Development of an Educational Robotics Platform Using Wireless Communication Between Components.
Mueller, Matthew L.
2015
- This study involves the development of an educational robotics platform with the sensors and actuators acting independently of each other and using wireless technology to communicate and how users interact with it differently than an existing platform. The LEGO Mindstorms platform regularly causes frustrations for novice students when they are trying to connect and wire the motors and sensor to ... read morethe intelligent brick with the Technic building system. The new platform was developed as a way of allowing more students to have success in the project based learning environment as beginners by eliminating the need to have an intelligent, powered brick at the center of any robot creation. A pilot study was conducted to compare the new platform to the LEGO NXT when used to complete educational design challenges. Of the six undergraduate and graduate students tested, five participant responded that the new platform was easier to work with. Two case studies are presented in the paper, one of a participant with extensive experience with Mindstorms and one of a participant who had never built with LEGO Technic pieces before. These cases work to display the effectiveness of the platform at enabling beginner students more easily and the technology constraints of the platform that limit complexity. There are many engineering challenges such as powering each component separately and creating an autonomous robot of this nature that doesn’t need to have a computer controlling it, but feedback from the pilot test hinted at the new design’s potential in the educational setting.read less
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- 4t64h014w
- Component ID:
- tufts:sd.0000291
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