Consumer Robots - Education

The current education market is primarily concerned with the supply of kits and systems to both the school and higher education markets. In schools there is a trend towards teaching technology based subjects and robotics is often used as the basis for the practical side of this type of teaching.

These robots will be considered to fall within the consumer regulatory framework. They are likely to be mass produced, although not in every application. The business models will typically be based on B2C transactions either on a purchase or hire basis.

Domain Overview

The domain can be divided into a number of different sub-domains:
 Domestic appliances
 Entertainment
 Education
 Assisted Living
Each of these sub-domains has particular characteristics.

Sub-Domain: Education

The current education market is primarily concerned with the supply of kits and systems to both the school and higher education markets. In schools there is a trend towards teaching technology based subjects and robotics is often used as the basis for the practical side of this type of teaching.

However there are no pan European standards for education and so the market is fragmented along national boundaries.
Typical systems embody a high degree of flexibility leaving the designed function up to the user, constrained only by the physical, sensing and computational limitations of the parts supplied. There is also a strong emphasis on linkage to educational goals, either specific to teaching in schools, colleges and University, or to general educational aspirations for home use.
Note: Robots also have a place in professional training, most commonly in the medical and search
and rescue areas but these aspects are treated within the MAR sections of those domains.

Current and future opportunity

The end market for educational systems ranges from pre-school education to university level.
In the school market the supply of whole systems, for example “turtle” systems, tends to dominate the earlier years in education while free-form construction oriented kits dominate the later stages. In some cases these kits are assembled for users from a wide range of parts some of which are targeted at specific robot competitions. Typical examples use existing constructional toys as the basis for building robots.
Increasingly there are internet resources linked to particular educational kits.
Future opportunities centre around systems able to integrate with the internet and be extended by third party applications and 3D printing.
Key to many robotics educational activities is the combining of robotics kits with national and international competitions. Numerous examples of such competitions exist at all levels of education from the Little Lego League to University level competitions exemplified through the Robo-cup, euRathlon and RoCKIn projects. Extending the reach and visibility of these competitions is a key target for expanding robotics education and public engagement in robotics.