Communication in Educational Robots: From Coordination to IoT Systems

Educational robotics is nowadays used in various learning environments, adopting different learning goals depending on the application context (e.g. collaborative vs. competitive activities). The digital transformation and Industry 4.0 with the use of an increasing number of sensors, and the use of smart devices, have been demanding environments where robots communicate and collaborate. This paper discusses the use of multi-robotic educational environments, trying to identify some scenarios where more than one robot is used in collaborative environments and what impact it has in the learning activities. In a teacher training course ranging from primary to secondary and to vocational teachers, a low-cost robot with Wi-Fi capabilities was used to test simple challenges for coordination using an MQTT protocol. A simple questionnaire was developed to record teachers' opinions about this experience. In the end, we argue that activities of this type, using a mixture of IoT and robotics can foster students imagination and opens up the possibility of creating tasks in important areas of knowledge linked to IoT and robotics.