In December, the Zhejiang Province high school teacher skills showcase featuring the Pepper robot came to a successful close. Teachers Li Yongqian and Liu Siyuan from the Affiliated High School of Zhejiang Normal University won the first prize with their project "Auxiliary Control Solution for Natural Gas Food Thermal Processing"! Teachers Li and Liu shared with us their connection with Pepper and their experiences and insights into robotics.

Unparalleled Unique Advantages

With such excellent teachers and the adorable Pepper, it's hard for students not to be interested. The science and innovation interest group at the Affiliated High School of Zhejiang Normal University has gathered many students interested in robots. Even students with no foundation can develop well here. The interest group generally adopts the method of experienced students leading newcomers, reviewing the old and learning the new, and learning robot knowledge through SoftBank's course materials. After solidifying the foundation, students will enter the intensive training and competition stage, and at this time, teachers will also help students to the best of their abilities to achieve better technical performance and higher rankings.

In fact, teachers hope that through this process, students can learn independently, fully utilize their imagination, gradually get rid of their dependence on teachers and textbooks, and create their own applications.

With a fertile ground for development, in 2019, the Affiliated High School of Zhejiang Normal University participated in the "SoftBank Cup" for the first time and achieved a gold award. The team members' confidence has also increased since then, and one student was even admitted to the Hong Kong Polytechnic University based on this.

In addition, participating in the competition is also a very good learning opportunity for students. Teachers and students can see the high-level performance of other participating teams and communicate with them, which will deepen their interest in learning.

In the second year, students actively improved the epidemic intelligent detection robot, not only making significant technological progress but also being very practical, such as Pepper recognizing whether people are wearing masks and recognizing green codes, which can truly help in the fight against the epidemic.

Teacher Li praised Pepper, believing that Pepper's unique advantage lies in human-robot interaction. "If we were to make an interactive robot, our work would not be as excellent as Pepper's, including aspects of voice dialogue and movement. So Pepper is a great platform that allows teachers to apply and research directly."

In addition, being close to human appearance is also one of Pepper's major advantages. "When making real works, especially when scene setting, Pepper's closeness characteristics can be displayed. Students, facing this cute little guy in the process, have also developed a strong interest."

Looking at Programming Education from Learning Pepper

Pepper robots are easy to learn. In the science and innovation interest group, group students learn through SoftBank's teaching materials and courses, led by senior students. Teacher Li found when guiding the interest group that some students feel Pepper is suitable for them, while others think open-source hardware is more flexible. Introducing Pepper into teaching can provide students with a variety of choices and allow them to discover more learning directions suitable for themselves.

Pepper robots are also difficult to learn because they are different from open-source hardware; their hardware is fixed, and if you want to make combinations, you have to make software combinations, which is a challenge for students. Moreover, the functional applications of Pepper are very extensive, and it is not a simple task to make more creative applications with Pepper as the carrier. In the future, there is a broader world waiting for students to explore.

Teacher Li also believes that programming is an essential quality for future humans. "Just like learning the piano, not everyone has to become a pianist, but it is necessary to develop the essential musical quality of modern people. Learning programming is also like this; not everyone has to become a programmer, but they need to develop the quality of problem-solving methods with machine thinking. Modern people should understand programming to better adapt to the development of future society, which is the concept we want to convey to our students."

Pepper, a Stage and a Platform

In addition to being used for subject teaching, Pepper has many interesting and powerful functions. During the school's New Year's Day artistic performance, five robots brought a wonderful dance performance to everyone and were praised as "the most creative and sensational program." In addition, Pepper can also serve as a campus greeter. When visitors tour the school's science and technology museum, Pepper acts as a warm and hospitable guide, providing tour services, and the science and technology museum has become more technological due to the addition of Pepper.

The rapid development of information technology has long been different from the past, and teachers also want to do their best to create a good scientific research environment for students, providing more development possibilities and looking at the world from a more diverse perspective. At the same time, it is also very necessary to carry out robot education for middle school students. While understanding virtual things, it may subvert students' original way of thinking, which is very beneficial to the development of logical thinking.

Artificial intelligence education has just begun, and there is still a long way to go for such a human-machine future. Teachers hope to popularize artificial intelligence education widely, allowing future students to come into contact with and understand artificial intelligence. For the future of artificial intelligence, Teacher Li hopes that the technical threshold will be quickly reduced to achieve widespread application, and the scenes seen in movies can also enter real life as soon as possible.

"We have already seen the development trend of artificial intelligence. Efficiently handling affairs is the performance of competitiveness in future society. We hope that future students can free themselves from repetitive labor and think about things that transcend the ordinary world itself."