SEABORG FALL CONFERENCE, 2001

  1:00 - 1:50 pm, Friday October 12, 2001
 

31) Mobile Robots in Research and Education

This session will begin with an overview of the field of autonomous, mobile robots, and discuss their role in education. There will be demonstrations of many of the robots from NMU’s Northern Evolutionary Robotics Laboratory, from walking hexapods to the new LEGO Mindstorms kit. A discussion of the skills needed to design, build, and program robots will follow.
Middle School, High School, College, General Public
Mathematics
Dr. Jeffrey Horn, Mathematics and Computer Science Department, NMU
New Science Facility 1207

Background

Types of Robots

• Pre-built
• Kits
• Custom-built (from scratch)
• LEGO Mindstorms

Local Robotics Activities

• the NERL
• Lego Mindstorms, Aspen Ridge, LCAP, Graveraet, Peter White, etc.
• RobotEd community group
  • email list server
  •  web site
  • Summer Robotics Fun Challenge (2001)
  • FIRST Lego League Competition, November 2001 (volunteers needed!)
  • contact David Buhl (dbuhl@nmu.edu), Jeffrey Horn (jhorn@nmu.edu) or Betty Grund at Aspen Ridge
• Winter 2002 NMU course, Intro to Robotics

The State-of-the-Art

•  

Types of Robots

• Industrial (factory)
• Niche applications (e.g., mine-clearing, bomb-removal, guard duty, surveillance)
• Research
• Educational
• Toy

Robot Architecture

• THE BASIC MODEL:  Environment  ->  Sensors  ->  Processor  ->  Effectors ->  Environment
  • Sensors:  infrared, contact, sonar, temperature, light, battery level, water, humidity, compass, tilt,
  • Effectors:   motors (wheels and legs), flashlight, sound,
  • Processors:
• Locomotion
  • Walking
  • Rolling
    1. Dual differential drive
    2. Ackerman steering
    3. Holonomic drive
•  

Robots in Education

• LEGO Mindstorms
• Example application of higher level mathematics:  the Holonomic drvie