RoboCupJunior: a vehicle for enhancing technical literacy

This paper outlines the key components of technical literacy, explaining their relationship to classic computer science and artificial intelligence curriculum. We then describe an inter-national educational initiative called RoboCupJunior and out-line related work examining the (human) learning aspects of educational team robotics. Through examples, we show how the RoboCupJunior paradigm has been used successfully as a hands-on tool for teaching computer science and AI courses, and finally bridge the gap from these classic topics to “techni-cal literacy”, exploring the use of RoboCupJunior as a vehicle for promoting comfort with and understanding of technology