ETH Microrobotics MOOC project

Microrobotics is an interdisciplinary field that combines aspects of robotics, micro and nanotechnology, biomedical engineering, and material science. The Multi-Scale Robotics Lab is a pioneer and leader in microrobotics research and technology and has been offering an introductory course in Microrobotics (151-0604-00) to ETH students since 2005 and course enrolment well exceeds 250 students annually. Through the Microrobotics course, students at ETH are exposed to the fundamental aspects of the emerging field of microrobotics. This includes a focus on physical laws that predominate at the microscale, technologies for fabricating small devices, bio-inspired designs, and the rapidly evolving applications and challenges in biomedical microrobotics.

The goal of the ETH Microrobotics MOOC project is to develop the world’s first MOOC course on microrobotics; covering the entirety of the design, development and manipulation of sub-millimeter scale intelligent machines and an overview of their diverse applications and challenges in biomedicine. The project will design and produce (i) an international MOOC edition of the Microrobotics course scheduled for a global launch in summer 2021, and (ii) a MOOC incorporating inverse blended learning specifically designed for students at ETH to be launched for autumn semester 2021.

Microrobotics is a fast-growing research field around the world. As pioneers in this field, the ETH Microrobotics MOOC course will be the world’s first open online course in microrobotics and will be a reference introductory course for students and researchers around the world. In addition, the production of high quality videos with animations showcasing concepts and theory, licensed through the creative common international license will enable faculty and lecturers around the world to use it and further develop this material for their own teaching courses.

Three innovative elements of the ETH Microrobotics MOOC project include (1) the ability for collaborative group and project work between participants/students across the world, (2) the presence of live Q&A sessions with the course instructors, and (3) the potential for these student projects to serve as a crowdsourced bank of ideas that could catalyze actual microrobotics research at ETH.