Académique Documents
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Framework
Reinhard Gerndt1, Jens Lssem2
Ostfalia University, Wolfenbuettel, Germany
University of Applied Sciences Kiel, Kiel, Germany
1
r.gerndt@ostfalia.de
2
jens.luessem@fh-kiel.de
Abstract Robotics evolved as a central issue in teaching for specific student set, like undergraduate or graduate students
scientific and engineering disciplines. Robotics inherently and towards a specific subject like robotic locomotion or
encompasses a spectrum of sciences and technologies and
vision. They fail to integrate all the aspects into a teaching
qualification levels. However, most current teaching approaches,
related to robotics, concentrate on individual aspects or small framework that addresses robotics as a coherent learning
student groups. In this paper we present the mixed-reality framework. Therefore, with the mixed-reality approach we
robotics educational approach. With our mixed-reality robotics address both aspects of robotics in education, a robotic
teaching system we reached a true interdisciplinary setup, platform and a teaching approach.
addressing different qualification levels. The system allows for Whilst all students typically are very enthusiastic about
aspects like peer education, learning-by-teaching, problem-based
robotics, school students typically lack the skills and their
learning and competition-based (self-) assessment. It consists of
the mixed-reality robotics platform and a teaching concept. The schools the financial background to do an immediate
overall approach has been used in teaching robotics at secondary transition from the entry-level domain to the senior domain. In
school, undergraduate and graduate level. Student and their robotics biography there often is a gap between
instructor feedback is very positive. graduating from school and advancing in the course of studies
to a level to re-enter robotics at a late stage at university. The
KeywordsRobotics education, Mixed-Reality, problem-based presented robotic platform and the educational approach
learning, learning-by-teaching, robotic platform, European intend to close the gap between both domains. The mixed-
qualification framework, robotic programming tools, artificial reality robotic platform allows easy access to a basic control
intelligence, swarm robotics of the robots and opens a path to control of complex behavior
of cooperating real robots. The basic idea of the platform is
I. INTRODUCTION
based on the EcoBe! micro-robots as presented in [1], [2] and
Robotic problems offer a system-level approach to [3]. It was designed with demonstrating, teaching and research
teaching. The overall objective, a functional robotic device, in the domain of advanced robot cooperation and swarm
can only be accomplished if all components, i.e. mechanics, robotics in mind. Figure 1 shows a setup of the system in a
electronics, and computational intelligence, interoperate five-vs.-five robotic mixed-reality soccer setup.
properly. Success or failure becomes immediately obvious
when the robot is set to work. Not only theoretical
competencies, but also practical skills are required to reach a
functional system. Robotics thus addresses different
disciplines from mechanical engineering, over electrical
engineering to computer science, just to mention the most
prominent ones. It also addresses different qualification levels,
starting with school children, spanning the undergraduate
level and finally reaching the graduate level.
However, many current robotic teaching approaches fail to
use the full potential of robotics in education. In our view, this
is often related to the robotic platform used and the classical
lecture approach taken. Robotics kits often have a too narrow
focus towards a specific qualification level. At entry level
many sophisticated platforms are too complicated to operate
and too costly to purchase and to maintain. At advanced level
many low-cost platforms lack the opportunity for serious Fig. 1. Mixed-Reality Setup.
research. Classical lectures typically are focused to a specific
faculty, like mechanical engineering or computer science, to a
At entry level, the system is used as an easily operated our teaching approach. Following that, we present first results
robotic platform with a few robots. At a higher level it can be and finish with an outlook to future work.
used as a robotic kit for the domain of a large number of
cooperative robots and swarm robotics. In both situations the
cost of the individual robot is a crucial aspect, due to the small
budget when entering robotics and due to the large number of
robots required in the field of cooperative and swarm robotics.
Size of the individual robot also is very important due to the
space required to operate the robots. Versatility of the
environment and thus the spectrum of possible applications
are allowed for by using a horizontally placed screen as robot
arena, to display a virtual environment and virtual objects.
Real objects, like the robots, just can be placed on the screen.
This way, mixed setups with real and virtual objects can be
realized. With easy programming of the robots at entry level
in mind, a graphical programming environment was
introduced in addition to the already available programming in
C and JAVA. Fig. 2. Peer teaching at workshop with competition.
The overall system has been used for hands-on teaching at
secondary school level and at university level [4], [5]. One of
the main objectives of using robots in teaching was raising II. EDUCATIONAL ROBOTIC PLATFORMS
awareness on the interfacing between computers and the real There exist numerous robotic kits for education and
world. Another aspect was to provide a test bench for research. Many teaching approaches are based on a specific
requirements engineering, project management, software hardware platform. Therefore, short descriptions of three
engineering, robotics and artificial intelligence teaching. robotic platforms that are used in teaching robotics or teaching
The educational concept involves learning-by-teaching or with robots are presented. The platforms typically are targeted
peer instruction as well as competitive aspects, both within the for a distinct aspect of teaching and impose specific
same university and among different universities. Over the constraints on the teaching approach.
time, at a number of universities in the world a student
community was established to work on and with the mixed- A. Lego Mindstorms
reality robotic platform. For learning by teaching, senior The best-known programmable robot kit probably is the
students pass on their knowledge to less mature students and Lego Mindstorms construction kit. This system is available
by this also gain deeper insight into technological aspects and on the market since 1998 [6]. Based on the Lego construction
improve their social competencies (fig. 2). This takes place bricks it requires building a robot prior to working with it. On
within robotic classes and spans over different faculties as the other hand it opens a vast design space for different types
well as different universities. Typical methods for this are of robots that may be optimized for specific tasks and may be
joint student workshops to work on specific aspects of the built to individual creative ideas of the users. Many students
system or applications. During workshops students may are familiar with Lego bricks since their early childhood days.
discuss their individual findings and research results with their The central control device is the Robotics Command
fellow students and eventually compare their development System (RCX) or the NXT for more recent kits. The NXT
results with others. They may also join forces to address more encompasses a microcontroller that can be connected to a
complex objectives. number of drives and sensors. Typical sensors are touch,
Another aspect of the teaching concept is competitions. ultrasonic and light sensors. With the mechanical components,
During competitions students are exposed to certain aspects of mostly based on the versatile Lego Technic kits, almost any
robotics. Often, competitions are handled by senior students. robot or other automated device can be built (Fig. 3).
A typical entry-level competition setup is a two-vs.-two The RCX programming environment is based on RCX
robotic soccer game. At the advanced level teams compete in Code, a brick-oriented graphical programming language. In
currently seven-vs.-seven mixed-reality robotic soccer games RCX, the graphical blocks represent instructions and control
within the RoboCup, robotic soccer championship. However, elements. To form a program, blocks can be directly attached
the set of applications is not limited to robotic soccer. to each other in a graphical programming environment. It is
The remaining paper is organized as follows: After this also possible to group multiple blocks in order to form new
introduction, we will shortly describe three other robotics blocks to improve readability of the program. After putting
platforms for teaching robotics at school and university level. together the program on a PC, the code is then transferred to
In the then following section we will present the hardware and the RCX brick, where it is executed autonomously. The more
software architecture of the mixed-reality robotic platform recent NXT versions use national Instruments LabView-based
with its graphical programming environment. Then we present
NXT-G for programming. In addition there is a wide variety Programming at entry level is done with a graphical
of development kits for different levels of programming skills. programming interface. Programs are developed on a PC and
The Lego system is also used by the Roberta approach [7]. then transferred to the robot, such that the robot operates
Roberta is a project to expose school children, especially girls autonomously. More advanced users may also use the
to robotic technology in a playful manner. Within the Roberta programming language C.
project a set of training examples and material was developed Typical educational applications are a line tracer,
and training for school children was carried out. pathfinder in a maze or robotic sumo, with the objective to
push an opposing robot out of a starting circle.
C. Jasmine Open-Source Micro-Robots
When searching for a price worthy small robot, scientific
swarm robotic projects offer a good entry point. There exist a
number of activities related to swarm robotics. The open-
source micro-robotic project of the universities of Stuttgart
and Karlsruhe [9] is one of them.
The size of the Jasmine robots (fig. 5) is roughly 2.5 cm
cube. Figure 3 shows the most recent version of Jasmine III
with the typical on-board sensors. The locomotion principle of
Jasmine, as of most other swarm robots is a differential drive.
Expandability, e.g. to add additional sensors or actuators,
typically is allowed for by means of stacking PCB boards on
top of the robots. Being targeted for applications with large
numbers of robots, similar to the MA-VIN robots, only few
different configurations are available. However, the overall
Fig. 3. Lego Mindstorms System at RoboCup Junior Rescue.
robotic platform is kept open, in order to allow individual
configurations by special of special add-on boards, which then
B. MA-VIN Robot Kit requires circuit design skills.
The MA-Vin robot kit is based on a differential drive robot
with a size of roughly 12 by 10 cm. There is almost no
construction work that needs to be done and thus little
flexibility in the individual design of the robots.
The robot is controlled by ATMEGA64L microcontroller
[8]. Unlike Lego, the mechanical construction can be altered
only marginally. In its basic configuration the MA-VIN (fig. 4)
is equipped with 6 optical sensors for collision avoidance and
to survey the ground. Additional sensors can be added to any
of five terminals. The robotic kit comes with several I/O
modules, like a touch sensor, a light sensor, a buzzer and an
LED line, to mention just some.
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