Developing and Teaching Modular Robots

Abstract

This study focuses on development and teaching modular industrial robots to students from a variety of levels including high school and college. Initially, MOSS modular robotics system, a robotic toy, was chosen as the development platform. However, it was not found to be adequate for most of the industrial robot configurations, excluding the articulated robot arm. Thus, additional components were designed by two engineering students and made to be interfaced with the existing MOSS modules to accomplish configurations like selectively compliant articulated robot arm (SCARA) and cylindrical robots. The newly developed robot configurations are programmed through C programming language within the Visual Studio coding environment. MOSS robotics system was utilized due to its user-configurable modular robotic structure giving an additional dimension to the learning experience since it is a true modular robotic system. After the initial development work, a high-school workshop was conducted in collaboration with a neighboring school district led by the two engineering students who designed the modifications. The current development efforts include design of an Arduino-based modular structure and possible use of self-configuration. This paper includes the detailed sketch of the development efforts, engineering students' reflections on the development project, design and delivery of the high school workshop including high school student feedback, and possible future college level curricular designs for modular industrial robotics for industrial, mechanical, and manufacturing engineering programs. The paper is concluded with future work concepts including possible kinematics and dynamics modeling of these industrial robot configurations through simulation tools such as DELMIA or MapleSIM, along with use of machine learning for self-configuration.