Resumen de Scratch as Driver to Foster Interests for STEM and Educational Robotics

Pedro Plaza, Elio San Cristóbal Ruiz, Germán Carro Fernández, Manuel Blázquez Merino, Félix García Loro, Mónica Muñoz, María José Albert Gómez, Belén Moriñigo, Manuel Castro

• Today, there are a multitude of initiatives that favor the learning of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and educational robotics (ER). Thanks to the available means, it is very easy to access a wide variety of tools based on programmable hardware. Although there are many options, most of them either require a high economic investment or require a great deal of time for the development of educational activities. Through the results shown in this paper, the great potential of Scratch as a solution for students who are just starting out in the knowledge related to STEM and ER is shown. To show the usefulness of Scratch a course has been designed, which dedicates three modules to the use of Scratch. The three modules have different levels of difficulty for the students, a basic level of difficulty, another intermediate level of difficulty and a last module with an advanced degree of difficulty.