Lego MindStorms NXT Research Papers (original) (raw)

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- by Imoh Ukoh
- •
- Robotics, Educational Robotics, Open-source, Educational
- by Carlos Hernández-Mejía
- •
- LEGO Mindstorms, ROBOTICA, Lego MindStorms NXT

Since the ratification of the Salamanca agreement in 1994 that it is the concern of schools to seek inclusive approaches that may lead all students to academic success through differentiated strategies and adaptations or curricular and environmental interventions, whenever necessary [1] [2].
In this study we present a strategy for inclusion and knowledge consolidation based on playful learning using educational robotics (ER) projects.
Participants were two boys aged 15 and a 14 years old girl. All students attended the third cycle in Brazil, and were diagnosed with special needs, with specific learning disabilities.
Students were initially reluctant to participate in the activities but soon were captivated by the project and motivated to take part in all stages, particularly during assembly, programming and interacting with a Lego® Mindstorms® prototype, showing that ER may be significant on allowing students to learn while playing and also by promoting their inclusion on different and engaging activities.
When favouring participants relationships, use of language and concepts ER may also prove helpful for students daily life.
Keywords — Educational Robotics; Lego® Mindstorms®; Learning Disabilities; Inclusion; Playful learning.

- by Cristina Conchinha and +1
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- Inclusion, Educational Robotics, Learning Disabilities, LEGO Mindstorms

In this paper the authors summarize a set of tasks devised as part of a doctoral thesis for two teachers training workshops involving eleven teachers in a distance e-learning approach.
Data were collected by teachers enrolled in the workshops, in Portuguese and Brazilian schools with access to educational robotics sets while working with pupils with special educational needs.
The project benefitted a total of 26 students with six different special educational needs who have been asked to assemble, programme and interact with a prototype of Lego® Mindstorms® robotics.
The collected data helped confirm that educational robotics promotes learning and social inclusion through playing and project learning..
Keywords — Educational Robotic; Lego® Mindstorms®; Inclusive School; Play in education.

- by Joao Correia de Freitas and +1
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- Educational Robotics, LEGO Mindstorms, Lego MindStorms NXT, Inclusive Schools

El uso de robots inteligentes que interactúen con el entorno y ayuden en las actividades diarias se ha convertido en una realidad, pero aún faltan resolver varios problemas fundamentales en cuanto a la percepción robótica, modelado de su entorno, razonamiento automatizado, la manipulación de objetos y su locomoción. Es así como ingenieros e investigadores se han dado a la tarea de desarrollar nuevas técnicas de control, programación, y navegación, con el fin de resolver dichos problemas y construir un robot lo más completo posible para interactuar con los humanos de manera natural en un ambiente cotidiano.
Con base en estas necesidades y en la revisión realizada en la literatura del problema de estabilización de un robot dinámicamente estable en movimiento, en este proyecto se pretende abordar el tema de modelado, construcción y control de un péndulo esférico invertido, basado en el diseño del robot tipo LEGO NXT ballbot. Para llevar a cabo dicho proyecto, será necesario desarrollar el modelo dinámico del sistema, la caracterización de los sensores y actuadores a emplear, diseñar e implementar diversas leyes de control a fin de realizar una comparativa en términos de su desempeño, así como desarrollar una interfaz mediante el uso de algún paquete de programación como Labview®, Matlab-Simulink® o LeJOS NXJ.

Programmable robots like Lego Mindstorms have proven to be an effective mediator to teach computer programming to school children. Therefore several projects that aim at increasing the interest in computer programming and computer science in general use robots as a cornerstone in their course concepts. Handing out robotic kits to the school students who have participated in the courses is not feasible, thus the learning content cannot be repeated and enhanced at home.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the high school students' views on instructions based on Flipped Classroom Model (FC) and LEGO applications. The case study, which is one of the qualitative research methods, was used within the scope of the study, the duration of which was 7 weeks. In order to choose the research group of the study, one of the purposeful sampling methods, criterion sampling, was used. In this context, the study was conducted with 35 10th grade high school students from two different classes. EGA (ExperimentalGroupA) consisted of 18 students while EGB (ExperimentalGroupB) consisted of 17 students. Within the scope of the study, algorithm instruction with FC and LEGO applications was conducted on EGA and LEGO applications and algorithm instruction in classroom were conducted on EGB. In accordance with the study, processes of focus group discussions and gathering data through observation were carried out. For the analysis of the data that was gathered, content analysis was performed and NVivo 8 was used. In the end of the study, the students were observed to be having great prejudices and reported negative views in the beginning of the study. Upon the initiation of the study, the prejudices and negative opinions were observed to be replaced by positive opinions. Students mentioned a great deal of educational benefits of the study. They stated that with the study, their motivation and interest in the lesson increased thanks to the implementations. Additionally in the group work, students said that they cooperated, exchanged ideas, shared tasks, took responsibility and socialized with their friends. About FC, students gave positive feedback on the communication opportunities of the atmosphere and they stated that they could repeatedly go beyond the class hours with FC, hence came prepared and saved time. Also students stated that FC atmosphere improved opportunities for teacher-student communication.

- by Barış ÇUKURBAŞI
- •
- Robotics, Algorithms, Problem Based Learning, Problem-Based Learning

In this work a Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMIs) approach to provide robustness to an optimal control scheme for the NXT ballbot is proposed. The mathematical model of the system is obtained taking into
account the actuators dynamics and in this overall model uncertain parameters appear. These uncertainties can affect (in a negative form) the control algorithm performance, so we define a polytopic model considering some parameters vary within some bounded sets. This polytopic model is used to synthesize a robust control scheme against parameters variation using LMIs. Numerical results show a significant improvement in the closed loop system in comparison with a classic Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) control. Finally, some experimental results are presented to show the viability of implementing the control strategy proposed.

The aim of the project is to design, build, program, and test an autonomous robot that will navigate through a maze to find its way out. The robot should also be able to retrieve a ball placed into the maze. The robot must save its traveled path. This data is used later to produce a plot in MATLAB that presents this path. The robot in this project is the NXT Mindstorm Lego model, and the programming language used is MatLab.

- by Eman G Qawasmi
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- Robotics, Matlab Programming, Lego MindStorms NXT
- by Ramona Markoska
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- Robotics, Computer Science, Vision, Navigation

PSO (particle swarm optimization) is a stochastic population based computational method that optimizes the problem iteratively, trying to improve the solution particles to get better quality of the particle called target solution. In this paper, PSO algorithm is used to find the particle best position value by searching the solution space to determine the minimum distance from the obstacle. The position of each particle is updated according to the distance and velocity equation. The LEGO NXT mobile robot which is considered to be as source is placed in any position in n-dimensional environment. And there are `n' numbers of obstacle placed in the same unknown environment. Each time, a swarm of particles are moving in the same workspace to detect and ensure if an obstacle is present there or not near to gbest location. The particles move to the global best position, following the one which is at the minimum distance from the obstacle and stop at the certain range from the obstacle. The robot then moves to the located position each time iteratively, until and unless it reaches to the target solution. Based on the position of the obstacle, the objective function to find the exact minimum distance from the obstacle is calculated. Main objective of this paper is to provide an optimized algorithm based on PSO for robot to move from source to destination by avoiding all possible obstacles. Already existing standard PSO algorithm has been modified by introducing one more objective function which is used to perform the local search based on the global search depending on the calculated gbest value by using the standard PSO algorithm. Thus we introduce a modified version of PSO algorithm called MPSO which increases the efficiency of the already existing PSO algorithm.

With the advancement of technology, mobile robots are increasingly immersed in daily life, whether for to perform household tasks, explore inhospitable places or perform impossible tasks for humans. However, the control of this
type of device is not always trivial, since it is non-linear systems in most cases. Because of this, it is common to find scientific and technical work on control tools for such systems. Among these techniques, (T-S) Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy controller has been highlighted, being that one of the reasons for this is the versatility and ease of obtaining efficient control laws. However, there are few publications that have practical results of this technique. Therefore, this work proposes the application of T-S fuzzy control techniques positioning problem of a vehicle with multiple trailers in reverse movements. This case was chosen
because it is an interesting example from the point of view of existing nonlinearities and also for the development trend of increasingly intelligent vehicles. A prototype was built using LEGO Mindstorms and designed to perform real time control. States are measured with the help of a Web Cam connected to a computer. The image processing is done by ReacTVIsion framework and the data is sent to the LEGO every moment of sampling via Bluetooth. Experiments were performed in the differential vehicle with multiple trailers with variations of one, two and three trailers. Furthermore, the cabin of the traction
motor tricycle type was replaced by a differential drive by modifying the system model used in the original approach. Experimental results show that T-S fuzzy control technique is very effective and promising

- by Felipe Assis
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- LEGO Mindstorms, Feedback Control, TUIO, Takagi-Sugeno Fuzzy Control

For years, one of the main challenges for teachers of the automatic control courses at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels has been breaking the barrier between the strong mathematical content of these courses and the practice of applying such knowledge to real systems. Some students envision automatic control courses as a set of abstract mathematics, and even when they understand how to solve textbook problems, few students assimilate how to apply this knowledge to real systems or grasp the true importance of such courses in various branches of engineering [1], [2]. To try to address these issues, some researchers have exerted considerable effort to make the understanding of some advanced automatic control concepts more accessible from the mathematical point of view using graphical or tabular concepts that can be handled in any basic control course [3]?[5]. Recently, with advances in computer technology, numerical simulation tools have also been widely used to facilitate the teaching-learning process in the automatic control area [6]?[8].