RoboScape Online is a simulation environment for RoboScape, an educational robotics platform for NetsBlox. RoboScape originally only used physical robots, which found great success in teaching distributed computing and cybersecurity. However, these robots were not accessible to all classrooms or all students, placing extra costs onto educators and limiting the scale and reach of the platform. By recreating these robots and activities in a simulation, RoboScape Online makes educational robotics more accessible and more equitable. Code for the physical robots runs identically with the simulated robots, allowing smooth transitions in either direction. Students can now take robots home with no risk, have as much space as they need, and teachers no longer need to spend thousands of dollars to add this fun curriculum to their classroom. Now, students can bring robots home without worrying about damage to school property, while providing them with as much space as they require for exploration. Furthermore, educators are relieved from the financial burden of investing thousands of dollars, making this engaging curriculum accessible to all classrooms. But RoboScape Online does not only recreate the existing robots and activities. New sensors and actuators have been made available through simulation, making a wider range of autonomous robotics lessons feasible. Furthermore, all environments used in RoboScape Online are created as NetsBlox projects, both demonstrating that the language used in class has real-world use and enabling students to express themselves creatively through these 3D worlds in ways otherwise not possible in NetsBlox.

Ways to Get Involved

The RoboScape team is always interested in expanding to additional classrooms and introducing more domains to the topics taught through both their physical and virtual robots.

RoboScape PI

Gordon Stein

LIVE Postdoctoral Fellow