Preface

We are glad to present the proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Robotics in Education (RiE) held in Sofia, Bulgaria, during 26–28 April 2017. The RiE is organized every year with the goal to provide the opportunity for the presentation of relevant novel research and development in a strongly multidisciplinary context in the educational robotics domain. Educational robotics is an innovative way for increasing the attractiveness of science education and scientific careers in the view of young people. Robotics represents a multidisciplinary and highly innovative domain encompassing physics, mathematics, informatics and even industrial design as well as social sciences. As a multidisciplinary field, it promotes the development of systems thinking and problem-solving. Due to various application areas, teamwork, creativity and entrepreneurial skills are required for the design, programming and innovative exploitation of robots and robotic services. The fascination for autonomous machines and the variety of fields and topics covered make robotics a powerful idea to engage with. Robotics confronts the learners with the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) through the design, creation and programming of tangible artifacts for creating personally meaningful objects and addressing real-world societal needs. Thus, young girls and boys can easily connect robots to their personal interests and share their ideas. As a consequence, it is regarded as very beneficial if engineering schools and university programme studies include the teaching of both theoretical and practical knowledge on robotics. In this context, current curricula need to be improved and new didactic approaches for an innovative education need to be developed for improving the STEAM skills among young people. Moreover, an exploration of the multidisciplinary potential of robotics towards an innovative learning approach is required for fostering the pupils’ and students’ creativity leading to collaborative entrepreneurial, industrial and research careers. In these proceedings, we present the latest results and development in educational robotics research and application. The book offers a range of methodologies for teaching robotics and presents various educational robotics curricula and activities. Moreover, the book introduces interesting programming approaches as