IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - December 2011 - 16

INDUSTRIAL ACTIVITIES

Educational Robotics-
Primary and Secondary Education
By Damien Kee

Editorial Comments
Robots have become a widely used teaching tool for children ranging from the primary grades through secondary school. Educational
programs have spawned extracurricular robotics competitions such as RoboCup Junior and First Lego League, which now involve thousands of kids worldwide. Many of the educational curricula and competitions involve a specific robot base or robots with a whole library
of prefabricated parts, all manufactured by a single company. Freelance writer Damien Kee describes how these products have
become embedded in the educational market.
Alex Zelinsky

he use of robotics in education, in particular primary and
secondary education, has seen
a rapid growth over the last
few years. The hands-on approach,
coupled with accessible and affordable
robot kits, has greatly aided the teaching
of science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics (STEM) concepts within
the curriculum.
The use of robots in the classroom
spans a wide variety of topics, of which
only a snapshot of what is possible is
provided here:
l mathematics of gearing
l levers, pulleys, and simple machines
l electronics
l sensors and actuators
l software flowcharting and artificial
intelligence
l datalogging
l automated systems.
Three of the robot kits have been
widely used by Fischertechnik, VEX,
and LEGO (Figure 1).
More information can be found at
their respective Web sites:
l VEX: http://www.vexrobotics.com/
l LEGO Mindstorms: http://mind
storms.lego.com
l Fischertechnik: http://www.fischer
technik.de/en/.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2011.943231
Date of publication: 8 December 2011

IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

Alternatives
Alternatives to these popular kits fall
into two categories: expensive/modular
and inexpensive/single configuration.
l Expensive/modular kits such as the
Kondo (kondo-robot.com/EN) and
Bioloid (robotis.com/xe/bioloid_en)
kits have impressive specifications
with sophisticated processors interfacing to, and in some cases, a dozen
servomotors and multiple sensors.
The modular nature allows the kits to
be assembled in a variety of configurations to explore a wide range of educational concepts. Typical budgetary
constraints present in the vast majority of schools limit the use of these.
l Inexpensive/single configuration robots prove far more popular in the
cost-sensitive education market but
typically have only one predominant
configuration. Although there is no
doubt that there are significant educational outcomes possible, the lack of
physical modularity tends to restrict
the type of activities possible. The Create Roomba from iRobot (spark.irobot.com) and BoeBot (parallax.com/
go/boebot) are two such examples.
Although all educational robotics
kits service a particular section of the
curriculum, the LEGO Mindstorm system is arguably the most commonly
used. It has the easiest learning curve of
all systems, hiding away complex circuits and electronics, to allow students

DECEMBER 2011

to concentrate on mechanical building
and high-level software programming.
The modular nature allows it to be
reconfigured into an almost unlimited
number of different configurations.
Hardware
The current LEGO Mindstorms system
provides a central processing unit capable of three outputs and four inputs.
Geared dc servomotors with encoders
along with touch, sound, light, and ultrasonic sensors are provided as standard
with the base kit. Additional outputs and
inputs are available for third-party vendors such as servomotor controllers and
a variety of sensors (Figure 2) (pH, accelerometer, dynamometers, color, etc.).
Software
There are several software languages
that can communicate with the Mindstorms system, and LEGO encourages
people to develop their own. However,
the official software is built on LabView
and incorporates a graphical user interface. This approach makes it intuitive to
students and can be used for students
of eight years and younger (Figure 3).
Implementation in an
Educational Setting
There are two significant approaches
used to implement robotics in an educational setting. They are discussed in
the following subsections.

http://www.kondo-robot.com/EN http://www.robotis.com/xe/bioloid_en http://www.vexrobotics.com/ http://www.bot.com http://www.parallax.com/ http://mind http://storms.lego.com http://www.fischer http://www.technik.de/en/

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - December 2011