Reorganizing the industrial robotics laboratory for spatial training of novice engineering students

This paper presents a study in which learning practices of novice engineering students when programming and operating robot manipulators focus on the development of spatial skills. To provide the practices we unified workspaces of available robots, designed virtual robotic cells, and developed robot manipulation tasks with oriented blocks. We examined outcomes of the proposed practice for two categories of learners: Technion first-year students and tenth graders majoring in mechanical engineering at a vocational high school. The results argue for the educational value of the proposed learning practice.