Journal of Robotics, Networking and Artificial Life
Vol. 5(3); December (2018), pp. 169–172
DOI: 10.2991/jrnal.2018.5.3.6; ISSN 2405-9021 print; 2352-6386 online
https://www.atlantis-press.com/journals/jrnal

Research Article

Development of Teaching Support Material for Nurturing
Cooperation through Play
Kazuo Kawada1,*, Teruyuki Tamai2
Department of Technology and Information Education, Hiroshima University, Higashi-Hiroshima, Hiroshima 739-8524, Japan
Faculty of Education, Ehime University, Matsuyama, Ehime 790-8577, Japan12ARTICLE INFOABSTRACTArticle History

Educational activities with robots have been conducted at each stage – from kindergarten to junior high school. In this paper, we
propose and verify educational material supporting collaborative operations through experiences related to people and objects.
Specifically, three children used joysticks to operate a robot simultaneously. The robot could not move unless the joysticks
manipulated it. We developed teaching support material that nurtured cooperation through play.

Received 18 May 2018
Accepted 20 October 2018
Keywords
Cooperationteaching material
operationevaluation© 2018 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

1. INTRODUCTION

2. PROPOSED TEACHING MATERIAL

An emerging problem in Japan is that coordination (cooperativeand collaborative work, etc.) through appropriate group activities
has not been assimilated by the country’s changing social situations. Specific problems include the following:

The proposed teaching material is displayed in Figure 1 with thefollowing concept:

1. People are unable to build good human relationships withothers.
2. People are unable to work in groups.
3. People are unable to solve problems with other people throughdiscussion.
In addition, it has been noted that Japanese children cannot
successfully adapt to groups in kindergartens and elementary
schools [1].
Conversely, in November 2014, the Japanese Minister of Education,
Culture, Sports, Science and Technology consulted the Central
Education Council who emphasized the quality and quantity ofknowledge and learning, learning subjectively and collaboratively,
learning to identify and resolve problems, and improving teaching
methods. Hence, abundant research exists on learning methods ineducational subjects [2–4]. However, there has been scarce researchon nurturing cooperation using robots. Such research is importantfor personality development education.
Therefore, this study, proposes and develops cooperative teachingmaterial and evaluates cooperation among children. Specifically,
we provide children joysticks to operate a modified robot that does
not move unless they manipulate it simultaneously.
* Corresponding author. Email: kawada@hiroshima-u.ac.jp

1. Three children cooperate in maneuvering.
2. Remote control type (joystick).
3. Data recording (using a data logger).
Figure 2 indicates the system configuration for this teaching material. The joystick statuses (0 V or 5 V) of the three children are sent
to a micro-controller [5]. Subsequently, the status of each joystickis stored in the data logger by the micro-controller or the data istransferred to a tablet PC through Bluetooth.
The algorithm for operating this teaching material is adapted toadjust the speed of the robot’s crawlers by the following Eqs. (1)–(4):	         Speed Right =Speed MAX × MDR

(1)3MDR = JS1R + JS2R + JS3R 			  (2)
Speed MAX ⋅ MDL
(3)
3		 
MDL = JS1L + JS2L + JS3L (4)		 Speed Left =Here, SpeedRight (SpeedLeft) is the speed of the right crawler (the leftcrawler) of the vehicle and SpeedMAX is the crawler’s maximum speed.
Furthermore, JS1R (JS1L), JS2R (JS2L), and JS3R (JS3L) denote signals on
the right side (the left side) of the joysticks of operators A, B, andC, respectively. The left and right sides of the joysticks are set to0 when the robot is not moving, 1 when it is moving forward, and−1 when it is moving backward.

170K. Kawada and T. Tamai / Journal of Robotics, Networking and Artificial Life 5(3) 169–172

MDR (MDL) denotes the sum of JS1R, JS2R, and JS3R (the sum of JS1L,JS2L, and JS3L), and the signal of a majority decision by the operators
is the output, as shown in Figure 3. With these signals of a majority decision, the robot cannot move unless an individual operator
cooperatively manipulates their device with the other operators.

3. CURRICULUM FOR NURTURING
COOPERATIONThe curriculum for nurturing cooperation using the suggested
teaching methods is explained here. Since this method is to be usedin elementary school classes as indicated in Table 1 this curriculum
is conducted in 90 min classes (45 min, twice).
The lesson objectives are explained in the first 10 min. The following 20 min clarify the rescue activities using the proposed teachingmaterial, rescue field (Figure 4), and rescue dummy (Figure 5). At
this point, students are instructed that the robot must swiftly moveto the dummy location for rescue. Moreover, the students with joysticks rescue the dummy without talking for 15 min. During thenext 15 min, they rescue dummy while discussing the task. For
another 20 min, they rescue the dummy according to the leader’sinstructions. Finally, the importance of cooperation is summarized.
Table 1 | Curriculum

Figure 1 | Proposed teaching material

Time (min)Content

10
20
15
15
20
10

Learning about cooperation
Learning about rescue activities
Rescue activities without talking
Rescue activities with talking
Rescue activities based on a leader’s instructions
Summarize the lesson

Figure 2 | Schematic figure of proposed teaching material

Figure 4 | Rescue field

Figure 3 | Majority decision

Figure 5 | Rescue dummy

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4. EXPERIMENTS AND RESULTS
We experimented to confirm the effectiveness of the teachingmaterials. The participants were three elementary school students.
In the following two cases, the joystick statuses were compared andthe effectiveness of the teaching material was confirmed.
Case 1: Three students operate the robot without talking.
Case 2: Students operate the robot according to a leader’s (selectedfrom the three students) instructions.
Figures 6 and 7 demonstrate the joystick operation behavior ofthe students in Case 1. If the operations of the three students
correspond, the MDR and MDL values are −3 or 0 or 3. It is obvious that the students are not cooperating because in several
instances numerical values other than −3 or 0 or 3 occur.

Figure 8 | Right joystick operation behavior in Case 2

Figures 8 and 9 indicate the joystick operation behavior of thestudents in Case 2. Since the operations of the three students
almost concur, the numerical values of MDR and MDL are −3 or0 or 3. Hence, it is obvious that cooperative operations are possible through a leader’s instructions. Moreover, when the three
students cooperatively operate the robot their joystick behavior
synchronizes.

5. CONCLUSION
This paper offered teaching material to support cooperative development through direct experiences. The experimental results using

Figure 9 | Left joystick operation behavior in Case 2

the proposed teaching material indicated that joystick operations
synchronized when students operated cooperatively.
In the future, we intend to develop the teaching material and curriculum and put them into practice at an elementary school. We
will utilize questionnaires to reveal the opinions of students andteachers to verify its effectiveness.

REFERENCES
Figure 6 | Right joystick operation behavior in Case 1

Figure 7 | Left joystick operation behavior in Case 1[1] A. Omae, A Study on the Significance and Problems in theCooperation between Preschool Programs and Eleme, Institutefor Culture and Human Research, Kyoto Bunkyo University,Tokyo, Japan, 2015, pp. 15–32 (in Japanese).
[2] T. Minoshima, T. Kiminoka, M. Nagamatsu, K. Kawada, N. Yoshida,T. Yamamoto, Towards the Implementation of Social Developmentin Early School Education by Using Robotics, The Annals ofEducation Research, Hiroshima University, Tokyo, Japan, 2012,
pp. 285–288 (in Japanese).
[3] K. Kawada, M. Nagamatsu, T. Yamamoto, An approach to rescue
robot workshops for kindergarten and primary school children,
J. Robot. Mechatron. 25 (2013), 521–528.
[4] T. Yamashiro, K. Kawada, M. Nagamatsu, T. Yamamoto, A
practice of ‘Monozukuri’ education featuring “Rescue RobotsProduction” in an elementary school, Trans. Jpn. Soc. Mech. Eng.
77 (2011), 1465–1476 (in Japanese).
[5] M. Banzi, M. Shiloh, Getting Started with Arduino, third ed.,Maker Media, 2014.

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Authors Introduction
Mr. Kazuo Kawada

Mr. Teruyuki Tamai
He graduated Doctor course at
Department of Technology andInformation Education in Hiroshima
University. He is an Associate Professor
in the Department of Technology andInformation Education at Hiroshima
University. SICE, IEEJ member.

He graduated Master course at
Department of Technology andInformation Education in Hiroshima
University. He is an AssistantProfessor in the Faculty of Educationin Ehime University. He is a JSTE
member.