Massive Project Based Learning through a Competition: Impact of and Insights from the e-Yantra Robotics Competition (eYRC -- 2013)

Embedded systems and robotics are interdisciplinary and have a wide range of applications, making them ideal subjects for sparking innovation and creative thinking in engineering students. One way to teach these subjects to students across the country is through distance education. However, as hands-on experiments are a major part of such courses to be effective, and since most colleges lack robotics labs, such attempts have proven to be ineffective. By combining aspects from on-line distance education, multimedia content dissemination, and a step-by-step approach to impart Project Based Learning, e-Yantra Robotics Competition (eYRC) addresses this challenge. One hundred and sixty teams of four members each were provided with: (i) a real-world problem abstracted as a theme, (ii) a robotic kit along with accessories to implement a solution to a given theme, and (iii) tasks with associated templates to train them on the various steps of a project life cycle over the 4-month duration of the competition. Results show that 94% of the teams gained basic knowledge of embedded systems and robotics, with 60% successfully implementing a solution on the robot and 24% exhibiting creativity and critical thinking skills in addition.