Healthcare is becoming robotics reliant. Hands-on learning of assistive and rehabilitation robotics in meaningful contexts such as improving quality of life will broaden the participation of underrepresented students including females and ethnic minorities.

In this work, a low-cost educational platform called Neu-pulator resembles a human arm, actuated by servo motors at the shoulder, elbow, and hand. Students will control each joint with a different type of sensor.

Lesson plans are developed for formal classroom teaching in public middle schools. Indiana and Georgia teachers will implement this in the classroom. Lesson plans are flexible and can be edited as needed.

The research is established in an internationally implemented 9th-grade course—logical for the levels of student development and career decision making—offered through the International Technology and Engineering Educators Association STEM Center, which reaches up to 60,000 students annually.