Educational Robotics is rapidly gaining attention as an effective methodology to develop skills and engage students preserving their peculiar style of learning. It is often tied together with two other methodologies, Coding and Tinkering, characterized by a similar hands-on approach. In order to fully exploit their inclusive features, teachers need to be prepared to introduce them into classroom. It is often noticed that in service teachers are not yet fully prepared to face this challenge. Many actions have been established to recover this situation, but a proper method for assessing whether these actions are successful or not is not yet developed. This paper presents a methodology for introducing in-service teachers to Educational Robotics, Coding and Tinkering and for assessing the outcomes. 184 in-service teachers were assessed and results analysed. Final considerations draw a picture of the situation amongst the sample chosen for the present study, observing that the intervention seemed to be successful in providing key notions and examples, and improving teachers’ self-confidence.

This paper presents an overview of Educational Robotics (ER) in primary and pre-school education. As ER seems to be gaining popularity for its effectiveness as a learning tool, more research needs to be done in this area. Recent results from ER pilot projects advocate for the integration of ER in K-12 education curricula. On the other hand, teachers may face various difficulties in carrying out such activities due to lack of experience or knowledge in this field. Previous research has shown that ER is still an open field for exploration. Even though an increasing number of experiences are available for the use of robotic tools in early education, there is not enough empirical evidence on the features they need to present for young learners to perceive them as attractive and easy to use. In addition, the high cost of some tools may prevent educational institutions from using them systematically. To detect possible gaps in the current research, in the context of this work, 21 articles that have been published between 2011-2021 and represent ER applications and frameworks were collected and reviewed. The results of this study demonstrate that ER can be a valuable tool for supporting primary and pre-school students. However, the review supports that more research is needed on the technical features that a robotic tool must have to be successfully introduced to students of this age. Moreover, future work is needed to develop low-cost educational robotic tools so they can become more accessible to educational institutions.

A new pair of optical wireless modems has been realized, which exploit Visible Light Communication (VLC) to transmit Ethernet signals through water. The modem prototypes are finally tested in sea waters at La Spezia harbor; they successfully transmitted 10 Mbit/s 10Base-T signals over a up to 10 m, notwithstanding the high turbidity and the strong sunlight. Final tests included the integration with SUNRISE testbed and the use with a moving robot, remotely operated. Commercial components were used to realize the modems; thus, we expect that the key design concepts can be used as a starting point for practical deployment of this technology.

The assessment of muscle-recruitment timing from surface EMG signal (sEMG) is relevant in different fields, including clinical gait analysis and robotic systems to interpret user’s motion intention. However, available methods typically provide only information in time domain without evaluating muscle-activation frequency content. This study aims to propose a novel adaptative algorithm for detecting muscle activation in time-frequency domain based on continuous wavelet transform (CWT) analysis. Precisely, the novel contribution of the proposed algorithm consists of evaluating the frequency range of every muscle activations detected in time domain. Performances are evaluated on a test bench of 720 simulated sEMG signals and 105 real sEMG signals, stratified for signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and then validated against different reference algorithms. Outcomes indicate that the proposed approach can provide an accurate prediction of muscle onset and offset timing in both simulated (mean absolute error, MAE ≈ 10 ms) and real datasets (MAE < 30 ms), minimally affected by the SNR variability and compatible with the timing of sEMG-driven assistive devices. Concomitantly, the maximum frequency of the activations is computed, ranging from around 100 Hz up to almost 500 Hz. This suggest a large within-muscle between-muscle variability of the frequency range. In conclusion, the current study introduces a novel reliable wavelet-based algorithm to detect both time and frequency content of muscle activation, suitable in different conditions of signal quality.

Bio-inspired solutions devised for autonomous underwater robots are currently being investigated by researchers worldwide as a way to improve propulsion. Despite efforts to harness the substantial potential payoffs of marine animal locomotion, biological system performance still has far to go. In order to address this very ambitious objective, the authors of this study designed and manufactured a series of ostraciiform swimming robots over the past three years. However, the pursuit of the maximum propulsive efficiency by which to maximize robot autonomy while maintaining acceptable maneuverability ultimately drove us to improve our design and move from ostraciiform to carangiform locomotion. In order to comply with the tail motion required by the aforementioned swimmers, the authors designed a transmission system capable of converting the continuous rotation of a single motor in the travelling wave-shaped undulations of a multijoint serial mechanism. The propulsive performance of the resulting thruster (i.e., the caudal fin), which constitutes the mechanism end effector, was investigated by means of computational fluid dynamics techniques. Finally, in order to compute the resulting motion of the robot, numerical predictions were integrated into a multibody model that also accounted for the mass distribution inside the robotic swimmer and the hydrodynamic forces resulting from the relative motion between its body and the surrounding fluid. Dynamic analysis allowed the performance of the robotic propulsion to be computed while in the cruising condition.