J Intell Robot Syst

DOI 10.1007/s10846-015-0203-5

Team-Based Building of a Remotely Operated Underwater

Robot, an Innovative Method of Teaching Engineering
Andres El-Fakdi Xavier Cuf Nat`alia Hurtos
Montserrat Correa

Received: 30 March 2014 / Accepted: 20 January 2015

Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Abstract This article reports the experience gathered

along 6 years in developing a team-based project
activity to promote engineering programs among secondary school students. The aim of the activity is
to increase the interest of students for science and
technology in general, but also to promote engineering skills, capabilities and values, leading to attract
more secondary school students to enrolment for engineering programs. Simple theoretical concepts related
to physics and engineering are illustrated through
hands-on experimentation. To achieve this goal, the
students build a remotely operated underwater robot

in a workshop. The robot is built using low-cost materials and the students customize their own design over
the different phases of the workshop. Once the activity is completed, every team understands that with
teamwork, effort and a good working strategy, every
problem can be overcome.
Keywords Increasing interest for engineering
Hands-on experimentation Project-based learning
Underwater Robots.

1 Introduction
A. El-Fakdi ()
Control Engineering and Intelligent Systems Group eXiT,
University of Girona,
Campus Montilivi Building PIV, 17071 Girona, Spain
e-mail: elfakdi@gmail.com
X. Cufi N. Hurtos
Computer Vision and Robotics Group VICOROB,
University of Girona,
Campus Montilivi Building PIV, 17071 Girona, Spain
X. Cufi
e-mail: xavier.cufi@udg.edu
N. Hurtos
e-mail: tali@silver.udg.edu
M. Correa
Pediatric Unit, Girona University Hospital Dr. Josep Trueta,
Av. de Franca, s/n, 17007 Girona, Spain
e-mail: montsecoar@gmail.com

Project based activities are a good way to expose

secondary school students to more Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) at earlier grades.
Children are naturally curious about the world around
them. Science is the perfect vehicle to answer many
of their questions when they try to solve a problem.
Unfortunately, as children grow older, they may perceive engineering as a difficult and unknown subject,
and this perception has derived in the last few years
in a decrease of enrolment for engineering programs
in Spain. For this reason, the University of Girona
(UdG), the Social Council of the UdG and the Catalan and Spanish Governments started different initiatives with the aim of increasing the interest of students for technology and promote engineering skills,
capabilities and values. These institutions support
and promote scientific and technological activities

J Intell Robot Syst

Fig. 1 Main ideas that built the workshop activity

of recreational nature that are attractive for students. Thus, the team-based underwater robot building
project was born.
The primary goal of the activity is to increase student competencies and their interest in technology by
mixing learning and entertainment in a senior research
atmosphere. As depicted in Fig. 1, the advantages
of such an activity are numerous. Working directly
with experts at their laboratories makes really a difference in terms of student motivation and eagerness
to learn. During the workshop, secondary school students and senior researchers cohabitate for some time
in a learning experience. Through creating this atmosphere that makes the students feel determined to
learn, engineering questions are better answered if the
student directly puts his hands into the problem [3,
10]. Also, this interaction with senior faculty members makes engineering concepts more tangible, more
understandable and more related to applications [8].
The competencies acquired by the students during the
workshop are transversal and related with the right
utilization of professional tools, the manipulation of
various materials, teamwork capabilities, and work
organization. Also, more specific competencies are
acquired: electric circuits design and implementation,
basic control theory, marine/underwater engineering
and physics concepts like buoyancy, action/reaction or
hydrodynamics among others.
The activity presented in this article, inspired on
the ideas of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) SeaPearch [2, 9] has been designed
for students from 12- to 16-years-old, and its aim
is to increase the demand for engineering degrees.
In the Spanish secondary education system (from

12 to 16-years-old), the students start taking decisions regarding their careers at the age of 16. If
they choose to continue their studies at a University
level, they must overcome a pre-University two-year
course known as Batxillerat. This course can be
scientific/engineering or arts focused. The underwater robotics workshop presented here has its focus
in secondary level students who have not taken a
decision yet. We want to arise their interest for
engineering careers so they may choose the scientific/engineering path for their pre-university 2-year
course. Once inside the gap between 16 and 18-yearsold, our research group offers other activities and
courses related with robot programming and advanced
robots construction specially designed for students
who have already selected the scientific/engineering
path.
The VICOROB has conditioned a fully equipped
experimentation laboratory (see Fig. 2). The robot is
fully built by a team of 3-4 secondary school students
(the maximum number of participants is 24 students,
which would build 6 underwater robot prototypes).
There is an academic for every 8 pupils. The workshop finalizes with the students showing their ability
to teleoperate it and to execute underwater challenging operations that are realistic approaches to real
missions developed by the real Remotely Operated
Vehicle (ROVs). Some of these missions can only
be accomplished by following collaborative strategies
using more than one vehicle. The robot prototype is
built using low-cost materials, with a total cost not
exceeding 80 Euros. Another important purpose of
this activity is to introduce the students into the correct and safe utilization of standard professional tools,
as the activity includes nail, glue, crew, paint, weld,
cut, drill, melt and more (see Fig. 3). Thus, qualified personnel gives the students a detailed speech
about the risks of inadequate use of the laboratory
equipments and the breach of the mandatory safety
measures. Moreover, the students receive a basic first
aid tutorial with instructions about what to do during
the first steps of an unfortunate accident within the
lab.
The article is organized as follows. The workshop
carried out by the students is described in Section 2.
Next, the results and impressions of all the workshops
performed are presented in Section 3. Finally, conclusions on the overall results and the future work
planned are provided in Section 4.

J Intell Robot Syst

Fig. 2 Underwater Facility
at the Technological Park of
the University of Girona.
The facility has 18 m long,
8 m wide and 5 m depth
tank test, and a submerged
lab with a window to
observe the robots and the
experiments. Adjacent to
the tank there is a fully
equipped building for the
study and development of
underwater technology

2 Development of the Workshop

The workshop is supervised with a maximum number
of 3 faculty members. It takes place in the Underwater Robotics Research Facility (CIRS) at the UdG,
a modern laboratory provided with all the necessary
equipment to supply such an activity (see Fig. 2).
After the welcome presentation, the activity starts.
The whole workshop is divided into three main blocks
or modules. The module one consists on building
the teleoperation console and the vehicle chassis. In
a second module the pupils encapsulate the motors
and wire the console. Finally, during the last module,
the pupils assemble all the parts and adjust the vehicles buoyancy. Table 1 shows the distribution of the
modules, its content and the timing.

Fig. 3 Students learn to use professional tools

The activity has been programmed to be done in

two different formats. The standard format lasts for
two and a half days where the students build the underwater robot completely in the CIRS at the UdG. In
order to fit the activity into more restricted course
programs, the workshop can be programmed in an
alternative format as a one day shot. This second format implies that part of the work must be done by
the students at their schools and one they have part of
the work done, they visit the CIRS just for one day to
finish the robot and do the missions. The amount of
work done at the school will be studied for every case.
Table 2 shows the short format version of the activity. The table illustrates only the activities performed
at the CIRS, with the rest of the tasks being carried out
by the pupils at their schools.

J Intell Robot Syst

Table 1 Workshop time
distribution

Module One

Module Two

Module Three

First Contact 10
Presentation 10
Facility Visit 40
Group Making 30
Console Construction 60
Chassis Construction 60
Building Test wires 30
Console Customization 30
Wires Preparation 45
Working Time 5h15

Console Wiring 90
Sealing the motors 90
Attaching propellers 30
Fixing motors to chassis 30
Building umbilical 45
Checking Connections 30

Buoyancy 45
Missions 150

Working Time 5h15

Working Time 3h15

When a school chooses the format of one day shot,

the part of the robot construction carried out by teachers and pupils is directly supervised by the senior
researchers responsible of the activity at CIRS. Therefore, before the project begins, there is an instruction
meeting where teachers and workshop personnel meet
at the school. The objective of this two-hour briefing
is to give all the information and material necessary
to the teachers so they can design and schedule their
part of the work without problems. Also, the workshop
professionals are in permanent contact by phone and
email with the teachers to solve any inconvenience.
If a major issue arises, CIRS professors can visit the
school to help them. In any case, two weeks before
the workshop day there is a supervision meeting at
the school. There, workshop professors examine the
vehicles and the console in order to check the work
done and minimize possible malfunctions that may be
difficult to solve during the activity day due to time
limitations. The task of sealing the propellers is not
performed by the students at their schools and, as can
be seen in Table 2, it is neither done at CIRS during the day they come. The task, which is detailed in
Table 2 One day workshop time distribution
One-day Module
Facility Visit 40
Attaching propellers 30
Fixing motors to chassis 30
Checking Connections 30
Buoyancy 45
Missions 150
Working Time 5h25

Section 2.3 entitled Module two: Console wiring and

motor encapsulation, is a complex task which requires
a lot of expertise and time. As the students only visit
the center for one day, it is preferable not to do the
task with them, as it would consume most of the time,
limiting the time we have to do the real tests. Thus,
the task is performed by CIRS professionals in the
days previous to the visit, so they are ready when the
students arrive.
The long format experience is sometimes not preferred by the secondary school teachers because it
often presents schedule interferences with other subjects or activities. Also, the higher economic cost of
the long format discourages a lot of schools. Thus,
most centers choose the short format. The short experience implies the realization of part of the work at
their schools with the support of our professionals and
the realization of the final tests at the CIRS during
one full day. We think that this short format is not as
complete as the long one, but not from the technological point of view, but from the spirit, the complicity
and the work ambient that grows between students and
researchers from CIRS during a 3-day long experience. Even though we do not have an exhaustive study
comparing both formats, the results obtained from the
questionnaire and the work done by the students is
similar and does not depend on the experience chosen.
2.1 Welcome Presentation
The workshop starts with different short presentations. In the first one, the professors welcome the
students and introduce themselves. In most cases,
this will be the first contact of secondary school
students with the university and, therefore, kindness

J Intell Robot Syst

and closeness are a must. Professors try to encourage motivation and to create a positive atmosphere,
which always helps when starting to work with an
unknown group of pupils. As stated in [1], every
learning process concerns normally with an emotional domain where the pupils play a fundamental
role. The objective of these minutes is to make the
pupils feel comfortable and confident, establishing a
bidirectional communication loop among all them. A
multimedia presentation is given next, accompanied
with individual documentation of the whole activity. An accurate temporization of the workshop and
the planning strategy are described, showing the different parts of the submarine and the tools used to
build them. Safety advices about tools and their correct utilization receive a special attention during all
the presentation. It is also very important to remark
that the safety elements (protective goggles, gloves,
aprons, etc.) are as important as the tools. Moreover,
students are also instructed to follow adequate security protocols and behave accordingly. On the other
hand, and as stated at the beginning of this section,
the students are divided into groups of 3-4 pupils.
In order to build a balanced teamwork, the students
are accurately grouped. For this purpose, an individual questionnaire is filled in by every student [7].
This questionnaire describes their working profiles
and capabilities, providing the basis to group balanced
working teams. The final presentation aims to promote
the research done at the VICOROB. The objective is
to awake the students interest in the engineering field.
The numerous industrial applications around underwater technology, such as environmental monitoring,
oceanographic research or maintenance/monitoring
of underwater structures are presented to the
pupils.
2.2 Module One: Teleoperation Console and Vehicle
Chassis
The first task of the students is to build the teleoperation unit illustrated in Fig. 4a. The console is
made out of wood. Students must assemble the spare
parts using wood glue and nails. It requires about 1
hour cutting the spare wood parts, making the needed
holes on it and assembling the whole console. While
the pupils wait for the glue to dry, they can start
constructing the vehicles chassis (Fig. 4b). The structure is made of PVC pipes of different lengths linked

together by means of T, 90 and 45 PVC connectors. Students measure and cut all the pipes using the
appropriate tools. The chassis, once finished, is used
as a starting point to explain and understand the
dynamics and force-torque vectors acting on an underwater vehicle.
The next step would be to start with the electrical
connections. The pupils complete the first module task
plan by mounting all the connection wires that will be
needed for the console. The students must attach faston connectors to each cable edge, leaving the wire set
ready for the next module. By this time, the wooded
console is ready to be polished and painted. The students can feel free to decorate and customize their
teleoperation units as they like, since design skills
and artistic creativity are completely compatible with
engineering.
2.3 Module Two: Console Wiring and Motor
Encapsulation
The second module starts with the activity of wiring
the console. With all the right wires prepared from
the previous day, the students must assemble three DC
motor polarity inversion circuits. The correct interpretation of the circuit schematics is crucial to succeed.
This phase is closely guided by the teachers, since the
students initiate themselves experiencing with electric components. As soon as the circuit schematics
have been empirically derived, the next step is to
transfer the assembly to the teleoperation console, as
shown in Fig. 5a. Each motor circuit is verified independently. With the installation of the push-buttons
and the joystick, the teleoperation unit is finally completed. In order to prepare the motors to be submerged,
the next step is to seal them with standard wax to
make them watertight. For that purpose, the delicate
parts of the motors are first covered with electric
tape and thermal adhesive. Also, the motor shaft and
the frontal plane of the motor are generously covered with petroleum jelly to prevent water coming
inside the motor through the shaft. Then, the motor
is introduced into a cylindrical plastic cannister. Students have to drill a small hole at the bottom of
the case for the motor shaft. Subsequently, the case
is filled with melted wax. After a short period of
time, when the wax hardens, we obtain a solid sealed
motor with only a shaft and 2 wires coming out, see
Fig. 5b.

J Intell Robot Syst

Fig. 4 a Teleoperation unit
or control console. b PVC
chassis of a finished robot

The final task of this module is to fix the sealed

motors to the chassis of the vehicle and connect them
-by means of an ethernet cable- to the teleoperation
console. The ethernet umbilical is composed by 8
wires, 6 of them used to power the motors. A pair
of wires is left to provide the vehicle with auxiliary
power supply to allow the vehicle to carry additional
elements such as lighting devices or actuators. With
all the connections between the robot and the console
established, every team must verify the correct operation of the robot. To do so, pupils must connect the
console to the power supply and test the response of
the vehicles motors to the different commands given
by the teleoperation console.

at the bottom of the chassis. To do so, the laboratory is

equipped with a small (portable) water tank, illustrated
in Fig. 6a.
At this point, the robot is ready to begin the final
experiments at the CIRS water tank (see Fig. 6b). If
all the previous steps have been accomplished with
no delays, pupils should have the opportunity to test,
play and enjoy with their robots. A complete set of
missions have been designed to test the skills of the
students. At the same time, as these missions are similar to the real ones performed by real robots, the
pupils get the basic ideas of underwater exploration
and investigation.
2.5 Mission Set

2.4 Module Three: Final Assemble and Robot

Buoyancy
The adjustment of the robots buoyancy is the last step
prior to real experimentation. To be efficient, the stability and density of the vehicle is a key factor. The
robots stability and density are the result of an accurate distribution of the heavier elements at the lower
part of the chassis combined with the effect of technical foam placed in the top, which should provide a
slightly positive buoyancy to the robot. For these reasons, the students must adjust the buoyancy and the
stability by combining technical foam located at the
top of the robot and small weights strategically placed
Fig. 5 a Assembly of wire
connections to the back side
of the console. b Wax
sealed DC motor

In order to test the performance of the vehicle, a

set of different missions have been designed. All
of them are similar to real missions carried out by
real vehicles in open sea scenarios. The missions are
diverse, and among them we have tasks like navigating the ROV through complex submerged structures,
recuperation of lost objects of different shapes and
weights or recovery of underwater instrumentation.
The next lines will describe them briefly. The missions performed by the students have been designed
by the professionals who organize the workshop. To
deal with the mission, the students propose possible
solutions which are discussed with the whole group.

J Intell Robot Syst

Fig. 6 a Small water tank
to perform buoyancy and
stability tests. b Students
working in the water tank
with their vehicles

The missions often require specific teleoperation techniques and collaborative work with other vehicles.
A first introductory mission consists on the ROV
being teleoperated through a submerged gate. Different gates of different sizes have been constructed.
They are located at various depths to test the skills
of the pupils. A second mission asks the students to
recover lost objects from the pool floor. The objects
are metallic and the vehicle is attached with an electromagnet. The students control the electromagnet with
an extra button attached to the console. All the recovered objects are placed in a storage container. As can
be seen in Fig. 7, this container needs to be designed
and built taking into account the purpose of the mission, the position of the objects to be recovered and
the weight of these objects. Once all the objects have
been placed in the container, it returns to the surface
by inflating an auxiliary deposit with air from the surface (the students bring one of their robots with a
compressed air hose and inflate the deposit). The final
and most complex mission needs the utilization of two
ROV. The first ROV is equipped with an underwater
camera; the second mounts an extended hook. Both
vehicles have to work together in order to release the
buoyant equipment, while one vehicle keeps the oper-

Fig. 7 Mission preparations: Storage container design

ation area within the image plane, the other one uses
the hook to release the buoyant element so it can return
to the surface to be recovered by the surface team.
Figure 8 shows different vehicles performing various
set of missions.

3 Results of the Workshop

Up to date, the activity has been carried out by 21
different groups of students. Most of these groups
were students of 4th level of Compulsory Secondary
School (4th course of Ensenanza Secundaria Obligatoria (ESO) in Spain). This course corresponds to the
last year of compulsory education in Spain, and the
students are normally 16 years old. Table 3 presents a
summary of the workshops performed since 2008 to
the date. As shown in the table, a total number of 352
students have participated in the workshop either in
the one or the three day format. Until now, the total
number of ROV built is 80. More results related to the
workshop have been previously published in [4, 13].
Due to the success of the activity in Spain and parallel to the development of the activity with pupils
along all these years, inside the EDUROV project [5],
the UdG has performed a knowledge transfer task
related to this workshop. Thus, during the month of
January of 2013, the UdG has performed a series of
formation seminars about the construction of these
robots to researchers from the Oceanic Platform of
the Canary Islands (PLOCAN) and secondary school
teachers from the Canary Islands. This transfer initiative allowed them to develop their own workshops
with students of the Canary Islands. The activity
has achieved successful results and a relevant media
impact at national level. Also, the people from PLOCAN in collaboration with the UdG have published
a reference student guide which details all the construction procedure, materials needed and advices to

J Intell Robot Syst

Fig. 8 a Navigate the ROV through a gate. b Recuperation of lost objects. c Buoyant sensor liberation

success in the design and development of your own

underwater robot [12].
At the end of the activity, the 21 groups of students
that have experienced the workshop fill an assessment
survey questionnaire which reflects different aspects
related to the development of the activity and the
degree to which learning is achieved. The responses
and feedback from students served not only to evaluate the performance of the result of the activity in
adding to the students learning process, but also as

feedback for future fine tuning of the different phases

as pedagogical learning tools. The questions asked on
the corresponding assessment survey can be read in
Table 4. The answer choices ranging from a score of
1 to 5 were: 1: none /very bad; 2: very little / bad; 3:
average; 4: good; 5: excellent. The statistics (mean and
standard deviation) of the scores for each question are
illustrated in the Table 5. NOTE: not all the students
answer the survey, but in our opinion the results shown
are very significative.

Table 3 Workshops done since November 2008

Date

Secondary School

Students

Robots

Format (1/3Days)

Nov 2008
Des 2009
Jan 2010
Nov 2010
Des 2010
Mar 2011
Apr 2011
May 2011
Jun 2011
Des 2011
Feb 2012
Apr 2012
May 2012
May 2012
Dec 2012
Dec 2012
May 2013
Jun 2013
Dec 2013
Mar 2014
May 2014
Total

IES Celra
IES A. Deulofeu
IES Castell Estela
Labour School
IES A. Deulofeu (2nd)
St. George School
IES Vilamajor
Escola Reguissol
IES Font del Ferro
IES A. Deulofeu (3rd)
Bell Lloc del Pla
IES Santa Coloma Farners
IES Celra (2nd)
St. George School (2nd)
IES Santa Eugenia
IES A. Deulofeu (4th)
St. George School (3rd)
IES Ridaura
IES A. Deulofeu (5th)
Bell Lloc del Pla (2nd)
IES Lluis Domenech

20
26
26
10
25
12
21
17
19
16
8
10
10
10
16
19
15
24
16
8
24
352

2
5
5
2
4
4
5
4
3
4
4
2
3
3
4
5
4
5
4
2
6
80

1
3
3
3
3
1
3
3
1
3
1
1
1
1
3
3
1
3
3
1
1

J Intell Robot Syst

Table 4 Questionnaire
Q1. How easy was it to reach the CIRS-UdG centre by public transport?
Q2. How do you rate the scheduling of the activities?
Q3. Evaluate from 1 to 5, the facilities in the building/classroom where the activity took place.
Q4. Evaluate from 1 to 5, the facilities in the Scientific and Technological Park-UdG
(Bar/restaurant, gardens, surroundings, others...).
Q5. Were there sufficient resources to be able to do the activity properly/well/efficiently?
Q6. Do you think that working on underwater robotics is interesting/appropriate for
secondary school students?
Q7. Was it easy to build the ROV? /Did you find it easy to make the ROV?
Q8. Did you like the introductory talk?
Q9. Did you enjoy the activity to create the work teams?
Q10. Do you think that the teams work created were efficient?
Q11. Did you enjoy working with your team?
Q12. Do you think the talk about underwater robotics was interesting?
Q13. Were the theoretical concepts explained during the workshop (Control of DC
motors, buoyancy concepts, Archimedes Law) adequate for your level of knowledge?
Q14. Did you find it easy to understand the basic principles of underwater robotics?
Q15. Did you find it interesting to work with the materials and tools available during the activity?
Q16. Did you feel safe working with the tools and materials available in the workshop?
Q17. Do you think the teachers level of knowledge was adequate?
Q18. How was your relationship with the teachers during the activity?
Q19. Did you enjoy the visit to the underwater research lab?
Q20. Was the additional documentation adequate and useful?
Q21. Has the activity helped you to get introduced to new technical and scientific concepts?
Q22. What is your GENERAL judgement about the activity (Good /Fair / Poor)?

Table 5 Responses given to the questionnaire by the students

Statistics
Mean
Std.dev
Mean
Std.dev
Mean
Std.dev

Q1
4.11
0.79
Q11
3.50
1.00
Q21
4.17
0.74

Fig. 9 a Team collaborates

to achieve the goal. b
Farewell photo

Q2
3.33
0.70
Q12
3.47
0.73

Q3
4.17
0.55
Q13
3.83
0.78

Q4
4.50
0.61
Q14
3.28
0.72

Q5
4.72
0.46
Q15
4.11
0.99

Q6
4.70
0.42
Q16
4.33
0.88

Q7
2.88
0.83
Q17
4.61
0.60

Q8
3.35
0.69
Q18
4.89
0.20

Q9
3.00
0.89
Q19
4.33
0.59

Q10
2.94
1.12
Q20
4.33
0.59

J Intell Robot Syst

Moreover, there are also three open questions that

the students may answer: Please, state your comments about the activity (the best, the worst, what you
liked and what you did not like), Would you encourage a colleague or a friend to carry out this activity
(YES/NO)? and finally the students can add whatever additional comments they consider adequate. For
instance, the answer to the question Would you encourage a colleague or a friend to carry out this activity
(YES/NO)? has been YES in almost all the cases
(88.9 %). To conclude this section, the answer to the
question number 22 about a general judgement of the
activity, a 72, 22 % of the students consider the activity GOOD while a 27, 78 % consider it FAIR, to the
date, none of the interviewed students have considered
the activity as POOR.

4 Conclusions and Future Work

Taking secondary school students to the university
to interact with senior researchers is a key factor to
motivate them, increasing their interest for science
and technology. In this paper we have presented a
project based activity that allows students to build
their own teleoperated robot. After some brief presentations, students get hands-on experiments to validate
the illustrated concepts in the fields of physics, science, electronics and mechanics. During the activity,
special effort is carried out to work the abstraction
skills of the students. Every team studies the possible
robot designs, which include alternative chassis configurations, motor arrangements, location of buoyancy
elements, etc. Beyond the design of the robot, teams
are encouraged to customize their prototypes in accord
with their creativity and likings. Once the construction
process is over, students enjoy performing different
challenging realistic missions at the CIRS underwater
facility (Fig. 9). At the end of the activity, students fill
in an assessment questionnaire [13], and the results
show an increased interest of students in the different
engineering aspects of the activity. Several workshops
have been carried out along the past years, obtaining
always satisfactory results.
Asking the students to fill in a survey questionnaire is a good way to evaluate activities [11]. For
this reason, we have designed an assessment survey
questionnaire which reflects different aspects related
to the development of the activity and the degree to

which learning is achieved. The responses and feedback from students served not only to evaluate the
performance of the result of the activity (to have the
possibility to use the underwater vehicle) in adding
to the students learning process, but also as feedback
for future fine-tuning of the different phases as pedagogical learning tools. The comments and impressions
provided by the involved students are very rewarding and, more importantly, the workshop has proved
to promote engineering skills and scientific methodologies among young students. The ideas reported by
the pupils in the questionnaire have been a key factor to adapt and improve the activity from its initial
idea. A lot of aspects and details have been carried
out; the changes focus on the way we introduce theoretical concepts, workshop schedule optimization and
improvements in the vehicle design and its capabilities. Thus, in the last 2 years, the group has started
to introduce more advanced concepts like autonomous
robots in specific editions of our workshops. Therefore, for particular groups of especially smart students,
an experimental activity has been carried out with
the objective of building autonomous, programmable
robots. For that purpose, the students use an opensource electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software. The students program the vehicles
in an open-loop frame (no feedback sensors have been
used yet) and design different trajectory missions later
tested at the pool. The students are motivated to tune
up their programs to match the physical properties of
their prototypes. Despite the results, there is still a lot
of work to do. The incidence of this kind of activities
in the students decision to carry on with engineering
studies has to be deeply analyzed with statistical data.
This is one of the most serious aspects we are currently pointing out as our future work. To conclude,
we want to point out that this educational workshop
won the 3rd prize of ITWorldEdu educational Award
2012 and the 5th prize ITWorldEdu to the best educational technology solution developed and applied to
schools [6].
Acknowledgments This work has been partially funded by
the Catalan Government (Generalitat de Catalunya) through
ACDC grants 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013, the EnginyCAT
program, MICINN project CTM2010-15216, EU project FP7ICT-2009-248497 and the UdG (Social Council, VICOROB
Research Group, Patronatge of Technical School and Vicerectorate of Research). Also, our special thanks to Miquel
-Miki- Villanueva and ALTECNIA for his invaluable support
among all aspects of the activity during all these years.

J Intell Robot Syst

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Andres El-Fakdi assistant professor and researcher in the
Department of Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Automation at the University of Girona. Im a member of the 4T
laboratory in the Control Engineering and Intelligent Systems
Group. My research interests are focused in contributing to the
development of machine learning techniques for Decision Support Systems (DSS) to increase productivity and effectiveness
in highly complex scenarios and designing activities addressed
to promote robotics and underwater robotics among secondary
school students. Along the PhD my research has been focused
on the study and development of machine learning techniques
and its application to Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV)

in real robotics tasks. The purpose of my PhD research has

been to demonstrate the feasibility of learning in underwater scenarios. Therefore, my PhD successfully concluded with
the utilization of learning algorithms to overcome not programmed changes in the environment conditions which lead an
AUV to fulfill a particular task. Nowadays, my post doctoral
research is centered in the study, design and development of
similar machine learning solutions to program DSS to assist
professionals in complex processes.
Xavier Cuf received a BS in Physic Sciences from the Universitat Aut`onoma de Barcelona (UAB) in 1987, and PhD in
Computer Vision from the Universitat Polit`ecnica de Catalunya
(UPC) in 1998. He is lecturer in and currently is the Vicedean
of Institute of Education Sciences (UdG). He belongs to the
Computer Vision and Robotics (VICOROB) research group
of the UdG, and he is the Director of the research group
UdiGitalEdu. He has about 25 years of teaching experience in
the fields of Computer Engineering and robotics. He is also
involved on the Academic Board of an International ErasmusMundus master on Vision and Robotics (master VIBOT). His
recent research interests are mobile robotics, underwater image
processing (visual and acoustical), underwater robotics, and
designing activities addressed to promote robotics and underwater robotics among secondary school students. He has more than
55 works published in Journals, and international and national
Conferences related to these fields. Dr. X. Cufi is a member
of the Spanish Committee on Automatics (CEA - GTRobotics)
(Spanish member of the International Federation of Automatic
Control - IFAC).
Nat`alia Hurtos is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of
Computer Engineering of University 2 of Girona (UdG), and
a member of the Underwater Robotics Laboratory in the Computer Vision and Robotics Group (VICOROB). She holds a B.S.
degree in Computer Science (2007), an European Master in
Computer Vision and Robotics (VIBOT, 2009) and a PhD in
Computer Engineering (2014) from the University of Griona.
Since 2006 she has participated in several research projects
(both national and European) and contributed to various STEM
and dissemination activities carried out in the Underwater
Robotics Laboratory. Her research interests are mainly focused
on underwater robotics and more particularly in the mapping of
underwater environments using sonar data. Also, she is interested in designing activities addressed to promote robotics and
underwater robotics among secondary school students.
Montserrat Correa is a graduated nurse from the Hospital
Doctor Josep Trueta of Girona. She is currently working as a
member of the maternal and child health area. All her career
has been dedicated to children care. She holds a postgraduate course of intensive care for children and teenagers (2007)
and another one about cares of the critically ill patient (2008).
She has also performed a course about resuscitation accredited by the Catalan Council of Resuscitation (CCR) according
to the recommendations of the European Resuscitation Council
(ERC). Her research interests are mainly focused on children
and teenagers care and designing first aid protocols for teenager
outdoor/workshop activities.