Recently, the interest in the educational robotics has grown greatly, but few studies have been conducted in this field. This study intended to investigate the trend of usage robotics in education during the period of 2001-2014 while analyzing 133 research papers to find the answers to the following questions. First, what is the general research trend of utilizing robotics in education? Second, what are the most recent issues and challenges of robotics in education? Publications have been analyzed using quantitative analysis and cross-tabulation. All gathered articles have been categorized and analyzed under twelve categories. Furthermore, seven categories have been cross-tabulated with other categories. Overall findings present that there are a significant amount of publications on higher and secondary education. Articles on early education and teachers training have started to become more apparent lately. It has also been noticed that robotics generally is seen as an extracurricular activity. Among educational robots, ‘robot kit’ type was one of the highly utilized, especially LEGO Mindstorms robot kit. The main objective of most analyzed articles is the experience of a course curriculum. Results of the study show that there are three main issues and challenges of robotics in education. First, there is a lack of quantitative research on the impact of robotics in education. Second is an absence of well-defined curriculum for target audience. Third is the narrow use of robotics in education. The study also present recommendations for future research.

Robots have been widely used for the education in kindergarten and elementary school. In this study, the cognition of parents on robots in education is investigated. The study is conducted by analyzing responses of 105 parents with kindergarten students and elementary schoolchildren. The survey results show that most students who have been taking the robotics education start it fromfive or seven years old. The students were mainly educated in the private institution. Therefore, the parents worry about the lack of professionalism about educational institute and teachers. In conclusion, the systematic curriculums and policy of robotic education are needed for kindergarten students and elementary students.

This paper introduces several mobile robots developed by using LEGO MIDSTORM for experimental studies of robotics engineering education. The first mobile robot is the line tracer robot that tracks a line, which is a prototype of wheel-driven mobile robots. Ultra violet sensors are used to detect and follow the line. The second robot system is a two-wheel balancing robot that is somewhat nonlinear and complex. For the robot to balance, a gyro sensor is used to detect a balancing angle and PD control is used. The last robot system is a combined system of a line tracer and a two-wheel balancing robot. Sensor filtering and control algorithms are tested through experimental studies.

The purpose of this study is to improve robotics education in public education. This study was conducted with 157 secondary school teachers regardless of their gender, age and majors. The results are as follows: First, 68.2% of the respondents (81.2% of the STEM(Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics)-related teachers) thought that robotics education should be included in public education because it will be a very important area in the future. Second, 73.3% of respondents (89.3% of the STEM-related teachers) agreed that robotics education will be worth teaching as a regular subject. The most important reason was that they thought the robots would be an excellent tool to initiate their class participation and increase their study motivation. Third, the results from this survey showed that the technology teachers would be the best suitable instructors for robotics education. Lastly, teachers felt a great deal of burden to teach robotics although they thought robotics education was necessary. In order to implement robotics education in public school, teachers think it is necessary to take professional training. In addition, teachers should be supported with the reduction in their workload along with sufficient fundings, educational robots such as LEGO MINDSTORMS, and newly designed teaching materials.