A Survey on the Contributions of 3D Printing to Robotics Education—A Decade Review

There has been a constant rise in interest on the subjects of robotics and additive manufacturing. Although robotics being older than additive manufacturing, both subjects have gained increased publicity in terms of research over the years. The objective of this paper is to review 3D printing, robotics education, and finally how 3D printing has contributed to robotics education over a period of ten years between 2011 and 2020. the last ten (10) years. By restricting the search to academic articles only, papers comprising of journal papers and conference proceedings were reviewed. For each paper, three information were sought which includes; robotics education, 3D printing, and finally how these two have been used together. We expect that the result of this review will serve as a pivot for schools at all levels to combine both subject areas and include the union into their STEM curricula which is believed to improve robotics education. The review shows that both tertiary and lower educational levels of robotics education benefit immensely from 3D printing. We also find out that most of the contributions of 3D printing to robotics education comes more in the form of using already printed parts rather than using the 3D printer itself. The challenges and trends are highlighted and future research directions have been suggested in this paper.