Materials for a robotics class of 30

[dtengineering]

I've been teaching robotics to grade 9-12 students for the past decade or so. I had the liberty of doing so in a fairly large and reasonably well-equipped shop, but haven't always had the funding that I wanted for our classes.

I want to be clear that from my perspective "robotics" is a means to an end. Very few of the students that I teach ever went on to careers in "robotics"... but they all needed to know how to sketch, communicate ideas, design a project within set parameters, write some simple code, understand a bit of digital I/O, work with a variety of materials and tools, and take pride in their innovation and creativity. As the course was an elective, I also wanted it to be "fun".

My initial goal was to have students build a small robot, with some autonomous capabilities that was cheap enough that they could take it home with them. I tried the Board of Education and such products, but they were all too expensive for a student to take home a finished project with them at the end of the year.

I've managed to get the cost down to under $30/robot for building mini-sumo bots with autonomous, IR remote control, and IR line following/object detection.

I do it using a PIC 16f627A (although I'm currently planning to upgrade to one with bootloader capabiltities) and PIC BASIC PRO from www.melabs.com A free alternative is Great Cow Basic from sourceforge. Check out Great Cow Graphical BASIC if you want something more like EasyC. Slap on an L293D and some sensors (say a PNA4602m IR receiver and a Sharp GP2D series object detector), plug them all in to half a breadboard mounted atop some folded aluminum and a Tamiya dual motor gearbox, turn and tap some aluminum wheels, cast up some urethane tires, and you're good to go.

I've attached a file describing the tethered mini-sumos that I (and many other teachers!) have built with grade 9/10 here in BC. You will note that there is no autonomous or anything challenging from an electrical point of view... it is all mechanical design and manufacturing. But if you put a breadboard on top, and the PIC and bits, all of a sudden it becomes a fully autonomous machine.

Now, don't get me wrong... I love the VEX kits, and have used them extensively with my students for years. I think our oldest VEX kit this year is turning five and still in good running order.... and I think FRC is totally awesome, too. (I've used Mindstorms, too, but am not so nuts about Lego due to the limited I/O and the fact that it is often perceived more as a toy than a tool.)

But the kids have to work as teams to build the VEX kits and don't get to take them home at the end of the year. Nothing wrong with that, per se, and the teamwork aspect is great. But sometimes it is nice to have something that is 100% your own work, that you can take home and keep. (Especially when you take it to your Mechatronics program entrance interview and drive it around on the interviewer's desk, as one ex-student... now with a Bachelor's in Mechatronics Engineering... did.)

So here's my contribution... a $12 tethered robot, or a $30 fully-auto robot that kids can build and take home. You don't need to buy a kit or system unless you want to.

Jason