Curtin Robotics Club: Conceiving, Designing, Implementing and Operating Robots for Fun!

Abstract

The role of universities is to transform students into confident graduates that can contribute to the profession and the society. Students gain knowledge and skills as they participate in challenging and engaging learning activities. These activities can take place as part of the syllabus in a course, or as part of extracurricular activities. Robotics is very popular hobby among engineering-inclined young people. Today it is possible to build simple yet interesting robots investing little money or technical resources. Furthermore, Robotics as a hobby offers opportunities to develop skills and abilities desired in all Engineering Graduates. This paper proposes the use of extracurricular activities to offer students opportunities to develop professional skills and boost their confidence. The history and operation of the Curtin Robotics Club are presented as a case study to support the use of extracurricular activities.