Development of an Onboard Robotic Platform for Embedded Programming Education

Abstract

Robotics has been used as an attractive tool in diverse educational fields. A variety of robotic platforms have contributed to teaching practical embedded programming to engineering students at universities. However, most platforms only support content with a low level of programming skills and are unlikely to support a high level of embedded programming. This low association negatively affects students, such as incomprehension, decreased participation, dissatisfaction with course quality, etc. Therefore, this paper proposed a new robotic platform with relevant curricula to improve their effectiveness. The developed platform provided practical content used in mechatronics classes and the capability to operate a robot with a high level of embedded programming. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed platform, participants (undergraduates) examined course evaluations for educational programs based on the developed platform compared with the previous year’s class evaluation. The results showed that the proposed platform positively affects students’ intellectual ability (performance) and satisfaction in programming education.

Keywords

• robotics
• embedded programming
• engineering education
• robotic platform
• mechatronics