a) What is the overall purpose of your project?
To introduce autonomous inventory cycle counting, shrinkage analysis, and digital balance sheet reconciliation into the Accounting Operations and Business programs. By utilizing a mobile autonomous robotic platform (the TurtleBot 4) equipped with spatial vision, LiDAR, and asset-scanning capabilities, adult accounting students will bridge physical warehouse stock with digital general ledgers—mastering how automated inventory feeds drive modern corporate balance sheets.
b) What need(s) does it address?
In modern distribution centers, retail enterprises, and commercial warehouses, companies no longer halt operations for an entire weekend once a year to perform manual clipboard inventory counts. Instead, autonomous mobile robots navigate supply aisles during off-hours to conduct automated perpetual cycle counts. Accounting professionals today must do far more than balance static ledgers by hand; they must evaluate live data feeds, reconcile physical stock variances against book inventory, investigate shrinkage, and manage capital asset depreciation models. Our adult students currently master accounting spreadsheets and software on desktop computers, but lack hands-on experience with the automated physical data collection tools that modern logistics and business facilities rely on.
c) What learning goal, academic standard, or outcome does your project address?
This project aligns directly with the Florida Department of Education’s Accounting Operations curriculum framework (Program B070110 / CIP 0552030202), specifically addressing standards in inventory valuation methods (FIFO, LIFO, Weighted Average), internal control procedures, asset depreciation, and automated ledger entries.
Students will:
- Conduct automated perpetual cycle counts using an autonomous mobile unit to audit physical stock against digital general ledger records.
- Perform variance and shrinkage analyses by investigating discrepancies between scanned shelf assets and book inventory.
- Model capital equipment lifecycle costs by tracking the mobile robot's operating hours, battery charge cycles, maintenance wear, and depreciation over time.
d) How does this project connect to a school or district priority?
Directly aligns with Collier County Public Schools’ strategic commitment to workforce readiness, emerging business technologies, and high-wage career pathways. Southwest Florida's rapid commercial growth in logistics, warehousing, and corporate supply chains demands accounting graduates who understand modern Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) integrations and automated internal controls.
Aligns with iTECH's Vision of "empowering students through innovating hands-on training" and our shared beliefs that "instruction must represent current technology and practices" and that "instruction is meaningful when it is relevant to the students and incorporates current issues."
a) How will students actively participate?
Students will operate in business auditing teams. Teams will program the mobile robot to follow scheduled audit routes through classroom mock-warehouse supply shelves and campus stock rooms. As the robot traverses the aisles, its onboard perception array logs physical inventory items. Students will export the recorded counts directly into accounting software, compare physical quantities to recorded book figures, identify cost variances, and calculate adjustments for inventory shrinkage, spoilage, or misplacement.
Given the single-unit platform, student teams will rotate through structured mission blocks on a scheduled sign-up basis: Prior teams' generated data will be reviewed by the next
team, so that a growing data repository builds cumulatively across the term.
b) How will this project meet the needs of your students, classroom, and/or school?
This project connects textbook accounting principles directly to tangible physical operations. The mobile robot transforms abstract inventory valuation lessons into an active audit simulation. Furthermore, the robot serves as a tangible capital asset study: students maintain a live fixed-asset register that records the unit’s operational run-time, battery depletion rates, routine maintenance costs, and book depreciation.
c) What teaching strategies or instructional activities will be used?
- Perpetual Cycle-Count Auditing: Students dispatch the autonomous unit on scheduled audit routes to generate automated stock logs without manual intervention.
- Shrinkage & Variance Investigations: Teams analyze mismatches between physical shelf data and the general ledger, determining whether discrepancies stem from unrecorded sales, scrap, or miscounts.
- Fixed-Asset Cost Modeling: Cohorts calculate straight-line and accelerated depreciation schedules based on the robot's real-world hours in service and charging logs.
d) How will student participation connect to classroom instruction?
Directly reinforces program benchmarks in merchandise inventory management, financial statement preparation, internal auditing, and operational cost accounting. Small accounting teams will rotate through structured audit cycles, allowing each cohort to plan an audit route, review discrepancy logs, and post the adjusting journal entries.
a) What specific improvements do you expect for your students?
Modernizing Business Skills for High-Wage Careers: Many adult students in our Accounting program are working toward upward mobility in local corporate offices and logistics management. Gaining hands-on familiarity with automated inventory tracking elevates our students from traditional clerks to tech-enabled business analysts who can manage automated ERP data streams and internal control systems.
A Campus-Wide Cross-Disciplinary Catalyst:
- Accounting & Business Operations: Students gain practical mastery over perpetual inventory systems, automated auditing workflows, and physical-to-book reconciliation.
- Advanced Manufacturing: The robot interfaces with our Logistics Skill Boss sortation conveyor, transporting diverter-sorted items to designated stock racks and immediately logging the transfer into digital ledgers.
- Information Technology: IT cohorts configure the robot’s wireless connectivity and local data endpoints, giving accounting students a realistic model of corporate IT/finance collaboration.
- Machining & Automotive: Manufacturing students can fabricate custom clipboard/scanner brackets or payload trays for the robot, showing how production supports business operations.
b) How will you know the project was successful?
Success will be achieved when 100% of participating accounting cohorts successfully execute an automated cycle-count audit, identify induced inventory discrepancies, calculate the financial impact, and post the correct adjusting ledger entries.
c) What evidence, observations, student work, or assessments will demonstrate impact?
- Inventory Audit Workpapers: Comprehensive audit reports documenting shelf counts, book counts, variance dollar values, and root-cause shrinkage findings.
- Adjusting General Journal Entries: Student-prepared financial entries adjusting merchandise inventory and recording inventory write-offs.
- Fixed-Asset Depreciation Schedules: Complete lifecycle ledgers detailing the robot's operating costs, accumulated depreciation, and net book value.
Purpose of Funding
Funding will acquire one complete Clearpath Robotics TurtleBot 4 Lite Mobile Robot Platform (including the iRobot Create 3 mobile base, onboard compute, 360-degree laser LiDAR, and automatic self-charging dock), paired with industrial-grade high-speed storage, auxiliary battery power, a diagnostic interface kit, and a protective rolling transport case. This standardized, non-consumable physical asset runs entirely on-premises with zero recurring cloud subscription fees. It provides a permanent, reusable inventory auditing testbed that will train incoming business and accounting cohorts year after year.
Budget Narrative
Direct Student Learning Alignment:
- Clearpath TurtleBot 4 Lite Mobile Robot Platform ($1,572.00): Provides the mobile base, precision navigation sensors, and optical perception needed to simulate automated warehouse inventory cycle counts and asset tracking.
- Integrated Autonomous Charging Dock (Included): Allows students to track charging cycles, power consumption, and operating efficiency for capital asset cost modeling. 2×
- Industrial High-Endurance MicroSDXC Cards (128GB) ($68.00 total): Provides high-reliability local data storage to record audit logs and ensure uninterrupted classroom operation.
- High-Capacity Auxiliary Power Bank & PD Output ($95.00): Ensures the mobile unit can run continuous, extended inventory sweeping sessions across multiple campus rooms without battery depletion.
- Heavy-Duty Weatherproof Rolling Transport Case ($145.00): Enables safe, secure transport of the auditing unit between business classrooms, campus stockrooms, and regional showcase events.
- High-Throughput Diagnostic Hub & Low-Profile Cables ($100.00): Connects external scanning devices and offloads inventory audit records directly into student accounting computers.
Number of Students Benefiting:
- 40 to 60 post-secondary business and accounting students annually will conduct hands-on auditing and asset-management labs with the unit.
- Over 200+ cross-campus students in logistics, manufacturing, and IT will engage during cross-departmental supply chain exercises.
- 100% Non-Consumable: Rugged, serviceable equipment built for years of continuous classroom service
1980
Clearpath Robotics TurtleBot 4 Lite Mobile Robot Platform
1572
2-Industrial High-Endurance MicroSDXC Card (128GB, Class 10/A2/U3)
68
High-Capacity Auxiliary Power Bank & PD Output Module (24,000mAh)
95
Heavy-Duty Weatherproof Rolling Mobile Transport Case with Pick-and-Pluck Foam
145
High-Throughput USB-C / USB 3.2 Diagnostic Hub & Low-Profile Cables
