Educational Tool for Simultaneously Teaching Link Mechanism and Power Generation: A Pilot Study of STEM Education using LEGO
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Abstract
Link mechanisms and power generation are important topics in engineering education. Previous studies have used educational tools for either link mechanisms or power generation. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is no tool that can provide education on both link mechanisms and power generation. Additionally, STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education with multiple interdisciplinary topics is required to train engineers with advanced skills. The objective of this study was to develop and evaluate an educational tool for simultaneously teaching both link mechanisms and power generation through STEM workshop. The proposed tool was implemented using LEGO to discover students’ creativity. The proposed tool was evaluated via an educational workshop on link mechanisms and power generation, with 17 students as participants. The participants were asked to answer questions about their enjoyment and understanding of the workshop using a visual analogue scale (VAS) with 100 mm segments. The results showed that average values of VAS scores for enjoyment and understanding were at least almost 80 mm. The results of the VAS scores showed that participants could understand both the link mechanisms and power generation via workshop using the proposed tool. In addition, the VAS scores indicated that the participants enjoyed the workshop. Furthermore, participants could design and implement the original link mechanisms based on their creativity in the workshop. These results suggest that the proposed tool using LEGO can provide effective and motivative education for both link mechanisms and power generation. Moreover, the proposed tool using LEGO might be suitable for STEM education and future creative STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics) education because it can provide a chance for designing original link mechanisms.
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