Several teams of engineering students from the University of Cambridge spent a day recently programming robots to negotiate an obstacle course, and then putting the devices through their paces to get from the start line to the finish. It sounds like fun and it was, but the event – the first Cambridge Student Robot Challenge – was also serious. It was intended to get across the message that the type of skills employed on the day also have relevance to the real world of professional engineering and technology.
That message was underlined by the fact that the event did not merely take place in the offices of engineering analysis software company MathWorks, but that the students also used the firm’s Matlab and Simulink products to verify the programs they wrote on the day.
The students had to develop a controller for the robot to make it visit a set of 12 locations on an arena in the shortest time possible. That required them to design a strategy, calibrate a controller and measure effectiveness through simulation and test runs on the robot itself. This process emulated typical practice in key manufacturing sectors such as the automotive and aerospace industries in its use of high-level language, desktop simulation, design iteration and teamworking.
The real-world relevance point was made at the event by Professor Jan Maciejowski, head of the information engineering division at the University of Cambridge. “The Robot Challenge is a great example of how we are working with industry to help prepare students effectively for their future careers,” he said.
“Integrating industry-standard tools and teaching skills as part of the Stem curriculum is essential. Project-based learning exercises such as this contest offer opportunities to develop skills by encouraging imagination, creativity and problem-solving in real-world situations.”
But what about the robot devices involved? At first sight, they might seem slightly out of place in such surroundings because their name is more readily associated with the world of toy plastic bricks. They were Lego Mindstorms NXT robots, a range of programmable robotic assembly kits introduced by the company in the middle of the last decade as the second generation of a product line first launched just before the millennium.
Nevertheless, the immediate word association would be wrong for several reasons, not least that word “kit”. The robots are not simply out-of-the-box units that can be switched on and let go, but a collection of sensors and add-on elements that can be fitted to a central “intelligent brick” – effectively a programmable processor – to produce machines that can tackle a variety of tasks.
Moreover, the use of the Lego robot as a real educational tool – not just as a plaything – intended to familiarise students with fundamentals of engineering is far more than just a UK or even a European phenomenon. According to Abby Fern, the approach is used in at least a third of all middle schools – those catering for students in their sixth to eighth years of full-time education – in the US. Fern is marketing director of Lego Education North America and, as with Professor Maciejowski in Cambridge, she stresses that the most fundamental aspect of the enterprise is that it brings real-world technology and experience into a teaching environment.
Among the means by which Lego ensures the reality involved is anything but virtual is the extent to which it cooperates with genuine engineering organisations in the development of the product package. A current example that Fern cites is work with Nasa to develop material derived from that organisation’s experience into the curriculum, which can be taught using the robots.
But Nasa also provides another point of contact between the worlds of Lego robotics and real engineering. It is a user of one of the LabView software packages from National Instruments – a widely used tool for the design and integration of control and measurement systems. The reason is that National Instruments is another close collaborator with Lego, and its software forms the core of the robot’s programming environment.
The degree of commonality between National Instruments’ full-scale product and the programming interface for the robots is confirmed by Ray Hsu, manager of the K-12 initiative to get the company’s products used in science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) teaching. Hsu, who is based in Austin, Texas, says that the underlying software is effectively a sub-set of the main LabView package that is entirely compatible with the full-scale product.
Nevertheless, the interface and programming routines are also “age-appropriate”, and make use of various techniques to ensure that is the case. He mentions, for example, the use of bright colours, icons and an overall emphasis on simplicity.
Speed of operation is another consideration, because an important principle is that school students must be able to complete tasks within the limits of a set lesson time. In the US that means, says Fern, that a team of two students needs to be able to configure and programme a robot to carry out a task within 45 minutes.
Interestingly, she also makes it clear that students lucky enough to have one of the robot kits at home do not necessarily gain an enormous advantage in terms of extra familiarity over those who do not. Apart from having a rechargeable battery to take account of the much greater use made of them, the educational units have a wider range of attachments, such as sensors, that make them a much more comprehensive package.
Fern also sees plenty of scope for extending the use of the devices beyond teaching youngsters some of the basics of modern engineering and technology. One area she has in mind is mathematics – more specifically, geometry.
From the second half of this year, a new third-generation robot will be available for students of all ages. The current NXT model will be superseded by the EV3, which Lego says embodies feedback from as many as 800 educators worldwide. It features a battery of sensors including infrared, ultrasonic and gyroscopic devices and a “digital workbook” that will enable students to record not just what they do but the precise sequence as well. So teachers will still be able to watch what their students do and mark them accordingly.
