Advances in Engineering Education - Volume 12 - Issue 4 - Looking Ahead: Implementing a Robotics Research Lab at a Community College to Support Undergraduate Research

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Đào

Undergraduate research boosts engineering confidence and persistence, yet community college students often lack comparable access to research opportunities at four-year institutions. This work describes a soft-robotics-focused undergraduate research lab built within a multi-institution collaboration to address that gap. Soft robotics is positioned as especially valuable for forming diverse engineering teams through interdisciplinary challenges, new materials, and human-centered design. Early assessment indicates students gain skills in collaboration and increased confidence in contributing to science. The program suggests broader impacts for similar institutions.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages12

Reading Time30 min

AccessFree to download

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION

METHODS

| | Ad | vances in Engineering Ed | ucation | | | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 2024: VOLUME 12 ISSUE 4 Looking Ahead: Implementing a Robotics Research Lab ata Community College to Support Undergraduate Research ERIK SIGGELKOE Bunker Hill Community College Boston, MA CONOR WALSH School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Harvard University Cambridge, MA HOLLY M. GOLECKI Bioengineering Department University of Urbana Champaign Urbana, IL ABSTRACT While participation in undergraduate research has many beneﬁts for students including increased conﬁdence and persistence in engineering, community college students do not have the same access to research as students at four-year institutions. To address this disparity, we developed a soft robotics-focused undergraduate research lab at a community college within a multi-institution collaboration. In addition to the beneﬁts of undergraduate research, we see soft robotics research as particularly useful for creating diverse teams in engineering as a result of interdisciplinary challenges, new materials, and human-centered designs the ﬁeld presents. Early assessment shows students are gaining skills in collaborating with others and building conﬁdence in contributing to science. The success of this program shows the potential for broader impacts at other similar institutions. Key words: Community Colleges, Undergraduate Research, Human-centered design, Soft Robotics INTRODUCTION Participation in undergraduate research increases awareness of opportunities in STEM and is a factor in attracting and retaining students in STEM ﬁelds (Linn et al. 2015; Balster et al. 2010) . 2 2024: VOLUME 12 ISSUE 4 ADVANCES IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION Looking Ahead: Implementing a Robotics Research Lab at a Community College to Support Undergraduate Research However, students from groups underrepresented in STEM including ﬁrst generation and community college students are less likely than their peers to participate in research (Grineski et al. 2018) . Community colleges have made a strong case for expanding access to research opportunities (Berger and Malaney 2003; J. A. Hewlett 2018; Rosas Alquicira et al. 2022) . Given that 39% of all undergraduates in the United States are enrolled in community colleges (AACC 2022), the potential impact is signiﬁcant, particularly for the 20% of those students that enroll in STEM programs (Varty 2022) . By performing research early in college, students can develop content knowledge, enhance science identity (Rosas Alquicira et al. 2022) and build social capital within STEM to support completion of STEM degrees (Martin et al. 2020) . By building community college-based research labs, the opportunity exists to expand the beneﬁts of research reported at four-year institutions (Seymour et al. 2004) . To explore this opportunity, we developed an apprenticeship-style (Joshi, Aikens, and Dolan 2019) soft robotics research experience. Soft robots are those devices built from compliant materials, including elastomers or textiles (Tran et al. 2023), and have a wide variety of applications in the medical ﬁeld given their safety and bioinspired designs (Garcia et al. 2021) . The ﬁeld of soft robotics has a unique potential to create diverse teams in engineering with the broad range of specialties that contribute to robotic designs. Not only do traditional specialties aligned with robotics such as mechanical, electrical and systems engineering contribute, but also materials science, bioengineering, design, and health sciences. The highly interdisciplinary ﬁeld allows students early in their careers to experience hands-on projects relevant to multiple majors and career paths. The ﬁeld emerged as a result of robots being deployed in human-centered applications as bioinspired machines (Jiao et al. 2019), compliant grippers (Mosadegh et al. 2014), and wearable devices (Awad et al. 2017) . Technical challeng

FAQs

What problem does the paper address for community college students?

Community college students often have less access to undergraduate research than students at four-year institutions, creating a disparity in research participation and its benefits.

Why is soft robotics highlighted as useful for this research lab?

Soft robotics supports creating diverse engineering teams because the field is interdisciplinary, involves new materials, and emphasizes human-centered design and applications.

What initial outcomes does the paper report for students in the program?

Early assessment shows students are developing collaboration skills and gaining confidence in contributing to science.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Đào