"user manual"
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1. 3 light sensors per NXT Alternatively the lesson can be hold with groups of 2 students per robot Presentations link to Line follower presentation Papers link to Spreadsheet to record the lap times real world application of the line following robots 6 Proceeding Description of how the lesson is carried out The instructor may start with a brief introduction to the theory of line following and eventually a review of NXT G programming The students shall build their line following robot themselves In case they start from scratch the manual for building the basic NXT model is helpful Students shall be encouraged to think about different ways to mount the sensors and to build their individual model Discuss mechanical parameters for mounting the sensors distance between the sensors clearance from the floor distance from drive wheels etc Before starting to program the robot the students shall provide a flow diagram which may be reviewed by the instructor Start programming the robots and test using the test pad Good practice is testing the correct function of the robot by placing it on top of a support box the wheels can move freely the table continues below unlimited the motors will speed up and then the program will carry out the next command If this is the end of the program the motors will2. while the second utilizes Sbot educational robotics platform 9 and used in the exercises of an introductory college course on robotics For better readability the information is presented in tables In Centrobot portal the information is shown in a structured format and viewed in a webbrowser EXAMPLE ROBTIVITIES A Line Following NXT Robot Organizational Parameters Cube Coordinates Technology LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT and NXT G Domain Introduction to Robotics Simple applications Level Lower secondary school Beginners No technical skills required Version 1 1 Language English Author s Walter Hammerl Didactical Information Content Building and programming a robot which is able to follow a black line Required NXT G basics knowledge Time Preparation by instructor 1 hour consumption Theory lesson 30 minutes Practical session 2 units 50 minutes each Postprocessing 30 minutes Paths lt Introduction to NXT G gt Passing a maze with NXT gt Spatial orientation Implementation Course preparation Environment Classroom with enough space to layout the line follower course Equipment required Ipes LEGO Mindstorms NXT per student bright plane with a closed black line e g LEGO test pad 8547 sheet of paper with a black line 2 3cm stopwatch to compare the individual performance 1 PC with NXT G Software 2 0 per student
3. in the search form ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Project Centrobot ATMOS N_00023 is supported within the Slovak Austrian cross border cooperation programme 2007 2013 Creating the Future financed by the EU European Regional Development Fund REFERENCES 1 T Kraft A Hofmann Vienna Cubes Robocup F180 Small Size Legue Team OGAI Journal 03 2003 Osterreichische Gesellschaft fiir Artificial Intelligence pp 14 19 2003 2 J Rajni ek Portal of educational robotics for the Centrobot project bachelor thesis FMFI UK Bratislava 2010 in Slovak 3 R Balogh Basic Activities with the Boe Bot Mobile Robot DidInfo 2008 14 International Conference FPV UMB 2008 4 P Petrovi R Balogh A L ny R Weiss Using Robotnacka in Research and Education Eurologo 2007 Conference FMFI UK 2007 5 P Petrovi A L ny R Balogh D Durina Remotely Accessible Robotics Laoboratory Acta Mechanica Slovaca Vol 10 2 A pp 389 194 2006 6 J Svetlik M Sukop Robocar mobiln robotick vozikovy syst m Acta Mechanica Slovaca vol 12 no 2 a pp 617 624 2008 7 N Z Zakas Professional JavaScript for Web Developers Wiley 2009 8 B Burd JSP JavaServer Pages M amp T Books 2001 9 Gu tafik David and Kras ansk Pavol Robot SBot 2 0 Student scientific conference FEI STU 2008 in Slovak
4. stop The simplest way to is to put the MOVE block within a LOOP block set to control forever See also the presentation material continues from above knowledge fomula basic operation of Sbot robot without floor contact and a piece of black De Picparanon by instru tor ne consumption Theory lesson 90 minutes and white paper Record the time the robot pone f f Practical session 90 minutes needs to complete a given number of laps Postorocessino 30minutes Encourage the students to modify and p 8 improve the algorithm Paths lt Introduction to SBot R gt Sbot localization Implementation Sample 3D model of the robot example of code Paplemeutrion solution linefoloower rbt pictures myrobot jpg Course preparation Multimedia Video linefollower avi Environment Laboatory with a small arena and rectangular obstacles Technical parameters Equipment lpcs Sbot per group Consitucnon material required flat surface and obstacles of various shapes How to build main function Simple robot with 2 degrees a PC with AVRStudio development the robot for of freedom special requirements 3 light environment and BlueTooth connection ESCs eee Presentations link to presentation Introduction to Description of Easy start model Line sensors Bayesian Robot Programming components LEGO Mindstorms user manual Papen linket6 a journal paper om BRE Support link to detailed instruction source report FAQ Proceeding Q
5. the Maintenance_Servlet module processes the admin s requests and calls the Java package of the Maintenance_Manager module to perform the server side admin s functionality Both manager modules utilize the Hibernate framework module a database interface VII We have designed and specified a detailed concept for educational robotics web portal containing set of various robtivities i e projects and activities for classrooms and or after school clubs and centers A prototype of the portal has been implemented and deployed at http portal centrobot eu also available through Centrobot project Initially it collects robtivities from our geographical locations in Austria and Slovakia It is open for a new content provided by third parties CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK Our aim is to run ensure a longterm operation of the portal convert all the materials we collected and created in the past so that they will be available for general public This involves fixing debuging and improving the functionality staying in contact with the content authors collecting and processing their feedback For instance we would like to add a possibility to create on line questionnaires or simple quizzes that could be filled in by the students and automatically evaluated by the system based on the data provided by the teacher The current search capabilities could be extended to provide an advanced and intelligent search options and automatic filling of terms
6. Centrobot Portal for Robotics Educational Course Material Richard Balogh Adrian Dabrowski Walter Hammerl Alexander Hofmann Pavel Petrovi Jan Rajni ek Institute of Control and Industrial Informatics Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology Slovak University of Technology Ilkovi ova 3 81219 Bratislava Slovakia richard balogh stuba sk Hohere Technische Bundeslehr und Versuchsanstalt Spengergasse Spengergasse 20 1050 Wien adrian atrox at hammerl spengergasse at Department of Computer Science University of Applied Sciences Technikum Wien H chstadtplatz 5 1200 Wien alexander hofmann technikum wien at Department of Applied Informatics Faculty of Mathematics Physics and Informatics Comenius University Mlynsk dolina 842 48 Bratislava Slovakia ppetrovic acm org jan rajnicek st fmph uniba sk Abstract This paper describes a prototype built as part of the Centrobot project We present a web application intended for sharing robotics educational material The system will allow browsing and editing a large set of projects which we call robtivities robotic activities The aim of the portal is to supply information robotivities and metadata which can be used by teachers or pupils to educate and to learn It will be the place where users can discuss and improve their skills find useful material and educational procedures http portal centrobot eu Keywords robotics education porta
7. ating it in each and every one robtivity sharing that coordinate The shared materials are then directly available when viewing any of the relevant robtivities The purpose of the classification of robtivities into the cubes is to allow for a possibility of systemmatic browsing A teacher planning to setup a course may want to acquire an overview of the availability of the various robtivities relevant for his course before dwelling more deeply into details of the planning and the implementation phases In order to support this scenario all robtivities must also contain the basic information we describe below HI Rostiviries A robtivity footprint in our system consists of different information that can be valuable to the teachers when planning for their course browsing the portal and selecting a robtivity For lucidity and better comprehension this meta information is arranged in a standardized structure with five main categories Organizational Parameters Implementation Technical Parameters Support and Resources Registered users have the option to download all material of one robtivity for off line use in one archive The cube coordinates and didactical information are compulsory parts the remaining elements are optional but it is highly recommended that they are filled in A Organizational Parameters The parameters describe the first pieces a user needs to learn when assesing whether a particular robtivity is suitable for th
8. eir aims Cube coordinates Technology e g LEGO Mindstorms NXT and NXC programming language Domain e g Mathematics Number Theory Fractions Level e g Lower Secondary Introductory Level No Previous Technical Skills In addition to the three main coordinates the robotivity also has its Language e g English optional pointers to other language variations Version e g 1 0 and Author s who developed it and who are responsible for the entry Didactical Information Content a short description of the course content and targets Required knowledge a general or special knowledge required by students or instructor Time consumption for each of the activities preparation by instructor theory lesson practical session postprocessing Related Robtivities lists other relevant robtivities Robtivities with preparational content Robtivities with similar content Robtivities with advanced content B Implementation If a robtivity appears suitable a more detailed examination is needed to learn whether it can be implemented in the prospective lesson or course Course preparation Environment e g classroom lab mountain side Equipment required hardware how to source supplier links measurement equipment software development environment Presentations material used for explaining the course content aim theory to students format PDF PPT optionally o
9. ers who can then rank the robtivity by assigning certain number of stars add feedback in form of forum comments or questions upload their sample solutions and resources or send message to the authors The authors can further edit their robtivity add change or delete the content as appropriate answer forum questions appoint other authors who can continue maintaining the robtivity Administrator always has the rights to remove inappropriate content delete the whole robtivity or deny access of some author if needed In normal circumstances the administator will first contact the author to perform the changes If all authors do not respond for very long period of time and the information in some robtivity becomes obsolete the administrator may choose to add a new author who will continue maintaining the content Eventually outdated robtivities can be marked as outdated or possibly removed from the site The system performs a system log of all operations that are performed in the system for both debugging tracking and maintenance reasons The log is saved into database and can be viewed by the admin The system is designed to work in multiple languages English German and Slovak versions are available other can be added when needed VI In this section we provide two example robtivities as they are published in the Centrobot portal and verified in the classroom The first one is using the popular NXT construction sets
10. essible only to authorized teachers authorized teacher who can create new robtivities edit the robtivities he authored and administer the content contributed by others to these robtivities authorization is also required for downloading a cube or a robtivity for off line use and for uploading media solutions and resources authorized student who have the same priviledges as unauthorized student with the exception of viewing the page that was created for his her class or course by his her teacher administrator who can perform site maintenance moderate all discussions and edit or delete content A Anonymous user searching for useful content e select coordinates alternatively select keywords e view the resulting list of robtivities e display the robtivity details one by one e view individual documents pictures videos efind one robtivity that is the most suitable copy the robtivity URL for use in her course B Teacher preparing a course based on several robtivities e create a teacher account or login to an existing one e be confirmed by another teacher or admin if needed ecreate a virtual classroom an account for student authorization esearch for robtivities and add them to the virtual classroom e provide the student account name to the student in her class e teachers can create copies of their virtual classrooms for repetitive use in multiple classes ein each virtual classroom the teacher can view t
11. he solutions submitted by the students C Teacher adding a new robotivity e login to the system or create a teacher account if new e selects the most suitable cube and eventually adjust the categories along one or more axes e add a new robtivity upload all relevant files provide the obligatory and optional parameters e can take a break and come back later to complete ecan add more authors who can edit all the robtivity content e when the robtivity editing is finished the author marks it as published D A student works with a specific robtivity elogs into the virtual classroom as instructed by the teacher earrives at a list of preselected robtivities commentary prepared by the teacher e can browse the whole site if appropriate e may upload his results for later inspection by the teacher and a E Admin performs the site maintenance e logs into the system ecan run broken links detection view their list and respective pages correct the links manually e can configure the system backup and recovery ecan administer accounts forums edit or delete or robtivities e can send an information e mail to authors V Rostivity Lire CYCLE AND System MAINTENANCE Robtivities are prepared by one or several authorized teachers during a period of time when no other users may access them Once the robtivity is completed one of the authors may mark it as published and it becomes part available at the portal for all the us
12. ing in a robot with a probabilistic model of the world The robot will learn simple behaviors of pushing and following objects Support FAQ Question If the robot is connected to a port gt COM8 the terminal program cannot connect Answer This is because the serial ports from COM9 in Windows do not exist Instead Microsoft invented the names COMXX such as COM42 Some programs require this format for ports higher than COM8 Required Theoretical framework of BRP Bayes VII PROTOTYPE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION Our prototype has been specified and designed by the partners participating in the Centrobot project and the first version was implemented by a bachelor student at FMFI UK in Bratislava J n Rajn ek 2 Detailed use case sequence and class diagrams specified in UML can be found there or in the Centrobot internal technical documentation A Technology Our prototype is platform independent but it runs on a Linux server machine with Apache MySQL and Tomcat server installed It is based on JSP and Java servlets 7 XSL FO XML and MySQL with Hibernate framwork and PHP for forums on the server side and HTML CSS and JavaScript AJAX 8 on the client side It relies on third party components Log4j for logging and TinyMC for WYSIWYG editing The backup is realized with crontab and bash shell scripts This setup allows for interactive graphical user interface in web browse
13. l robotics projects I INTRODUCTION The amount of experience collected in various applications of robotics technology in education in our and other groups has reached a critical mass e g 1 3 4 5 However results from pilot studies didactic materials lesson plans laboratory exercises instruction sheets manuals simple and complex student projects ideas for activities links to suitable contests and other activities need to be easily accessible by the educators Otherwise the construction sets and educational robotic kits purchased leased or borrowed by individual educational institutions are likely to finish locked up in a cabinet Consequently they would never be used properly and efficiently To support this argument let us compare the number of schools that obtained the robotics sets LEGO Mindstorms Robotics Invention System in Slovakia through the governmental project Infovek from the year 2000 with the number of teams participating in robotics competitions RoboCup Junior and or FIRST LEGO League More than 120 elementary and secondary schools received the sets However only about 15 of them 18 participated in the competitions All of the schools were invited but more than half of them is not using the sets and does not respond to letters and e mails from the sets distributor The reason is obvious Even though the sets are a wonderful tool for interdisciplinary constructionist learning there has been a lack of didac
14. o o e I 1 f U j Vv 1 D 1 e g 1 LEGO 1 A Mindstorms 1 1 1 Boe Bot Physics X _ Environmental Robosapien T Electronics Robotnacka gt level t Primary Secondary University Figure 1 The Centrobot cube concept I A GeneraL IDEA The Centrobot Robotics Educational Course Material Portal is a website for browsing publishing editing and deployment of robotics educational material It consists of individual units that we call robtivities These are all kinds of activities lesson plans projects quizzes contests etc Robtivities are classified along the three main axes level technology and domain A particular location described by the three coordinates along these axes typically contains several robtivities We call such location a cube see Fig 1 One robtivity can exist in multiple cubes By Zevel we mean the age of the robtivity audience Level spans from the preschool education kindergardens up to age 7 through elementary schools 8 10 lower and upper secondary schools 10 14 15 18 and colleges gt 18 Furthermore the respective levels are structured further shaping groups of beginners intermediate and advanced learners depending a on their level of knowledge and b their level of expertese with particular technology By technology we mean a classification of the various technological robotics hardware and software platforms used in the school
15. r without being bound to the traditional request response HTTP model i e the scripts running on the client side are in a permanent communication with the server side scripts and database without the need to reload the pages B Design The system architecture diagram is shown in figure 2 Slient Side Server Side Application_Servlet Figure 2 Architecture of the portal The system consists of 9 modules and a database The Application module is a webpage with scripts running on the client allowing the users to login or create their account and edit the profile create show search or rank robtivities access the robtivity forum download cubes upload content setup login view and delete virtual classrooms and log all activity EditRobtivity module is based on TinyMCE and allows editing the various contents of the robtivities Links to the files that were uploaded can be added to the text Maintenance module accessible only to admiinistrator provides all admin functionality as described above The last module that runs on the client side is the Ajax_Service module which mediates the communication with all server modules using the standard XMLHttpRequest object The server side resembles this structure Application_Servlet module processes the requests from Application and passes them further to Java package Application_Manager module while
16. s For instance LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT sets is one of the hw platforms yet it can be used in connection with many different software platforms such as RoboLab NXT G NXC Java Lejos NXT logo etc Other hw platforms may include Parallax BoeBot our prototyping platforms Sbot 9 and Robotnacka 4 robots Bee bot Probot Roamer MaVIN Asuro Aldebaran Nao or RoboNova for instance Other sw platforms may include Basic Stamp AVR Studio Imagine Logo Spin Microsoft Robotics Studio and many other By domain we mean the application area school subject or field of study Examples are physics mathematics introduction to programming mechanical engineering or artificial intelligence at the coarse level At several levels of higher detail the robtivities can be classified into particular subfields such as constructive geometry frequency and period mechanical wave motion acceleration search heuristics localization etc For each robtivity the specific coordinates along the three axes form its main classification However each robtivity can be assigned a set of general keywords in addition The keywords can be arranged in hierarchies Moreover a general purpose material is typically relevant for all robtivities that share the same coordinate along some axis battery charging procedure Java language manual etc Such shared materials may be placed to the container associated with the specific axis category instead of replic
17. ther formats such as DOC ODT Papers any material used by students during the course to reach the targets forms to be filled in etc Proceeding Description of how the lesson is carried out how many stu dents is it a team work or individual work how to setup and start how and what is to be observed measured reported questions that are to be answered Sample solution examples of hardware description ex amples of code pictures Multimedia artifacts Audio Video Images in standard ized formats C Technical parameters Robotics involves a complex technology and thus in addition to organizational and proceeding didactical information robtivities provide a special place for non didactical technical information that are or may be needed for successful deployment of the robtivity Construction manual A general explanation of how to build the robot for this course what is its main function degrees of freedom special requirements modes of operation Description of components All components that the users need to manipulate e g sensors microcontroller power supply software environment For each relevant component its user interface interconnection parameters and all technical details can be documented D Support Forum for discussions Simple forum for exchange of experience interesting observations during the lesson problems and typical solutions input to FAQs etc The authors are au
18. tic materials and those existing have not been sufficiently accessible The producer of the sets has made a pensum of projects and materials available many of them are contributions of the community especially in the most recent period However a large amount of material and activities is created by other third parties and particularly by the teachers Material is produced in local languages and tailored for the needs learning style and common sense of the pupils and teachers from the specific region Most authors harness the potential of the modern media especially the Internet and they use the local websites or general purpose publishing sites to make their achievements available The missing piece is the integration of these resources into one accessible location where the resources would be classified structurally and topically arranged and provided in a standardized understandable and easy to use format Centrobot portal aims to provide this missing piece At the first place it is focused on collecting the materials from our geographical area Austria and Slovakia However the portal is open and all parties interested to share are invited and welcome In the following sections we will describe the functionality provided by the Centrobot portal explain its structure and the whole concept We have also implemented and describe a prototype that provides most of the intended functionality A cube gt D
19. tomatically notified by e mail when new questions appear Contact Allows sending a direct e mail message to the authors FAQ Is a list of typical questions and answers that is maintained by the robtivity authors Rating and Feedback A simple schema for grading the robtivities The users who downloaded the robtivity as a single package and those who selected it for their course are notified to provide rating and feedback after one week E Resources Robtivity resources This section lists all referred publications links and all other resources that are important or useful for the robtivity General resources Information that is useful for all robtivities that share the same technology level or domain i e user and programming guides general didactical methodology scientific resources handbooks textbooks encyclopedia and other They appear in this section based on the robtivity coordinate classification automatically Users may add new items and specify the respective scope of relevance for each item IV Typicat Use Scenarios This section demonstrates selected most typical use sequences of actions when working with the portal Let us first explain the user types the system supports guest usually an unauthorized teacher student or another visitor who can view almost all the published content search browse and participate in forum discussions the only exception is viewing the sample solutions which are acc
20. uestion When I program the motors to move with Description of Students first control the robot remotely for a unlimited duration they stop after a few how the short period of time The program samples seconds What shall I do lesson is the sensors and builds a probabilistic Answer The program will set the motor operation to carried out representation of the behavior policy When the robot runs in autonomous mode after the learning session it should successfully push the obstacles Students repeat the experiment with following the obstacle walls Students modify the code based on instructions and observe measure document the outcome Implementatio n Proceeding cont B Bayesian R obot Programmiing with Sbot Multimedia Video sbot_brp avi Organizational Parameters Technical parameters Cube Coordinates Construction material How to build the robot for this course The robot is already built Students only have to make sure the distance sensors are properly mounted and connected The robot schematic and software framework is described in the user manual link Technology Sbot and AVRStudio Domain Artificial Intelligence Bayesian Robot Programming Level College Intermediate students Intermediate Sbot users Version 1 0 Language English Author s Pavel Petrovi Didactical Information Content The students will study learn
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