Host: The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers
Name : [in Japanese]
Date : October 29, 2018 - October 30, 2018
This study has examined the lower end of the age of children at which PBL using robots is effective. First, the study investigated to what extent young children show interest in the task of building a robot and participating in a competition, using the robot they assembled, and to what extent they can maintain their motivation levels. In this experiment, the young children were asked to build the face and body of a robot which had been previously prepared so that the robot would gain some character, and then to participate in the race with the robots they had built. We observed how they behaved in performing the task. The experiment has shown that the three-year-old child could not maintain concentration in building the robot, and he could not concentrate on the race. The four-year-old and five-year-old children managed to maintain concentration in building the robot, and when they participated in the competition, they understood the aim of the competition and participated in it until the end while maintaining their levels of motivation. The result suggests that problem-solving PBL in which children are asked to compete with robots they built could be effective for children of four years of age and older.
