Teaching Undergraduate Robotic Courses using Enhanced VEX Robots

Abstract

This paper summarizes the author's experience of teaching undergraduate robotic courses in the past ten years. The objective of the courses is to provide students with fundamental and essential knowledge in Autonomous Mobile Robots and Robotic Manipulator. Both lesson plans and projects are presented. The commercially-available VEX robotic kits, together with its extensions, are used as the robotic platform. By constructing an autonomous mobile base, students can explore topics pertaining to Autonomous Mobile Robots. By further adding a simple robotic arm on top of the mobile base, students can investigate subjects in the area of Robotic Manipulator. More advanced topics, such as vision-based control and coordinated control, were introduced to the undergraduate students as well. These advanced topics were implemented on enhanced-VEX robots. Enhancements were achieved in two aspects. Firstly, the VEX robot was integrated with Raspberry PI (plus its camera module) for onboard image processing. Secondly, the VEX robot was integrated with XBee to obtain wireless inter-vehicle communication. These added features significantly improve the functionalities of the resulting robotic system and boost students' interest in robotics.