Guizzo Xp: A Robotic Toolkit for STEM Education and Raising Awareness of Aquatic Environment Protection

The necessity to prepare primary students with twenty-first-century skills through STEM-related teaching has considerably grown in the last two decades. Trainings, where robots are built from kits, programmed and tested, are a modern form of interdisciplinary education dedicated to children and youths. Classes in robotics are then expected to strongly impact on the development of mathematical literacy, scientific-technical information, and social competencies. To address this objective, the authors of this paper have developed a robotic toolkit which can be employed through a series of curricula as a case-study, design platform and test bench. Notably, the robot presented in this work is shaped like a fish and embodies all the motion functionalities of its biological counterpart, meaning the capability to swim in the aquatic environment and perceive its status. This paper also focuses on the group activities followed by primary students to learn the fundamentals of physics and machine mechanics before practicing with the mechatronic components of the toolkit. Finally, the bio-inspired architecture and the presence of the water element are aimed to raise awareness of aquatic environment protection in the younger generations.