LEGO Mindstorms Kit Research Articles

Exploring the Executable SysML Capabilities to Integrate and Operate Hardware in the Loop

AbstractThese days, systems engineers use advanced software tools and standardized modeling methods to break down complex systems into simpler, less complicated parts that are easier to understand. This includes CATIA Magic that allows for systems architecture, as well as more in‐depth Systems Modeling Language (SysML) modeling and simulation. The goal of this paper is to explore the capabilities of SysML to model and control hardware in the loop (HIL). The model of a weapon system was created using several different diagrams commonly used in SysML. When these diagrams are used together with the CATIA Magic simulation toolkit (Magic Model Analyzer), they can be made executable and used for simulation purposes. While CATIA Magic was selected to provide a digital model of the weapon system, a LEGO Mindstorms EV3 development kit was selected to create a mockup of a physical system. The CATIA Magic model reacts to the inputs received from the LEGO sensors and sends control signals to motors built into the LEGO model. In general, the integration between the LEGO Mindstorms and CATIA Magic can be done successfully, however, this study revealed certain limitations pertinent to the current capability of CATIA Magic to make connections between the SysML model and LEGO hardware. While these limitations did not allow for a full integration and in‐depth testing of the created dynamic model, as intended, the paper presents the current state of the project discussing what is involved in integrating CATIA Magic and LEGO Mindstorms kits and what functionality could be achieved by doing this. The paper pursues both the educational aspect that allows a deeper exploration of the modern system modeling tools, and the practical aspect, showing how a SysML model can be integrated with HIL to provide opportunities to better understand the design space at earlier stages of system development.

Didactic Options and Experience with 3D Printing Technology and LEGO Mindstorms Kits

The article discusses didactic possibilities and experiences with the use of 3d printing technology and Lego Mindstorms. 3d printing we use to teach computer graphics. It is essential that the teacher has a knowledge of how technology works and how it can implement it into teaching. The same is true of the Lego Mindstorms, which we use to teach programming and robotics. The article focuses on both technologies in terms of their capabilities and practical experience in teaching information subjects.

More than Playing a Toy: The Effects of Lego Mindstorms on the Students’ Perceptions about Scientists

LEGO-based learning and teaching environments, it has been revealed in studies that students working to solve problems presented to them were often unaware of how much time has passed. In this study, it was aimed to determine how Lego Mindstorms EV3 based robotics education changed the concept of what is a scientist in the minds of students. Twenty-one students from the 5th, 6th, and 7th grades participated. In the study, a single group pre-test and post-test design was applied. The “Draw a scientist test (DAST)” measurement tool was used to reveal the perceptions of scientists. In the study, a program developed for robotic education was offered to students during the robotic club hours for 4 weeks. DAST was administered to the students before and after the robotic education. The students worked in groups and participated in structured, guided, and inquiry-based learning. In the past week, students were asked to develop solutions to a socio-scientific problem using the Lego Mindstorms kit. The findings showed that the students changed their drawings using different styles in not only the scientists’ body and facial expressions but also work environments. The results show that Lego Mindstorms EV3 based robotics education played an important role in changing the perceptions of scientists in the students’ minds.

The analysis of the robotized handling of oxygen gas bottles with the help of the Petri networks

The gas bottling industry is facing a number of problems. In this paper we accomplish a study on the robotic storage of oxygen gas tanks (bottles) applicable to other gases too. To do this, we developed a prototype using the Lego Mindstorms kits and we simulated the process to study the efficiency with the Petri Networks. We chose this kit, due to its complexity, being the closest to what we needed to make small scale storage. The program the robot uses for working was done in a special programming language: Mindstorms SDK and downloaded to the controller’s memory.

A Multidisciplinary PBL Approach for Teaching Industrial Informatics and Robotics in Engineering

This paper describes the design of an industrial informatics course, following the project-based learning methodology, and reports the experience of four academic years (from 2012–13 to 2015–16). Industrial Informatics is a compulsory course taught in the third year of the B.Sc. degree in industrial electronics and automation engineering at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Spain. The course had students develop an embedded controller for a 2DoF SCARA robot that drew a specific trajectory. The robot was built with the LEGO Mindstorms kit and the controller was implemented with NXC, a C-like programming language for the NXT brick. In this activity, students became aware of their learning needs and had to work proactively, both autonomously and in teams. The course design achieved several objectives: 1) students learned the course material; 2) soft skills demanded by employers were reinforced; and 3) the material was structured into project tasks for students to perform. The article analyses two indicators: 1) qualification marks and 2) student satisfaction.

Application of LEGO Mindstorms Kits for Teaching Mechatronics Engineering

One of the major educators’ challenges is to teach the theoretical lessons with practical examples that can be taught in the classroom or teaching laboratories. The application of these examples will face a major problem for students in engineering: the difficulty of understanding and seeing how a mechatronic device works in everyday life. This requires the use of tools that enable the construction of different low cost prototypes to assist in student learning. Another challenge to educators is the need to motivate students during the lessons and to present models that students can make and develop on their own. Within this context this paper presents a pedagogic proposition based on the use of LEGO Mindstorms kits to teach practical lab activities in a mechatronics engineering course. The objective is to develop teaching methodologies with the use of these LEGO kits in order to motivate the students and also to promote a higher interdisciplinarity, by proposing projects that unify different disciplines. Thus, the paper is divided into three parts according to the educational experiences implemented in the course of mechatronics engineering at the Federal University of Uberlândia, Brazil. The first part presents the use of the kits in robotics discipline. The second part presents the use of the virtual kits in the Computer Aided Design discipline with zero-cost. The third part presents a multi-disciplinary project EDROM in mechatronics using LEGO kits.

A LEGO Mindstorms Brewster angle microscope

A Brewster Angle Microscope (BAM) built from a LEGO Mindstorms kit, additional LEGO bricks, and several standard optics components, is described. The BAM was built as part of an undergraduate senior project and was designed, calibrated, and used to image phospholipid, cholesterol, soap, and oil films on the surface of water. A BAM uses p-polarized laser light reflected off a surface at the Brewster angle, which ideally yields zero reflectivity. When a film of different refractive index is added to the surface a small amount of light is reflected, which can be imaged in a microscope camera. Films of only one molecule (approximately 1 nm) thick, a monolayer, can be observed easily in the BAM. The BAM was used in a junior-level Physical Chemistry class to observe phase transitions of a monolayer and the collapse of a monolayer deposited on the water surface in a Langmuir trough. Using a photometric calculation, students observed a change in thickness of a monolayer during a phase transition of 7 Å, which was accurate to within 1 Å of the value determined by more advanced methods. As supplementary material, we provide a detailed manual on how to build the BAM, software to control the BAM and camera, and image processing software.

Robotic Competitions: Teaching Robotics and Real-Time Programming with LEGO Mindstorms

A laboratory activity started a few years ago within a course of Foundation of Industrial Robotics for the Master Degree in Automation Engineering at the Engineering School of the University of Bologna. The goals were on one side to drive students to acquire practical knowledge on mobile robotics, on the other to teach them how to write efficient code for real time control of automatic machines and robots. The tasks assigned to the students required them to mechanically design and program autonomous robots to be used in a competition among teams. Because of its low-cost, the modularity and the possibility of building several different devices, the Lego Mindstorms Kit has been adopted. With respect to the software, the Java-based firmware LeJOS has been selected as a tool to teach how to develop structured software. The experience has being very positive both for the students and the teaching staff. Besides acquiring many technical skills, the students felt involved in practical activities, thus increasing their interest for the subject.

Real Time Evaluation of Grid Based Path Planning Algorithms: A comparative study

Path Planning algorithms are indispensable in Autonomous Navigators. Though rover may not have prior information about the environment, path planning algorithms must be robust enough to navigate it to the target. A and D are grid based Path Planning algorithms which enable to reach the target in shortest path. Cost computations are fixed in A algorithm while re- computations are done in D algorithm, whenever new obstacles are identified. A modified version of D algorithm is presented in this paper where cost re-computation is done based on certain criterion. By reducing the number of times cost re-computation occurs, Modified D aims to produce shortest path similar to D algorithm with less memory requirements and execution time. This paper also brings out the implementation of A, D and Modified D algorithms with NXT LEGO Mindstorms kit and their evaluation in real time scenario. Comparison of the above algorithms is elicited.

A Monoball Robot Based on LEGO Mindstorms [Focus on Education

The LEGO Mindstorms kit is widely used in many areas of education and research, covering a number of applications from benchtop demonstrations to postgraduate research, laboratories, and projects [1][3]. Although the kit was initially designed as a toy for children over 12 years of age, its use in university courses is increasing yearly. The kit has attracted the interest of people working in many areas, including artificial intelligence, embedded systems, control systems, robotics, and operating systems. The LEGO Mindstorms kit is inexpensive, easily reconfigurable, reprogrammable, versatile, and robust, which makes it well suited for use in teaching [4]. The LEGO

Short Online Videos to Excite and Engage Students About Control [Focus on Education

In this issue of “Focus on Education,” K.K. Leang discusses the use of online videos to engage students in control engineering, and S. Sanchez, T. Arribas, M. Gomez, and O.R. Polo describe the application of the LEGO Mindstorms kit in controlling a mobile robot that balances itself on a single spherical wheel while staying in place or moving in a desired direction.

Fuzzy control of an underactuated pendulum-driven cart system

This paper proposes a fuzzy control (FC) algorithm for a pendulum-driven cart (PDC) system. The PDC is a mechanism that represents a novel driving concept of ground mobile robot which only employs internal thrust and static friction. The control objective of the system is to drive the cart towards a desired direction by swinging the pendulum only. The proposed FC algorithm is designed based on the closed-loop control algorithm proposed in Yu et al. (2008a). Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. A prototype of the PDC system developed by using the LEGO Mindstorms kit and the ROBOLAB Software is also presented in the paper. The experimental results demonstrate that the PDC system is realisable, and the proposed FC algorithm is simple and effective.

Motor-Manipulatory Behaviours and Learning: an Observational Study

In this paper we investigated the role of motor-manipulatory behaviour in the learning modalities of thirty-five primary school children interacting with a Lego MindStorms kit. In particular, by means of an observational taxonomy of childrenâ??s behaviour, we analysed the video records of two observational sessions regarding the learning activities during the building of a small robot. Our results demonstrated that motor-manipulatory behaviours are strictly linked to cognitive processes, and that the acquisition of new knowledge can be considered as the result of a gradual experience of integration between both perceptual and manipulative behavioural routines.

Using Lego Mindstorms NXT in the classroom

The Lego Mindstorms kit has been a popular educational tool for several years. Recently, Lego introduced a vastly improved upgrade to the kit, Lego Mindstorms NXT. The NXT kits feature improved sensors, motors, and programmability. They also have a very different physical design.

"My First Humanoid Robot" An Experience worth Sharing with Freshmen and Sophomore

As the world around is becoming overwhelmed with sophisticated embedded gadgets and robots, it is indispensable to create enthusiasm among students about embedded systems and robotics in their early career. While embedded platforms are an attractive option to learn and implement new technologies, most freshmen and sophomore engineering students have not acquired sufficient skills to understand and use the complex development tools needed to program these platforms. Students need simpler and spontaneous environment to experiment with their creativity and apply basic engineering concepts. Sharing an experience of building a humanoid robot with LEGO Mindstorms NXT ®, this paper presents the LEGO Mindstorms Kit as a useful tool for freshman and sophomore students to learn robotics and embedded systems.Key Words: LEGO Mindstorms; Robotics; Embedded SystemsDOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/jie.v8i1-2.5097Journal of the Institute of Engineering Vol. 8, No. 1&2, 2010/2011Page: 64-70Uploaded Date: 19 July, 2011