Learning through designing robots in the framework of school graduation projects in Israel

This paper describes how students in Israel develop robots and participate in the Trinity College Fire-Fighting Home Robot Contests in the curricular framework of the school graduation project. We consider robotics projects developed in the Mevohot E’ron High School in 1999-2002 and specify the interdisciplinary activities of the teams designing fire-fighting robots. Our research focuses on the assessment of learning while working in the teams. The proposed approach is based on the triangulation of ethnographic observations of teamwork, examination of learning achievements, and analysis of robot contest surveys. Results of the study gave a picture of students’ behaviours at different stages of the design process, as needed for the individual assessment. As found, each of the students had made progress in a number of subjects and took a significant part in making the robot.