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Introduction for Freshmen to Embedded Systems Using LEGO Mindstorms

Introduction for Freshmen to Embedded Systems Using LEGO Mindstorms. Presenter : Wu, Jia-Hao Authors : Seung Han Kim , Jae Wook Jeon. 國立雲林科技大學 National Yunlin University of Science and Technology. IEEE Transactions On Education (2009). Outline. Motivation Objective Why to use the LEGO

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Introduction for Freshmen to Embedded Systems Using LEGO Mindstorms

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  1. Introduction for Freshmen to Embedded Systems Using LEGO Mindstorms Presenter : Wu, Jia-Hao Authors : Seung Han Kim , Jae Wook Jeon 國立雲林科技大學National Yunlin University of Science and Technology IEEE Transactions On Education (2009)

  2. Outline • Motivation • Objective • Why to use the LEGO • Course Design • Student Response • Conclusion • Personal Comments

  3. Motivation • Typical examples of embedded systems include mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), game consoles, digital cameras. • Embedded systems like mobile phones are rapidly becoming core technology nowadays and the need for engineers with knowledge.

  4. Objective • Engineers’ early education in embedded systems is important and institutions are beginning to recognize this. • The embedded systems has broad knowledge across multiple disciplines , most embedded systems courses have been offered to seniors or graduates. • The authors designed a course that can be used to introduce freshmen to embedded systems using LEGO mindstorms.

  5. Why to use the LEGO • Students can build an embedded system without having the comprehensive knowledge required to design embedded systems. • Students can tackle real-world problems. Widely known competitions using robots such as the sumo robot and maze robot. • Students can realize the characteristics and constraints of embedded systems like they have to consider not only the software, but also the hardware and mechanical design.

  6. Course Design • There has 80 undergraduate freshmen attend this course. • The authors use three homework assignments , three projects , one final examination to teach student.

  7. Course Design-First homework • Flip • The first program allows the students to understand the execution time of the processor , and second program let students to understand the effect of the environment on the robot.

  8. Course Design-Second homework • Guardbot • The students realized that this hardware limitation could be circumvented by software and use the switch~case statements in ANSI-C to select one of the five options using two touch sensors.

  9. Course Design-Third homework • Artbot • The issue that the students needed to be concerned about was the ability to draw the curves smoothly.

  10. Course Design-First Project • Maze Robot • Students began to realize the importance of hardware when many of their robots failed to escape the maze because their bumpers stuck to the wall of the maze.

  11. Course Design-Second Project • Scanner • The second project was to design a scanner that can reproduce a black and white image for a given picture , so the robot required that the scanner print and read at the same time. • The important factor in this project was the communication between the two RCXs and the motions of the input RCX and the output RCX should be synchronized.

  12. Course Design-Third Project • Sumo Robot • This project was the first given with strict restrictions on size and weight of the robot they had to build (The sumo robot of each team had to fit into a 16 cm * 16 cm square , without any height limitation, and its weight had to be less than 1.5 Kg).

  13. Student Response • After the course , 63% said LEGO Mindstorms were an efficient tool to learn about embedded systems. • 87% knew nothing about embedded systems before taking this course. By the end of this course, 45% of the students said they understood the concept of embedded systems. • The final examination use some questions about definitions of embedded system , and the average score of the students for the examination was about 56%.

  14. Conclusion • Student can design a unique system for each applications like sumo , maze. • LEGO Mindstorms seemed more like simple toys but proved to be an efficient system to teach the students about embedded systems. • Through this course, students learned the main characteristics of embedded systems and also improved their programming skills.

  15. Comments • Advantage • Very Interesting Research on Education and a novel course design of embedded system. • Maybe we can use some online games such as Age Of Empires to introduce management resource course. • Drawback • … • Application • Computer-assisted education • Computerize Course design

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