A new programming interface for educational robotics

Abstract

Educational Robotics uses robots as a tool for teaching a variety of subjects other than specifically robotics in undergraduate curricula. To achieve this goal is vital to have an adequate interface that allows inexperienced students to interact with robots in an easy manner. In this paper we present the current development of ERBPI (Easy Robot Behaviour Programming Interface), a new application that doesn't require any previous programming experience to control robots. To accomplish this, we propose to abandon the imperative programming paradigm and take a behaviour-based approach. Thus, the new application is based on the connectionist paradigm, accomplishing behaviours by establishing configurable connections between sensors and actuators. Moreover, different defined behaviours can be connected using a subsumption architecture. The new application is designed to work with different robots and simulators, and it is simple for adding new ones. Learning experiences with high school students allowed us to test its effectiveness. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.