Building Better Robots — and Better Teams

Siobhan Oca designs collaborative courses that build confidence, creativity and real-world engineering skills

People cheering each other on with a robot in the foreground.
Siobhan Oca (second from left) cheers as her students successfully demonstrate their robotics project. (Photo: Maddie Go)

This is a summary of a story that originally appeared on the Office of Interdisciplinary Programs.

When Siobhan Oca first came to Duke as a Ph.D. student interested in medical robotics, she discovered a passion for robotics education.

Through a grant, Oca seized the chance to develop and teach an introductory course on robotics. Mentored by two faculty members, she thought about what she wanted students to get out of the course. Integrating more project-based work would help students succeed, she believed. 

After graduating, Oca joined Duke’s faculty as assistant professor of the practice in mechanical engineering and materials science. 

Honing her skills in course design, she took part in the Collaborative Project Courses Faculty Fellows Program. She describes most of the courses she teaches today as collaborative and project based. 

One of the courses, Introduction to Robotics, begins with an individual project for students to gain core competencies. Then when the students join project teams for the second half of the semester, they’re much less likely to default into familiar roles based on their majors. They can work more collaboratively.

One student confessed that she’d been terrified to take the course. “She said, ‘I have a math background, but I’ve never done engineering,’” Oca recalls. 

The math student built fundamental skills through the first part of the course, and she ended up being a key contributor on her team. She and her teammates designed a device, attached to a robotic arm, which produced a consistent amount of frosting for baked goods. 

On the last day of class, they showed up with 55 baked goods for everyone, all frosted by their robot. “The amount of time it took them … I could have cried. That says something about the amount of pride they had in what they’d done,” said Oca. “I think teaching students how to work with others is one of the essential skills we can teach them while they’re here at Duke.”

To read the full story, visit Interdisciplinary Programs.