In-Presence, Take-Home, and Online Education: The State of Equipment Use and Practices in Robotics Labs and Other Hands-On Activities

A study is presented that gives an overview of the state of the art in hands-on robotics education. It is based on an international survey among instructors on their use of different forms of equipment, i.e., robot hardware, simulation, and data-sets, in combination with different access forms, i.e., in-presence, online, and take-home, across different teaching activities with practical components, i.e., labs, projects, and the supervision of BSc/MSc theses. Furthermore, it is checked whether the COVID-19 pandemic, which broke out 5 years before survey, had lasting effects. It turns out that simulation is the most popular form of regularly used equipment, i.e., almost all instructors report to use simulation in robotics hands-on activities. It is followed by robot hardware where it is noteworthy that in labs about a quarter, i.e., 24% of the instructors do not regularly use it. Data-sets are particular popular as a occasionally used element. With respect to access forms, in-presence dominates for hardware. For simulation and data-sets, in-presence, online, and take-home are all popular and often used in combination. Among the alternatives to in-presence use of hardware, take-home robotics hardware is clearly more popular than online, i.e., remote access to robots. While the effect is less pronounced for participants with more than 10 years of teaching experience, there is a clear sentiment that the COVID-19 pandemic has had lasting effects on hands-on teaching in robotics. Instructors experimented with new forms of hands-on teaching during the pandemic, and they kept (some of) the changes afterward.