Transcript Why to use the LEGO Students can build an

國立雲林科技大學
N.Y.U.S.T.
I. M.
National Yunlin University of Science and Technology
Introduction for Freshmen to Embedded
Systems Using LEGO Mindstorms
Presenter : Wu, Jia-Hao
Authors : Seung Han Kim , Jae Wook Jeon
IEEE Transactions On Education (2009)
Intelligent Database Systems Lab
Outline
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Motivation
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Objective
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Why to use the LEGO
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Course Design
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Student Response
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Conclusion
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Personal Comments
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Motivation
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Typical examples of embedded systems include mobile
phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), game
consoles, digital cameras.
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Embedded systems like mobile phones are rapidly
becoming core technology nowadays and the need for
engineers with knowledge.
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Objective
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Engineers’ early education in embedded systems is
important and institutions are beginning to recognize
this.
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The embedded systems has broad knowledge across
multiple disciplines , most embedded systems courses
have been offered to seniors or graduates.
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The authors designed a course that can be used to
introduce freshmen to embedded systems using LEGO
mindstorms.
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Why to use the LEGO
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Students can build an embedded system without having
the comprehensive knowledge required to design
embedded systems.
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Students can tackle real-world problems. Widely known
competitions using robots such as the sumo robot and
maze robot.
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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.
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Course Design
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There has 80 undergraduate freshmen attend this course.
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The authors use three homework assignments , three
projects , one final examination to teach student.
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Course Design-First homework
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Flip
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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.
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Course Design-Second homework
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Guardbot
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The students realized that this hardware limitation could be
circumvented by software and use the switch~case statements in ANSIC to select one of the five options using two touch sensors.
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Course Design-Third homework
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Artbot
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The issue that the students needed to be concerned about was the ability
to draw the curves smoothly.
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Course Design-First Project
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Maze Robot
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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.
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Course Design-Second Project
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Scanner
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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.
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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.
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Course Design-Third Project
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Sumo Robot
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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).
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Student Response
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After the course , 63% said LEGO Mindstorms were an
efficient tool to learn about embedded systems.
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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.
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The final examination use some questions about definitions
of embedded system , and the average score of the students
for the examination was about 56%.
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Conclusion
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Student can design a unique system for each applications
like sumo , maze.
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LEGO Mindstorms seemed more like simple toys but
proved to be an efficient system to teach the students about
embedded systems.
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Through this course, students learned the main
characteristics of embedded systems and also improved
their programming skills.
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Comments
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Advantage
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Very Interesting Research on Education and a novel course design of
embedded system.
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Maybe we can use some online games such as Age Of Empires to
introduce management resource course.
Drawback
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Application
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Computer-assisted education
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Computerize Course design
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