Introduction of Robotics in the First Year of Engineering through the Design, Construction and Competition of Robots

Nowadays, robotics education programsare used to promote the skills of students in STEM content at different levels of education for a wide variety of studies, not just engineering. This paper describes an educational programof robotics, applied precisely to the laboratory sessions of a robotics initiation course taught in the first year of a degree in Robotic Engineering, as well as the results of the application of that program in different academic years. The educational program contemplatesthat the students, grouped in work teams, have to design, assemble, and program a small mobile robot, destined to a final competition in which all the teams participate.