Educational robotics in a systems design masters program

We present the concepts of our MoRob (modular educational robotic toolbox) project, which aims to provide a robot platform for university teaching and research. Characteristics are scalability, modularity, flexibility and ease of use. Within the context of this project, robots are used in student projects. Lego Mindstorms has been successfully applied at an introductory level, and insights from this are incorporated into a new masters degree in systems design, using other, higher-level platforms. With these, MSc. students will have the tools to tackle design tasks which are much more complex and sophisticated than the tasks that can be achieved with Lego. This also implies that, applying our concepts, a much broader range of engineering concepts can be taught. Our new system will be applicable as a vehicle for experimentation in a variety of courses. Therefore, a standardized teaching environment will emerge which will be easy to use in different applications.