HeLiWi - Open source and low cost STEM approach for educational purposes

Abstract

The importance and advantages of Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths (STEM) education has been well understood by society, policy makers, academicians, industry, parents and teachers. Robotics education enables to address a variety of domains in STEM. A lot of commercial, closed and expensive robotic solutions for different age categories are on the market on the one hand, which are not accessible to small schools. On the other hand, a lot of small, mostly ad hoc, initiatives have been put forward, focusing on a particular age category and/or being limited in potential applications. In this paper, we explain a low cost modular solution to address several aspects in STEM education with a final robotics application as end result for different grades and levels going from 6 years up to 99 years, relying on available well known open source tools and technologies.