Session: Government Agency Student Posters

Paper Number: 173647

Towards the Next Generation of Soft Robotics Innovation Through Student-Led Learning Module Development and Implementation 

Soft robotics has become an emerging and rapidly evolving field. With its emphasis on deformable materials and compliant systems, the field possesses significant advantages over more rigid solutions within the fields of bionics, prosthetics, exploratory robotics, and many others. As the subject area sees greater industrial implementation, it has significant potential to create a demand for engineers with this specialization. However, a notable gap exists between the field's rapid growth and the availability of educational resources for engineering students. This scarcity of teaching materials has resulted in the near absence of soft robotics from most engineering curricula, hindering the development of the next generation of innovators. To address this scarcity, we have implemented a "by students, for students" pedagogical model within our institution's capstone-equivalent engineering "clinics." In this program, undergraduate students design and build novel soft robotics prototypes and create corresponding educational modules. These modules, which include hands-on activities and learning outcomes, are developed in collaboration with faculty to ensure they can be implemented in existing courses and outreach programs. The complete modules are then published on a freely accessible website. This initiative is designed to benefit both the student designers, who gain hands-on experience, and the student learners who engage with the new materials. To assess this dual impact, we collect self-reflections from the student designers on their learning and interest as well as survey the student learners to gauge the module's effectiveness after their participation. Over a 4 semester period, numerous students have engaged with the project, with to date over a dozen web-publishable soft robotics learning modules having been developed. From these modules, several have entered into our university’s teaching portfolio, and we have observed connections in the learning patterns for both student learners and designers. Furthermore, with the initial phase of curriculum implementation being completed, many students have been introduced to soft robotics concepts, achieving a central goal of introducing the field into our undergraduate courses. To enhance our student module designer’s outcomes and to more deeply observe their learning behaviour, we intend to implement an intervention within the Fall 2025 semester’s team. This intervention is designed to increase the module designer’s reflectivity, an attribute closely correlated with improved design success. Furthermore, within the context of this reflective intervention, we aim to record and analyze students’ reflections to draw conclusions on the deeper cognitive processes involved in considering design problems involving soft robots. The goal of our future research is to contribute to an understanding of the relationships between reflection and design in a soft robotics context while enriching the learning experience for students in our clinic program. Overall, this work encapsulates the continuing process of a novel initiative to design and implement educational material in the field of soft robotics. It overviews past work and data collected, present goals within the project and progress, and future plans for expansion and refinement.

Presenting Author: Joseph Midiri Rowan University

Presenting Author Biography: Joseph "Joey" Midiri holds a Bachelor’s of Mechanical Engineering from Rowan University (2024) and an Associate's of Engineering in from Atlantic Cape Community College (2022). He has continued his work at Rowan University with a focus on the emerging field of soft robotics, with his primary research area being novel soft actuator development and design. He is also involved in the educational side of the field, and has worked in soft robotic educational research, teaching, and project design.

Authors:

Joseph Midiri Rowan University
Cassandra Jamison Rowan University
Smitesh Bakrania Rowan University
Mitja Trkov Rowan University
Wei Xue Rowan University