TY - GEN
T1 - A hands-on cybersecurity curriculum using a robotics platform
AU - Yett, Bernard
AU - Hutchins, Nicole
AU - Stein, Gordon
AU - Zare, Hamid
AU - Snyder, Caitlin
AU - Biswas, Gautam
AU - Metelko, Mary
AU - Ledeczi, Akos
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM.
PY - 2020/2/26
Y1 - 2020/2/26
N2 - This paper presents a study where high school students were taught computing and cybersecurity concepts using a robotics platform. 38 students attended a week-long summer camp, starting with projects such as a simulation-only game and a simple autonomous driving program for the robots to learn and apply computational thinking (CT) and networking skills. They were then assigned a series of challenges that required developing progressively more advanced cybersecurity measures to protect their robots. This culminated in a final challenge that required implementing defensive measures such as encryption, secure key exchange, and sequence numbers to prevent cyber attacks during robot operations.We used an evidencecentered design framework to construct rubrics for grading student work. The pre- and post-test results show that the interventions helped students learn cybersecurity and CT concepts, but they had difficulties with networking concepts. These results correlate with scores from the game and the final challenge. Overall, surveys show that the competition-based robotics learning framework was engaging to students, and it supported their learning. However, our intervention needs to be modified to help students learn networking concepts.
AB - This paper presents a study where high school students were taught computing and cybersecurity concepts using a robotics platform. 38 students attended a week-long summer camp, starting with projects such as a simulation-only game and a simple autonomous driving program for the robots to learn and apply computational thinking (CT) and networking skills. They were then assigned a series of challenges that required developing progressively more advanced cybersecurity measures to protect their robots. This culminated in a final challenge that required implementing defensive measures such as encryption, secure key exchange, and sequence numbers to prevent cyber attacks during robot operations.We used an evidencecentered design framework to construct rubrics for grading student work. The pre- and post-test results show that the interventions helped students learn cybersecurity and CT concepts, but they had difficulties with networking concepts. These results correlate with scores from the game and the final challenge. Overall, surveys show that the competition-based robotics learning framework was engaging to students, and it supported their learning. However, our intervention needs to be modified to help students learn networking concepts.
KW - Block-based programming
KW - Computational thinking
KW - Computer science education
KW - Cybersecurity
KW - Networking
KW - Robotics
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85081563592&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85081563592&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/3328778.3366878
DO - 10.1145/3328778.3366878
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85081563592
T3 - SIGCSE 2020 - Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
SP - 1040
EP - 1046
BT - SIGCSE 2020 - Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
T2 - 51st ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, SIGCSE 2020
Y2 - 11 March 2020 through 14 March 2020
ER -