Remote robotics laboratory as support to teaching programming

Abstract

This paper presents the development of a Robotics and Programming Laboratory with the support of Multiagent Systems (MAS) to help users learn programming skills using robots. The developed laboratory is available in a Learning Management System (LMS) allowing people from geographically distant locations to gain experience with experiments of this nature. The choice of Robotics Education (RE) as object of scientific experimentation linked to teaching and learning systems has shown to bring significant improvement in the learning process. The system makes available on the Internet a space where it is possible to practice programming using Lego Mindstorms robots in the Python programming language. The system suggests several challenges based on the score and profile of users. Its features were tested with promising results, where users have felt very interested and motivated to continue learning programming and robotics. The work developed presents advances over remote robotics laboratories found in the literature, since it allows the robots to be remotely programmed through the programming language NXT-Python, and not only by using command arrows.