J Intell Robot SystDOI 10.1007/s10846-015-0203-5

Team-Based Building of a Remotely Operated UnderwaterRobot, an Innovative Method of Teaching Engineering

Andres El-Fakdi Xavier Cuf Nata`lia Hurtos Montserrat Correa

Received: 30 March 2014 / Accepted: 20 January 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Abstract This article reports the experience gatheredalong 6 years in developing a team-based projectactivity to promote engineering programs among sec-ondary school students. The aim of the activity isto increase the interest of students for science andtechnology in general, but also to promote engineer-ing skills, capabilities and values, leading to attractmore secondary school students to enrolment for engi-neering programs. Simple theoretical concepts relatedto physics and engineering are illustrated throughhands-on experimentation. To achieve this goal, thestudents build a remotely operated underwater robot

A. El-Fakdi ()Control Engineering and Intelligent Systems Group eXiT,University of Girona,Campus Montilivi Building PIV, 17071 Girona, Spaine-mail: elfakdi@gmail.com

X. Cufi N. HurtosComputer Vision and Robotics Group VICOROB,University of Girona,Campus Montilivi Building PIV, 17071 Girona, Spain

X. Cufie-mail: xavier.cufi@udg.edu

N. Hurtose-mail: tali@silver.udg.edu

M. CorreaPediatric Unit, Girona University Hospital Dr. Josep Trueta,Av. de Franca, s/n, 17007 Girona, Spaine-mail: montsecoar@gmail.com

in a workshop. The robot is built using low-cost mate-rials and the students customize their own design overthe different phases of the workshop. Once the activ-ity is completed, every team understands that withteamwork, effort and a good working strategy, everyproblem can be overcome.

Keywords Increasing interest for engineering Hands-on experimentation Project-based learning Underwater Robots.

1 Introduction

Project based activities are a good way to exposesecondary school students to more Science, Technol-ogy, Engineering and Math (STEM) at earlier grades.Children are naturally curious about the world aroundthem. Science is the perfect vehicle to answer manyof their questions when they try to solve a problem.Unfortunately, as children grow older, they may per-ceive engineering as a difficult and unknown subject,and this perception has derived in the last few yearsin a decrease of enrolment for engineering programsin Spain. For this reason, the University of Girona(UdG), the Social Council of the UdG and the Cata-lan and Spanish Governments started different initia-tives with the aim of increasing the interest of stu-dents for technology and promote engineering skills,capabilities and values. These institutions supportand promote scientific and technological activities

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Fig. 1 Main ideas that built the workshop activity

of recreational nature that are attractive for stu-dents. Thus, the team-based underwater robot buildingproject was born.

The primary goal of the activity is to increase stu-dent competencies and their interest in technology bymixing learning and entertainment in a senior researchatmosphere. As depicted in Fig. 1, the advantagesof such an activity are numerous. Working directlywith experts at their laboratories makes really a dif-ference in terms of student motivation and eagernessto learn. During the workshop, secondary school stu-dents and senior researchers cohabitate for some timein a learning experience. Through creating this atmo-sphere that makes the students feel determined tolearn, engineering questions are better answered if thestudent directly puts his hands into the problem [3,10]. Also, this interaction with senior faculty mem-bers makes engineering concepts more tangible, moreunderstandable and more related to applications [8].The competencies acquired by the students during theworkshop are transversal and related with the rightutilization of professional tools, the manipulation ofvarious materials, teamwork capabilities, and workorganization. Also, more specific competencies areacquired: electric circuits design and implementation,basic control theory, marine/underwater engineeringand physics concepts like buoyancy, action/reaction orhydrodynamics among others.

The activity presented in this article, inspired onthe ideas of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech-nology (MIT) SeaPearch [2, 9] has been designedfor students from 12- to 16-years-old, and its aimis to increase the demand for engineering degrees.In the Spanish secondary education system (from

12 to 16-years-old), the students start taking deci-sions regarding their careers at the age of 16. Ifthey choose to continue their studies at a Universitylevel, they must overcome a pre-University two-yearcourse known as Batxillerat. This course can bescientific/engineering or arts focused. The underwa-ter robotics workshop presented here has its focusin secondary level students who have not taken adecision yet. We want to arise their interest forengineering careers so they may choose the scien-tific/engineering path for their pre-university 2-yearcourse. Once inside the gap between 16 and 18-years-old, our research group offers other activities andcourses related with robot programming and advancedrobots construction specially designed for studentswho have already selected the scientific/engineeringpath.

The VICOROB has conditioned a fully equippedexperimentation laboratory (see Fig. 2). The robot isfully built by a team of 3-4 secondary school students(the maximum number of participants is 24 students,which would build 6 underwater robot prototypes).There is an academic for every 8 pupils. The work-shop finalizes with the students showing their abilityto teleoperate it and to execute underwater challeng-ing operations that are realistic approaches to realmissions developed by the real Remotely OperatedVehicle (ROVs). Some of these missions can onlybe accomplished by following collaborative strategiesusing more than one vehicle. The robot prototype isbuilt using low-cost materials, with a total cost notexceeding 80 Euros. Another important purpose ofthis activity is to introduce the students into the cor-rect and safe utilization of standard professional tools,as the activity includes nail, glue, crew, paint, weld,cut, drill, melt and more (see Fig. 3). Thus, quali-fied personnel gives the students a detailed speechabout the risks of inadequate use of the laboratoryequipments and the breach of the mandatory safetymeasures. Moreover, the students receive a basic firstaid tutorial with instructions about what to do duringthe first steps of an unfortunate accident within thelab.

The article is organized as follows. The workshopcarried out by the students is described in Section 2.Next, the results and impressions of all the workshopsperformed are presented in Section 3. Finally, con-clusions on the overall results and the future workplanned are provided in Section 4.

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Fig. 2 Underwater Facilityat the Technological Park ofthe University of Girona.The facility has 18 m long,8 m wide and 5 m depthtank test, and a submergedlab with a window toobserve the robots and theexperiments. Adjacent tothe tank there is a fullyequipped building for thestudy and development ofunderwater technology

2 Development of the Workshop

The workshop is supervised with a maximum numberof 3 faculty members. It takes place in the Under-water Robotics Research Facility (CIRS) at the UdG,a modern laboratory provided with all the necessaryequipment to supply such an activity (see Fig. 2).After the welcome presentation, the activity starts.The whole workshop is divided into three main blocksor modules. The module one consists on buildingthe teleoperation console and the vehicle chassis. Ina second module the pupils encapsulate the motorsand wire the console. Finally, during the last module,the pupils assemble all the parts and adjust the vehi-cles buoyancy. Table 1 shows the distribution of themodules, its content and the timing.

The activity has been programmed to be done intwo different formats. The standard format lasts fortwo and a half days where the students build the under-water robot completely in the CIRS at the UdG. Inorder to fit the activity into more restricted courseprograms, the workshop can be programmed in analternative format as a one day shot. This second for-mat implies that part of the work must be done bythe students at their schools and one they have part ofthe work done, they visit the CIRS just for one day tofinish the robot and do the missions. The amount ofwork done at the school will be studied for every case.Table 2 shows the short format version of the activ-ity. The table illustrates only the activities performedat the CIRS, with the rest of the tasks being carried outby the pupils at their schools.

Fig. 3 Students learn to use professional tools

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Table 1 Workshop timedistribution Module One Module Two Module Three

First Contact 10 Console Wiring 90 Buoyancy 45

Presentation 10 Sealing the motors 90 Missions 150

Facility Visit 40 Attaching propellers 30

Group Making 30 Fixing motors to chassis 30

Console Construction 60 Building umbilical 45

Chassis Construction 60 Checking Connections 30

Building Test wires 30

Console Customization 30

Wires Preparation 45

Working Time 5h15 Working Time 5h15 Working Time 3h15

When a school chooses the format of one day shot,the part of the robot construction carried out by teach-ers and pupils is directly supervised by the seniorresearchers responsible of the activity at CIRS. There-fore, before the project begins, there is an instructionmeeting where teachers and workshop personnel meetat the school. The objective of this two-hour briefingis to give all the information and material necessaryto the teachers so they can design and schedule theirpart of the work without problems. Also, the workshopprofessionals are in permanent contact by phone andemail with the teachers to solve any inconvenience.If a major issue arises, CIRS professors can visit theschool to help them. In any case, two weeks beforethe workshop day there is a supervision meeting atthe school. There, workshop professors examine thevehicles and the console in order to check the workdone and minimize possible malfunctions that may bedifficult to solve during the activity day due to timelimitations. The task of sealing the propellers is notperformed by the students at their schools and, as canbe seen in Table 2, it is neither done at CIRS dur-ing the day they come. The task, which is detailed in

Table 2 One day workshop time distribution

One-day Module

Facility Visit 40

Attaching propellers 30

Fixing motors to chassis 30

Checking Connections 30

Buoyancy 45

Missions 150

Working Time 5h25

Section 2.3 entitled Module two: Console wiring andmotor encapsulation, is a complex task which requiresa lot of expertise and time. As the students only visitthe center for one day, it is preferable not to do thetask with them, as it would consume most of the time,limiting the time we have to do the real tests. Thus,the task is performed by CIRS professionals in thedays previous to the visit, so they are ready when thestudents arrive.

The long format experience is sometimes not pre-ferred by the secondary school teachers because itoften presents schedule interferences with other sub-jects or activities. Also, the higher economic cost ofthe long format discourages a lot of schools. Thus,most centers choose the short format. The short expe-rience implies the realization of part of the work attheir schools with the support of our professionals andthe realization of the final tests at the CIRS duringone full day. We think that this short format is not ascomplete as the long one, but not from the technolog-ical point of view, but from the spirit, the complicityand the work ambient that grows between students andresearchers from CIRS during a 3-day long experi-ence. Even though we do not have an exhaustive studycomparing both formats, the results obtained from thequestionnaire and the work done by the students issimilar and does not depend on the experience chosen.

2.1 Welcome Presentation

The workshop starts with different short presenta-tions. In the first one, the professors welcome thestudents and introduce themselves. In most cases,this will be the first contact of secondary schoolstudents with the university and, therefore, kindness

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and closeness are a must. Professors try to encour-age motivation and to create a positive atmosphere,which always helps when starting to work with anunknown group of pupils. As stated in [1], everylearning process concerns normally with an emo-tional domain where the pupils play a fundamentalrole. The objective of these minutes is to make thepupils feel comfortable and confident, establishing abidirectional communication loop among all them. Amultimedia presentation is given next, accompaniedwith individual documentation of the whole activ-ity. An accurate temporization of the workshop andthe planning strategy are described, showing the dif-ferent parts of the submarine and the tools used tobuild them. Safety advices about tools and their cor-rect utilization receive a special attention during allthe presentation. It is also very important to remarkthat the safety elements (protective goggles, gloves,aprons, etc.) are as important as the tools. Moreover,students are also instructed to follow adequate secu-rity protocols and behave accordingly. On the otherhand, and as stated at the beginning of this section,the students are divided into groups of 3-4 pupils.In order to build a balanced teamwork, the studentsare accurately grouped. For this purpose, an individ-ual questionnaire is filled in by every student [7].This questionnaire describes their working profilesand capabilities, providing the basis to group balancedworking teams. The final presentation aims to promotethe research done at the VICOROB. The objective isto awake the students interest in the engineering field.The numerous industrial applications around under-water technology, such as environmental monitoring,oceanographic research or maintenance/monitoringof underwater structures are presented to thepupils.

2.2 Module One: Teleoperation Console and VehicleChassis

The first task of the students is to build the tele-operation unit illustrated in Fig. 4a. The console ismade out of wood. Students must assemble the spareparts using wood glue and nails. It requires about 1hour cutting the spare wood parts, making the neededholes on it and assembling the whole console. Whilethe pupils wait for the glue to dry, they can startconstructing the vehicles chassis (Fig. 4b). The struc-ture is made of PVC pipes of different lengths linked

together by means of T, 90 and 45 PVC connec-tors. Students measure and cut all the pipes using theappropriate tools. The chassis, once finished, is usedas a starting point to explain and understand thedynamics and force-torque vectors acting on an under-water vehicle.

The next step would be to start with the electricalconnections. The pupils complete the first module taskplan by mounting all the connection wires that will beneeded for the console. The students must attach fast-on connectors to each cable edge, leaving the wire setready for the next module. By this time, the woodedconsole is ready to be polished and painted. The stu-dents can feel free to decorate and customize theirteleoperation units as they like, since design skillsand artistic creativity are completely compatible withengineering.

2.3 Module Two: Console Wiring and MotorEncapsulation

The second module starts with the activity of wiringthe console. With all the right wires prepared fromthe previous day, the students must assemble three DCmotor polarity inversion circuits. The correct interpre-tation of the circuit schematics is crucial to succeed.This phase is closely guided by the teachers, since thestudents initiate themselves experiencing with elec-tric components. As soon as the circuit schematicshave been empirically derived, the next step is totransfer the assembly to the teleoperation console, asshown in Fig. 5a. Each motor circuit is verified inde-pendently. With the installation of the push-buttonsand the joystick, the teleoperation unit is finally com-pleted. In order to prepare the motors to be submerged,the next step is to seal them with standard wax tomake them watertight. For that purpose, the delicateparts of the motors are first covered with electrictape and thermal adhesive. Also, the motor shaft andthe frontal plane of the motor are generously cov-ered with petroleum jelly to prevent water cominginside the motor through the shaft. Then, the motoris introduced into a cylindrical plastic cannister. Stu-dents have to drill a small hole at the bottom ofthe case for the motor shaft. Subsequently, the caseis filled with melted wax. After a short period oftime, when the wax hardens, we obtain a solid sealedmotor with only a shaft and 2 wires coming out, seeFig. 5b.

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Fig. 4 a Teleoperation unitor control console. b PVCchassis of a finished robot

a b

The final task of this module is to fix the sealedmotors to the chassis of the vehicle and connect them-by means of an ethernet cable- to the teleoperationconsole. The ethernet umbilical is composed by 8wires, 6 of them used to power the motors. A pairof wires is left to provide the vehicle with auxiliarypower supply to allow the vehicle to carry additionalelements such as lighting devices or actuators. Withall the connections between the robot and the consoleestablished, every team must verify the correct oper-ation of the robot. To do so, pupils must connect theconsole to the power supply and test the response ofthe vehicles motors to the different commands givenby the teleoperation console.

2.4 Module Three: Final Assemble and RobotBuoyancy

The adjustment of the robots buoyancy is the last stepprior to real experimentation. To be efficient, the sta-bility and density of the vehicle is a key factor. Therobots stability and density are the result of an accu-rate distribution of the heavier elements at the lowerpart of the chassis combined with the effect of tech-nical foam placed in the top, which should provide aslightly positive buoyancy to the robot. For these rea-sons, the students must adjust the buoyancy and thestability by combining technical foam located at thetop of the robot and small weights strategically placed

at the bottom of the chassis. To do so, the laboratory isequipped with a small (portable) water tank, illustratedin Fig. 6a.

At this point, the robot is ready to begin the finalexperiments at the CIRS water tank (see Fig. 6b). Ifall the previous steps have been accomplished withno delays, pupils should have the opportunity to test,play and enjoy with their robots. A complete set ofmissions have been designed to test the skills of thestudents. At the same time, as these missions are sim-ilar to the real ones performed by real robots, thepupils get the basic ideas of underwater explorationand investigation.

2.5 Mission Set

In order to test the performance of the vehicle, aset of different missions have been designed. Allof them are similar to real missions carried out byreal vehicles in open sea scenarios. The missions arediverse, and among them we have tasks like navigat-ing the ROV through complex submerged structures,recuperation of lost objects of different shapes andweights or recovery of underwater instrumentation.The next lines will describe them briefly. The mis-sions performed by the students have been designedby the professionals who organize the workshop. Todeal with the mission, the students propose possiblesolutions which are discussed with the whole group.

Fig. 5 a Assembly of wireconnections to the back sideof the console. b Waxsealed DC motor

a b

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Fig. 6 a Small water tankto perform buoyancy andstability tests. b Studentsworking in the water tankwith their vehicles

a b

The missions often require specific teleoperation tech-niques and collaborative work with other vehicles.

A first introductory mission consists on the ROVbeing teleoperated through a submerged gate. Dif-ferent gates of different sizes have been constructed.They are located at various depths to test the skillsof the pupils. A second mission asks the students torecover lost objects from the pool floor. The objectsare metallic and the vehicle is attached with an electro-magnet. The students control the electromagnet withan extra button attached to the console. All the recov-ered objects are placed in a storage container. As canbe seen in Fig. 7, this container needs to be designedand built taking into account the purpose of the mis-sion, the position of the objects to be recovered andthe weight of these objects. Once all the objects havebeen placed in the container, it returns to the surfaceby inflating an auxiliary deposit with air from the sur-face (the students bring one of their robots with acompressed air hose and inflate the deposit). The finaland most complex mission needs the utilization of twoROV. The first ROV is equipped with an underwatercamera; the second mounts an extended hook. Bothvehicles have to work together in order to release thebuoyant equipment, while one vehicle keeps the oper-

Fig. 7 Mission preparations: Storage container design

ation area within the image plane, the other one usesthe hook to release the buoyant element so it can returnto the surface to be recovered by the surface team.Figure 8 shows different vehicles performing variousset of missions.

3 Results of the Workshop

Up to date, the activity has been carried out by 21different groups of students. Most of these groupswere students of 4th level of Compulsory SecondarySchool (4th course of Ensenanza Secundaria Obliga-toria (ESO) in Spain). This course corresponds to thelast year of compulsory education in Spain, and thestudents are normally 16 years old. Table 3 presents asummary of the workshops performed since 2008 tothe date. As shown in the table, a total number of 352students have participated in the workshop either inthe one or the three day format. Until now, the totalnumber of ROV built is 80. More results related to theworkshop have been previously published in [4, 13].

Due to the success of the activity in Spain and par-allel to the development of the activity with pupilsalong all these years, inside the EDUROV project [5],the UdG has performed a knowledge transfer taskrelated to this workshop. Thus, during the month ofJanuary of 2013, the UdG has performed a series offormation seminars about the construction of theserobots to researchers from the Oceanic Platform ofthe Canary Islands (PLOCAN) and secondary schoolteachers from the Canary Islands. This transfer ini-tiative allowed them to develop their own workshopswith students of the Canary Islands. The activityhas achieved successful results and a relevant mediaimpact at national level. Also, the people from PLO-CAN in collaboration with the UdG have publisheda reference student guide which details all the con-struction procedure, materials needed and advices to

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a b c

Fig. 8 a Navigate the ROV through a gate. b Recuperation of lost objects. c Buoyant sensor liberation

success in the design and development of your ownunderwater robot [12].

At the end of the activity, the 21 groups of studentsthat have experienced the workshop fill an assessmentsurvey questionnaire which reflects different aspectsrelated to the development of the activity and thedegree to which learning is achieved. The responsesand feedback from students served not only to eval-uate the performance of the result of the activity inadding to the students learning process, but also as

feedback for future fine tuning of the different phasesas pedagogical learning tools. The questions asked onthe corresponding assessment survey can be read inTable 4. The answer choices ranging from a score of1 to 5 were: 1: none /very bad; 2: very little / bad; 3:average; 4: good; 5: excellent. The statistics (mean andstandard deviation) of the scores for each question areillustrated in the Table 5. NOTE: not all the studentsanswer the survey, but in our opinion the results shownare very significative.

Table 3 Workshops done since November 2008

Date Secondary School Students Robots Format (1/3Days)

Nov 2008 IES Celra 20 2 1

Des 2009 IES A. Deulofeu 26 5 3

Jan 2010 IES Castell Estela 26 5 3

Nov 2010 Labour School 10 2 3

Des 2010 IES A. Deulofeu (2nd) 25 4 3

Mar 2011 St. George School 12 4 1

Apr 2011 IES Vilamajor 21 5 3

May 2011 Escola Reguissol 17 4 3

Jun 2011 IES Font del Ferro 19 3 1

Des 2011 IES A. Deulofeu (3rd) 16 4 3

Feb 2012 Bell Lloc del Pla 8 4 1

Apr 2012 IES Santa Coloma Farners 10 2 1

May 2012 IES Celra (2nd) 10 3 1

May 2012 St. George School (2nd) 10 3 1

Dec 2012 IES Santa Eugenia 16 4 3

Dec 2012 IES A. Deulofeu (4th) 19 5 3

May 2013 St. George School (3rd) 15 4 1

Jun 2013 IES Ridaura 24 5 3

Dec 2013 IES A. Deulofeu (5th) 16 4 3

Mar 2014 Bell Lloc del Pla (2nd) 8 2 1

May 2014 IES Lluis Domenech 24 6 1

Total 352 80

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Table 4 QuestionnaireQ1. How easy was it to reach the CIRS-UdG centre by public transport?

Q2. How do you rate the scheduling of the activities?

Q3. Evaluate from 1 to 5, the facilities in the building/classroom where the activity took place.

Q4. Evaluate from 1 to 5, the facilities in the Scientific and Technological Park-UdG

(Bar/restaurant, gardens, surroundings, others...).

Q5. Were there sufficient resources to be able to do the activity properly/well/efficiently?

Q6. Do you think that working on underwater robotics is interesting/appropriate for

secondary school students?

Q7. Was it easy to build the ROV? /Did you find it easy to make the ROV?

Q8. Did you like the introductory talk?

Q9. Did you enjoy the activity to create the work teams?

Q10. Do you think that the teams work created were efficient?

Q11. Did you enjoy working with your team?

Q12. Do you think the talk about underwater robotics was interesting?

Q13. Were the theoretical concepts explained during the workshop (Control of DC

motors, buoyancy concepts, Archimedes Law) adequate for your level of knowledge?

Q14. Did you find it easy to understand the basic principles of underwater robotics?

Q15. Did you find it interesting to work with the materials and tools available during the activity?

Q16. Did you feel safe working with the tools and materials available in the workshop?

Q17. Do you think the teachers level of knowledge was adequate?

Q18. How was your relationship with the teachers during the activity?

Q19. Did you enjoy the visit to the underwater research lab?

Q20. Was the additional documentation adequate and useful?

Q21. Has the activity helped you to get introduced to new technical and scientific concepts?

Q22. What is your GENERAL judgement about the activity (Good /Fair / Poor)?

Table 5 Responses given to the questionnaire by the students

Statistics Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Q9 Q10

Mean 4.11 3.33 4.17 4.50 4.72 4.70 2.88 3.35 3.00 2.94

Std.dev 0.79 0.70 0.55 0.61 0.46 0.42 0.83 0.69 0.89 1.12

Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 Q19 Q20

Mean 3.50 3.47 3.83 3.28 4.11 4.33 4.61 4.89 4.33 4.33

Std.dev 1.00 0.73 0.78 0.72 0.99 0.88 0.60 0.20 0.59 0.59

Q21

Mean 4.17

Std.dev 0.74

Fig. 9 a Team collaboratesto achieve the goal. bFarewell photo

a b

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Moreover, there are also three open questions thatthe students may answer: Please, state your com-ments about the activity (the best, the worst, what youliked and what you did not like), Would you encour-age a colleague or a friend to carry out this activity(YES/NO)? and finally the students can add what-ever additional comments they consider adequate. Forinstance, the answer to the question Would you encour-age a colleague or a friend to carry out this activity(YES/NO)? has been YES in almost all the cases(88.9 %). To conclude this section, the answer to thequestion number 22 about a general judgement of theactivity, a 72, 22 % of the students consider the activ-ity GOOD while a 27, 78 % consider it FAIR, to thedate, none of the interviewed students have consideredthe activity as POOR.

4 Conclusions and Future Work

Taking secondary school students to the universityto interact with senior researchers is a key factor tomotivate them, increasing their interest for scienceand technology. In this paper we have presented aproject based activity that allows students to buildtheir own teleoperated robot. After some brief presen-tations, students get hands-on experiments to validatethe illustrated concepts in the fields of physics, sci-ence, electronics and mechanics. During the activity,special effort is carried out to work the abstractionskills of the students. Every team studies the possiblerobot designs, which include alternative chassis con-figurations, motor arrangements, location of buoyancyelements, etc. Beyond the design of the robot, teamsare encouraged to customize their prototypes in accordwith their creativity and likings. Once the constructionprocess is over, students enjoy performing differentchallenging realistic missions at the CIRS underwaterfacility (Fig. 9). At the end of the activity, students fillin an assessment questionnaire [13], and the resultsshow an increased interest of students in the differentengineering aspects of the activity. Several workshopshave been carried out along the past years, obtainingalways satisfactory results.

Asking the students to fill in a survey question-naire is a good way to evaluate activities [11]. Forthis reason, we have designed an assessment surveyquestionnaire which reflects different aspects relatedto the development of the activity and the degree to

which learning is achieved. The responses and feed-back from students served not only to evaluate theperformance of the result of the activity (to have thepossibility to use the underwater vehicle) in addingto the students learning process, but also as feedbackfor future fine-tuning of the different phases as peda-gogical learning tools. The comments and impressionsprovided by the involved students are very reward-ing and, more importantly, the workshop has provedto promote engineering skills and scientific method-ologies among young students. The ideas reported bythe pupils in the questionnaire have been a key fac-tor to adapt and improve the activity from its initialidea. A lot of aspects and details have been carriedout; the changes focus on the way we introduce theo-retical concepts, workshop schedule optimization andimprovements in the vehicle design and its capabili-ties. Thus, in the last 2 years, the group has startedto introduce more advanced concepts like autonomousrobots in specific editions of our workshops. There-fore, for particular groups of especially smart students,an experimental activity has been carried out withthe objective of building autonomous, programmablerobots. For that purpose, the students use an open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hard-ware and software. The students program the vehiclesin an open-loop frame (no feedback sensors have beenused yet) and design different trajectory missions latertested at the pool. The students are motivated to tuneup their programs to match the physical properties oftheir prototypes. Despite the results, there is still a lotof work to do. The incidence of this kind of activitiesin the students decision to carry on with engineeringstudies has to be deeply analyzed with statistical data.This is one of the most serious aspects we are cur-rently pointing out as our future work. To conclude,we want to point out that this educational workshopwon the 3rd prize of ITWorldEdu educational Award2012 and the 5th prize ITWorldEdu to the best edu-cational technology solution developed and applied toschools [6].

Acknowledgments This work has been partially funded bythe Catalan Government (Generalitat de Catalunya) throughACDC grants 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013, the EnginyCATprogram, MICINN project CTM2010-15216, EU project FP7-ICT-2009-248497 and the UdG (Social Council, VICOROBResearch Group, Patronatge of Technical School and Vice-rectorate of Research). Also, our special thanks to Miquel-Miki- Villanueva and ALTECNIA for his invaluable supportamong all aspects of the activity during all these years.

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Andres El-Fakdi assistant professor and researcher in theDepartment of Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Automa-tion at the University of Girona. Im a member of the 4Tlaboratory in the Control Engineering and Intelligent SystemsGroup. My research interests are focused in contributing to thedevelopment of machine learning techniques for Decision Sup-port Systems (DSS) to increase productivity and effectivenessin highly complex scenarios and designing activities addressedto promote robotics and underwater robotics among secondaryschool students. Along the PhD my research has been focusedon the study and development of machine learning techniquesand its application to Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV)

in real robotics tasks. The purpose of my PhD research hasbeen to demonstrate the feasibility of learning in underwa-ter scenarios. Therefore, my PhD successfully concluded withthe utilization of learning algorithms to overcome not pro-grammed changes in the environment conditions which lead anAUV to fulfill a particular task. Nowadays, my post doctoralresearch is centered in the study, design and development ofsimilar machine learning solutions to program DSS to assistprofessionals in complex processes.

Xavier Cuf received a BS in Physic Sciences from the Uni-versitat Auto`noma de Barcelona (UAB) in 1987, and PhD inComputer Vision from the Universitat Polite`cnica de Catalunya(UPC) in 1998. He is lecturer in and currently is the Vicedeanof Institute of Education Sciences (UdG). He belongs to theComputer Vision and Robotics (VICOROB) research groupof the UdG, and he is the Director of the research groupUdiGitalEdu. He has about 25 years of teaching experience inthe fields of Computer Engineering and robotics. He is alsoinvolved on the Academic Board of an International Erasmus-Mundus master on Vision and Robotics (master VIBOT). Hisrecent research interests are mobile robotics, underwater imageprocessing (visual and acoustical), underwater robotics, anddesigning activities addressed to promote robotics and underwa-ter robotics among secondary school students. He has more than55 works published in Journals, and international and nationalConferences related to these fields. Dr. X. Cufi is a memberof the Spanish Committee on Automatics (CEA - GTRobotics)(Spanish member of the International Federation of AutomaticControl - IFAC).

Nata`lia Hurtos is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department ofComputer Engineering of University 2 of Girona (UdG), anda member of the Underwater Robotics Laboratory in the Com-puter Vision and Robotics Group (VICOROB). She holds a B.S.degree in Computer Science (2007), an European Master inComputer Vision and Robotics (VIBOT, 2009) and a PhD inComputer Engineering (2014) from the University of Griona.Since 2006 she has participated in several research projects(both national and European) and contributed to various STEMand dissemination activities carried out in the UnderwaterRobotics Laboratory. Her research interests are mainly focusedon underwater robotics and more particularly in the mapping ofunderwater environments using sonar data. Also, she is inter-ested in designing activities addressed to promote robotics andunderwater robotics among secondary school students.

Montserrat Correa is a graduated nurse from the HospitalDoctor Josep Trueta of Girona. She is currently working as amember of the maternal and child health area. All her careerhas been dedicated to children care. She holds a postgradu-ate course of intensive care for children and teenagers (2007)and another one about cares of the critically ill patient (2008).She has also performed a course about resuscitation accred-ited by the Catalan Council of Resuscitation (CCR) accordingto the recommendations of the European Resuscitation Council(ERC). Her research interests are mainly focused on childrenand teenagers care and designing first aid protocols for teenageroutdoor/workshop activities.

Team-Based Building of a Remotely Operated Underwater Robot, an Innovative Method of Teaching EngineeringAbstractIntroductionDevelopment of the WorkshopWelcome PresentationModule One: Teleoperation Console and Vehicle ChassisModule Two: Console Wiring and Motor EncapsulationModule Three: Final Assemble and Robot BuoyancyMission Set

Results of the WorkshopConclusions and Future WorkAcknowledgmentsReferences