STEM Education

Students Touch Space Through Free Robotics Programming Competition

Jenny Liu

, Wendy Feenstra

, Alvar Saenz Otero

, and Kathleen Magrane

Space Systems Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,

77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA, 02139, U.S.A.

Aurora Flight Sciences, 4 Cambridge Center Suite 11, Cambridge, MA, 02142, U.S.A.

Massachusetts Afterschool Partnership, 128 Tremont Street-Suite 4F, Boston, MA, 02108, U.S.A.

Keywords: Middle School, Programming, Competition, Robotics, International Space Station, SPHERES, NASA.

Abstract: This position paper discusses the use of the Zero Robotics Summer Program competition as a tool to teach

programing to students in middle school (ages 11-14). The benefits of teaching programing at that age are

discussed, including grasping the student attention early on and providing a useful skill. Zero Robotics is a

free programming competition where students program microsatellites to compete with other student-

programmed satellites in a virtual game using an online simulation. The finalists see their code compete on

the SPHERES satellites aboard the International Space Station, during a final competition transmitted live.

The game and curriculum teaches students physics, mathematics, and programming concepts. This position

paper argues that it is possible to engage students in programing by providing the right incentive (space)

through a competitive environment where teachers have a curriculum to back them up, without becoming a

standard classroom exercise.

1 INTRODUCTION

Zero Robotics Middle School Program is a

programming competition which culminates with the

top teams demonstrating their software aboard the

International Space Station (ISS). The Synchronized

Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental

Satellites (SPHERES) are used inside the ISS,

controlled by programs developed by grade-school

students. The SPHERES satellites have operated

aboard the ISS since 2006 to carry a wide range of

algorithm development by graduate students

(Saenz-Otero, 2005) (Wertz, 2000). Starting in 2009

the Zero Robotics program has leveraged the

resources of SPHERES as a tool for Science,

Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM)

education through a unique student robotics

competition (Saenz-Otero, 2010).

Participants in Zero Robotics write their

programs using an online programming environment

accessed via a web browser, which does not require

the installation of any special tools, nor the purchase

of software licenses or entry fees. Thus, the “zero”

stands for “zero-cost” and “zero-configuration” in

addition to “Zero”-gravity. This no-cost model

eliminates potential barriers that often limit the

participation of under-served and under-represented

populations in robotics competitions.

The program has grown over four years into an

international tournament involving more than two

thousand student competitors and has given

hundreds of students the experience of running

experiments aboard the ISS. The main goal of the

program is to teach students STEM topics by

showing them real world applications and

opportunities for future involvement, to increase

their awareness for space and technology, and to

encourage them to explore these topics.

National Aeronautics & Space Administration

(NASA), Defense Advanced Research Projects

Agency (DARPA), and Center for the Advancement

of Science in Space (CASIS) sponsor the Zero

Robotics Middle School Summer Program. It is run

by the MIT Space Systems Laboratory (SSL), the

Massachusetts Afterschool Partnership (MAP),

Aurora Flight Sciences Corporation (AFS), and Top

Coder (TC). The Education Development Center,

Inc. (EDC) led the 2013 curriculum development.

In 2013 the Zero Robotics Middle School

Program expanded outside the state of

270

Liu J., Feenstra W., Saenz Otero A. and Magrane K..

STEM Education - Students Touch Space Through Free Robotics Programming Competition.

DOI: 10.5220/0004944802700274

In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU-2014), pages 270-274

ISBN: 978-989-758-021-5

 2014 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

Massachusetts to include California, Florida,

Georgia and Idaho. The 2010 Middle School pilot

program utilized MIT undergraduate mentors who

became daily instructors at each of the ten pilot

locations. As ZR expands, the MIT mentor model is

not sustainable and new methods of developing

program quality must be applied. The MIT SSL and

MAP partnered with EDC to develop and pilot a

downloadable and free Zero Robotics curriculum

geared towards middle school summer programs.

The guide provides a structured outline of objectives

and activities to support summer educators in

presenting lessons and key concepts.

This paper presents the results observed from

high school competitions and how the lessons

learned have been applied to the middle school

program. This position paper argues that it is

possible for middle-school students to get interested

in programing if (a) an exciting incentive, such as

space, is used as initial attraction (b) the students are

presented with a challenge/competition, and (c) the

teachers are provided with a curriculum that does

not require them to be an expert in computer

science.

2 BACKGROUND

There are two different types of programming

competitions, short-term competitions and long-term

competitions. Short-term competitions usually take

place over a day or weekend, and long-term

competitions take place over several weeks or

months. In this position paper, we will focus on long

term programming competitions. For the purpose of

this paper, our definition of middle school is grades

six through nine (ages 11-14).

Programming competitions targeted towards

middle school students are important for the

following reasons:

1) Students Need to Learn Programming because

Programming Opens up a lot of Doors for Future

Opportunities.

According to Code.org, there are plenty of

opportunities for students that learn programming.

They estimate that there will be 1.4 million

computing jobs by 2020, which equates to about

$500 billion opportunity.

2) Programming should be taught Starting in

Middle School.

Students must get involved in engineering and

programing at a young age. There is precedent

globally that students as young as first grade are

capable of learning programming. Last year, the

Estonian Tiger Leap Foundation (Wilson, R, 2012)

launched a program called “ProgeTiiger” where

programming is introduced to students starting in

first grade. Estonia Tiger Leap Foundation decided

to start this project because they saw how many

companies struggle to find decent programmers.

Estonia is proud of its programmers developing

Skype, which has been acquired by Microsoft.

ProgeTiiger starts in first grade. Therefore, it is not

too early to start in middle school.

3) We Believe that Teaching Students to Program

by Competition is an Effective Method.

The Zero Robotics Middle School Competition is

based on the idea of gaming and wining. At the same

time, it includes multiple features that encourage

friendly competition. Field trip events bring students

together, introducing students with similar interests

to each other, creating a community of student

programmers. Within this community, students

support each other through messages in the Zero

Robotics forum. This gives students a glimpse of

collaboration, highly relevant to future careers at

universities and in industry. In addition, the long-

term competition format, gives students the

opportunity to create and evolve their solutions

similar to processes in universities and in industry.

Microsoft Education blogger notes that long term

programming competitions make students design

well thought-out solutions that closely resemble

industry or formal research tool development.

(Microsoft, 2013)

2.1 Thesis

It is possible for middle-school students to get

interested in programing if (a) an exciting incentive,

such as space, is used as initial attraction (b) the

students are presented with a challenge/competition,

and (c) the teachers are provided with a curriculum

that does not require them to be an expert in

computer science.

3 IMPACT OF HIGH SCHOOL

ZERO ROBOTICS

COMPETITION

The Zero Robotics High School competition has

attracted over 1500 students since 2009. Its initial

growth in teams showed that even with a small

number of schools that teach programing in the USA

(under 10% of public schools http://code.org/stats),

there is an attractiveness in having space as an

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incentive. Feedback from participants presents

individual data points that demonstrate the impact of

space:

“A teacher in a local middle school has followed

the progress of team y0b0tics! from their early days

as a middle school FLL [First LEGO League] team

through their current participation in ZR, on a poster

that hangs in his science classroom. The poster’s

theme is “Start here…” (middle school FLL) and

“Go here…” competing in ZR with your code being

run by an astronaut on the ISS. Recently, my older

son, Richard, attended an event at my younger son’s

school. While walking through the hall, a middle

schooler approached him and said, “[You’re] cool!”

and explained recognizing him from the poster.

Mt. Olive High School in New Jersey, boasts a

football team with 100+ participants and a robotics

team with 125+ participants.”

Other feedback addresses the ability to introduce

new STEM concepts to students through the

competition: “I never thought about programming,

and wasn’t interested in programming at all.

However, the thought that I could control robots in

space, especially in the International Space Station,

caught my interest. And so I participated in Zero

Robotics.” The space incentive of ISS encourages

and attracts students who never thought they could

program or would be interested in learning

programming. The program growth supports this

positive impact. Zero Robotics started with only two

teams in 2009, a total of thirteen students, and has

expanded this year to 142 teams (includes both USA

and European teams) with more than 1600 students.

The competition serves as an effective and

incentivizing educational tool when compared to the

traditional curriculum: “Several parents and students

have expressed to me that ZR competition was one

of the most important educational experiences of

their entire career. In my opinion, students who

participate have far greater understanding of physics,

math, and programming than their peers after just a

few weeks of a competition…I saw a big

improvement in one student who joined the Zero

team. For one thing, she now really understands

vector concepts far better than other students, and

vectors are fundamental to many different concepts

in physics so this directly lead to her grades

improving. It’s on thing to memorize how to take a

vector sum or a cross product. [It’s] something else

entirely to have to use those concepts to solve real

problems you are faced with.”

In addition, the competition format creates

incentives for the students to dig deeper into the

subjects: “The competition atmosphere encouraged

me to learn as much as I could. Instead of just

learning at team meetings, I looked up exercises and

tutorials on my own time. Consequently, after the

Zero Robotics season was over, I decided to take a

formal computer science course. I felt that taking a

formal course would enforce and expand upon

concepts I gathered through on-the-fly coding during

the Zero Robotics season.

“From the first day of my computer science

class, I instantly noticed a distinct difference

between coding concepts learned in school versus

the ones I picked up over the course of Zero

Robotics. The biggest difference would definitely be

the motivation behind learning in the two different

formats (Zero Robotics and traditional classroom

setting). I was much more motivated in Zero

Robotics because I had to make sure I kept up with

students from other teams. The latest Zero Robotics

Challenge always posed an interesting problem that

required a solution that needed to be innovative.

Exercises given in class were often tedious, lacking

any real application to tasks one would do in the real

world. As a result, I found the classroom methods to

be extremely boring. For people driven by problem-

solving and creative approaches to learning, I would

recommend giving Zero Robotics a try. It definitely

provides a fun way to learn something completely

new like programming.”

By working in teams, rather than individual

competitions, ZR enhances the learning experience

by encouraging collaboration: “I learned C entirely

through Zero Robotics. … I learned to code for ZR

while learning to code in Java, which helped in that

there is a lot of cross-over. Aside from the

generalities, the most crucial thing I learned from

programming with ZR is that there are a lot of ways

to do a task, so find the most efficient one. … and in

general write code that other people on your team

have to be able to understand and add to was

definitely one of the biggest things I took away from

ZR. …about collaboration. Learning to code with

others can be a big challenge because most people

learn to code on their own, and everyone has their

own coding style. Like I said before, there are many

ways to write the same program. Everyone wants to

write it their own way, and programmers in general

are very protective of their code. Learning to accept

others' ideas and ways of writing is a valuable asset.

In this way, ZR helped me a lot with group projects

in robotics club and team programming

competitions…”

The successes of the High School Tournament

were implemented in the Middle School Summer

Program:

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 Maintain space as an incentive, including

participation of the finalists aboard ISS.

 Make programming the central STEM objective.

 Maintain a team competition format which

encourages collaboration.

The middle school program differs from the

high school program in that it takes place over the

summer (five weeks) and provides more support to

middle school teachers via a curriculum of

structured weekly activities.

4 COUNTERARGUMENTS TO

MIDDLE SCHOOL

Counterarguments exists against teaching

programing at the middle school level and using

competition as a teaching tool. Literature review of

the topic yields the following arguments:

1) Middle School Students are too young to

Understand Programming.

In online blogs, parents advocate that middle

school students should “enjoy their childhood years”

and not be tied to the computer screen. Students

should learn to follow their instincts, use their

imagination, and not be taught the rigid world of

engineering design (Farr, 2013). There is also

suggestion that learning programming languages

may sacrifice a student’s ability to learn foreign

languages (Koerner, 2013).

2) Students are too young to be Competitive.

Teachers involved in the Zero Robotics program

provided feedback for the elementary school level

(ages 6-11) that the focus of our program should be

on problem solving and not competition.

“These students worked hard to get their

programs to work…it would be nice to just ‘see’

how they did.

“The competition wasn’t as important to the

students as the sense of accomplishment from seeing

that the student code worked.”

4.1 Refutes to Counterclaims

Current events and industry activity review refutes

the counterclaims:

 17-year-old British developer Nick D’Aloisio’s

startup was acquired by Yahoo! D’Aloisio taught

himself to code at age 12 (7

grade) and started

developing iPhone apps in 2008. After launching

his app, D’Aloisio received widespread attention

from media and investors including actor Ashton

Kutcher and Zynga founder Marc Pincus. (Fell,

2013)

 Microsoft held, Kodu, a game design

programming competition, this year for students

age nine through twelve. Since the competition,

there have been one-half million downloads for

the 16,000-plus kid-created games. (Microsoft,

2013)

5 ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT OF

MIDDLE SCHOOL

1) Programming is an Important Skill for Middle

School Students to Learn.

As pointed out earlier, programming jobs are

growing and there are many opportunities for

students in the future. Thus, we believe that

programming is an important skill for middle school

students to learn. Further, by creating ‘applications’

for programing, students are exposed to other STEM

skills such as math (algebra, geometry) and physics.

2) Middle School Students are Developing

Interests.

Middle school students start developing hobbies

before high school, therefore it is important to

expose students to programming earlier. STEM

research points out that one of the keys to successful

education programs for students is to spark the

interest of students in earlier grades. (Koerner, 2013)

Children are exposed to technology as early as

age two. Toddlers play games and watch videos of

themselves on iPads. Through these experiences,

children are taught how to use them, but not how to

program them. Not knowing how digital

environments are constructed leads children to

accept them at face value. Facebook is an example

where kids think the function of Facebook is to help

them keep in touch with friends. In actuality,

Facebook users are now actually the product, the

target of ads and marketing. Students should learn

how to make tomorrow’s software, not just about

how to use today’s software. (Rushkoff, 2012)

3) Afterschool Programming Offers Opportunities

for Middle School Students.

Programming seems daunting to many students.

It is often perceived as a hobby that only ‘geeks’ and

‘nerds’ pursue. Generally, students don’t realize they

are capable of learning to program themselves and

shun away from it. Only a small percentage of

students are exposed to computer science, and only

23% of those are minority. (http://code.org/stats)

STEM Afterschool Programs focus on providing

services to underrepresented populations in STEM

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fields, and many also focus on providing girls with

exposure to science and female role models.

(Afterschool Alliance, 2011)

Feedback from participating teachers reflects

these statistics: “there is clearly a gender gap in

these activities. That said, I believe that the more

competitions/games that encompass STEM activities

students are exposed to at an early age will tend to

reduce the gap.”

Therefore Zero Robotics aims to make the

competition as accessible to as much of the

population as possible. The competition has no entry

free, requires no setup, and is free in the sense that

all you need is a computer that has a web browser to

compete. The rare opportunity for students to have

their code run by astronauts in space is geared

specifically to minority and underrepresented

students at the middle school level. The program

attempts to show that anyone can learn to code by

providing a rich set of free step-by-step tutorials on

our website.

6 CONCLUSIONS

Through review of current events, literature

research, analysis of ZR program growth and

participation, and substantial feedback from

participants, it is possible to conclude that:

 Space and astronauts provide a clear incentive

for middle-school students to participate in a

programing competition, even if they had never

thought of programing as something they could

or wanted to do.

 Using a competition format encourages not only

participation but also collaboration.

 Students learn to relate to each other in new

ways, by working together in a common goal

using their minds.

 A curriculum with clearly prescribed activities

allows middle-school teachers to guide their

students in learning programing

Based on the success, the Zero Robotics Middle

School Summer Program will continue to expand.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to thank Richard Kopelow,

Wei Low, Terri Tomassi, Stephen Pendergast, and

Neil Shankar for their dedication to the program, and

for sharing with us their perspective on the Zero

Robotics Program.

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