be broadcast over the world wide web consisting of interactive robotic dramatic scenarios with content oriented to the dissemination of information and experience between two or more disciplines. These broadcasts will be scripted and operated by students on the Cooper Union campus but open to response and manipulation by viewers globally via the WWW. Robots in these scenarios will take on the roles of historical or scientific figures, philosophers, psychological avatars, entertainers, or other characters. With the vantage of the WWW and encapsulating its capabilities for long distance learning, the benefits of role-playing and the creation of a virtual reality based on factual details, will become a way of immersing students in an environment that is conducive to commitment and engagement with the subject at hand. A pre-existing example of such an environment is "Meet Brother Gregor, Being the Fictionalized Story of the Discovery of Genetics" by Professor John Blamire of Brooklyn College.[cite1] Professor Blamire creates a fictive environment full of mystery and intrigue that leads the student into the factual life, times and work of Gregor Mendel. Included are lectures on the history of genetics and on-line experiments on cross-fertilization. The scenarios that we will broadcast on the World Wide Web under the direction of Adrianne Wortzel would consist of an even more immersive pedagogical environment because they would not be limited to asynchronous experience, but will provide live, real-time, interactive pedagogical experiences and experiments where information is exchanged, experienced andd tested in real time. In addition, an electronic publiclation on the web site which will be constructed and maintained during the whole term of this course the purpose of which is not only to serve as a focal point for formative assessment but to recreate the experience of students and faculty in developing an episodic webcasting facility geared to online epistemology as described in Sec.4c, Phase II. However at the end of the semester, additional assessments, formal papers and cumulative research will be added to the site as well as links to other relevant web sites, if any. This web site will also contain scenario scripts as guides - modeled after the Discovery Learning Guides published by the Discovery Theater of the Smithsonian Institution. We will also invite prominent practitioners of long distance learning as well as academicians who use the idea of drama in their courses as a learning facilitation to contribute papers to this site in order to make it a resource for what we believe will be a general movement in instructional technology - incorporating a combination mechanical and electronic avatars and the world wide web in the learning process. The PI Adrianne Wortzel is part of a community of artists and educators in science and art at various institutions throughout the world working to develop online synchronous immersive learning environments. She will notify her colleagues of all performance productions and in so doing will supply an international audience of students and faculty from art and engineering disciplines to participate in teleoperating the robots in scenarios. Section 4c. Detailed Project Plan 4c.1 ) Problem Statement: Education in science, math, engineering, and technology (SMET) is challenging because of the inexorably growing complexity of the technological components, and the increasingly pervasive and global reach of its social applications and consequences. Traditionally, complexity growth is handled by teaching increasingly specialized courses, with ever more rigorous technical prerequisites. The unhappy result is fragmentation of knowledge in which SMET majors are isolated from the rich interplay between technology and its social-societal applications, and non-majors are not apprised of the intricate beauties and capabilities of the technology. Further, cultural and gender diversity are severely constrained by the narrowing of talent and interest resulting from escalating specialization. The goal of SMET education is not only to train designers and operators of the underlying machinery, but to apprise them of the rich social consequences of their application. A broader goal is to also educate the general society about the properties and potentials of these tools which have broad impact on civilization. In fact, rightly or wrongly, the advancement of civilization is often measured by the increasing sophistication of technology. The Web technologies in particular are profoundly changing the economic, cultural, and sociological landscape of the globe, and the problem of education, for both practitioners and society, is therefore highly relevant to all groups. The web revolution is occurring because of both technological developments and social transformations. First, the (information) technology is universally accessible without expertise, e.g. the ubiquitous browser invoking the technological engines. Second, individuals and communities are increasingly immersed in situations where the appropriate management of data, information, and knowledge become key features of both productive and leisure activities. This project proposes to exploit precisely this property, namely, use the Web as the tool and medium for teaching the practitioners and their complement in a focused environment. Unlike previous developments, we propose to manage information by acting upon it at a distance... And we propose the use of theatre as a pedagogical tool… The convergence of a variety of elements (robotics, Web technology, theatre, and the social framework) is ideal for teaching students that the resolution of scientific and technological problems often requires systemic approaches and methodologies – and the display of a real understanding for diversity of perspectives. The Web provides handles that are universally familiar, and robots become beings to which the handles are attached. Performance's pedagogical value is well known. Performative activities (that is, hands-on as opposed to mental) are an effective (and old) way to preserve information and convey knowledge, that is, to learn and teach. The work of creating a theatrical performance becomes the focal point that forces a discipline of scheduled performance and controls the scope of tools applied. By its very nature, robotic theater develops student competencies in teaming, technology, and transdisciplinary learning as listed under the previous section. Finally, public performance on the Web commits egos and eventually generates pride that transcends even that which might come from a good grade on a final exam. 4c.2 Plan of Action The overall plan is to develop and teach a new course that incorporates Web-intereactive robots in a theatrical project produced by the students. In the first of two years, the PIs will survey relevant materials to be adapted and design the course. In the second year, they will teach a prototype version of the course, analyze the results, and present them in scholarly and Web format for application by institutions worldwide. The four-phase work plan is described below. Phase I: Survey of Relevant Materials to be Adapted (6months) Survey theater as a teaching methodology – Search literature, visit Web, contact other people doing this work Survey innovative interactive sites: Search literature, visit web sites of interactive robotics, telecon and visit people doing same Survey Technologies: Robotic hardware and software, Lego's to Peoplebot, Wireless and Web,Wireless Application Protocol, Handheld web appliances, integrated telephony/web/wireless Deliverables: Survey Report of Integration and Pedagogical Issues of: Web, Robotics, Theater, Telepistemology Web site with summary of survey, and links to other sites Book published by MIT Press? Phase II: Development of Model of the Proposed Course (6 mos) Design model of the course environment:Virtual Stagecraft, Robotic and Stage Equipment, Interconnections, communication channels, Software, Assessment methodologies and tools, Website structure and usage, Design syllabus for the new course: Use EID111 as structural model, Flex up for Write manual for teachers: Methodology, Tools, Strategies for engagment. Deliverables: Syllabus, Teacher's Manual, Technical Environment Requirements   Phase III: Prototype Implementation of the Proposed Course (6 mos) Teach Course, Spring 2002, Conduct Formative Assessment Document the process of production development Phase IV: Analysis, Reporting and Dissemination (6 mos) Analyze summative assessment results and submit to ASEE conference. Final Deliverables: Final Report to NSF: In paper, and on CD-ROM in HTML Web-site report Submit papers to Journals and Conferences Manual for process of design and implementation of such a course Narrative: Phase I. This proposal adapts Web and robotics technologies and theatrical performance as a pedagogical tool. The technologies will be surveyed for capabilities, reliability and adaptability to theatrical use rather than advanced robotics research. In addition to commercial literature and Web search, conversations with users at universities will be sought. The use of theater for teaching is recently applied in various forms, which will be surveyed for adaptability to the proposed course. An interesting example is the MOO theater, a text-based social virtual reality environment where participants create their own objects and architecture. Building in MOO's is "something of a hybrid between computer programming and writing fiction." [ibid]. This is the kind of interaction we wish to establish in the proposed course. Another relevant concept is "Telepistemology," a term coined by Ken Goldberg to describe learning and acting at a distance. It raises interesting social issues regarding self-perception in "action at a distance" situations. Explicitly pedagogical use of theater will be surveyed by communicating with the Association for Theater in Higher Education and others cited in the bibliography. Phase II. Figure 1 depicts one scenario for the robotic stage that classes will use for their performances. The infrastructure includes cameras, lighting, Web connection, and bluescreen. The course design will follow the four steps of EID111 (See section 4a, Results of Prior Research), but will focus on a common theme – the performance. Individuals will cooperate as part of a single production team rather than diverge into individual projects.