Session S3F Participating in an International Robot Contest as a Way to Develop Professional Skills In Engineering Students Julio Pastor, Irene González, F.J Rodríguez Department of Electronics. Universidad de Alcalá; [email protected] Abstract – The article analyses the design of robots that Anyone?” project designed a robot, based on Pioneer and were developed by engineering students for a robot contest Nomad, that was qualified to serve appetizers was realized with the aim of strengthening a set of basic skills that (AAAI’s Robot Competition). [4] also organized an would be useful for the future professional lives of the experience making robots for RoboCup with students in participants. To this end, the results of a survey given to their last year of Information Engineering, Electrical the participants of the international competition Eurobot Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. In [5] a fourth 2007 are presented. Participants were asked their opinions year course at the Osaka Prefectural Collage of Technology on why they participated in the competition, what they was formed where students have to make an orchestra gained in their personal and professional lives for having consisting of robots that play musical instruments. participated as well as positive and negative aspects of the The design of mobile robots is also used in more experience. elementary teaching as an element for the integration of understanding and as a motivational tool for the students. An example of this is the work of [6] which incorporates the INTRODUCTION design of robots in the first year of study to introduce Mobile robots began to be designed in the 1970’s for big concepts that will be taught in other courses and as an budget space applications. Given the decrease in hardware introduction to engineering design. In [7] the design of prices and the increase in calculating capacity of computers robots was introduced half way through the first year in in recent years, the design of mobile robots has increased many different lab classes in the Department of electrical exponentially since the 1990’s, which has seen new uses in Engineering at the Technical University of Texas. In [8], an domestic applications (vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers, etc.) introductory course on Electrical Engineering and Computer military applications (mine detectors, inspection, etc.) Science in the first year at CMU, the characteristics of the industrial applications (transport, security, etc.) and social students, the objectives of the class, the orientation of the applications (helper robots, pets, etc.) course content and the theoretical and practical content were In recent years, the design of autonomous mobile analyzed. In [9] it is commented that De Massey and robots has been introduced for teaching at different levels. Waikato Universities in New Zealand have introduced the This has given rise to the appearance and organization of degree of Mecatronics in which projects (in first, second and robot competitions that have served to give an objective to third year) culminating in robot competitions are part of the this type of design. For example, RoboCup (initially curriculum. Another example that can be mentioned is the conceived as a robot football competition) [1] was initially European competition: Eurobot [10]. associated with a congress for investigation that centered on The design of robots has also been introduced in non- artificial intelligence and serves the purpose of the academic studies as a way of promoting an interest in development of technologies that can be used in other areas technology in a fun and interesting way. For this, there are of knowledge. specially designed competitions such as RoboCup Junior In this same line, there are many university experiences [11], FIRST [12, 13], Robo Festa [2, 9, 14], Eurobot Junior that orient the coursework of the last years of study to [10], etc. facilitate the design of a specific robot that aims to have There are also robot competitions in Spain that are optimal results in a competition. The construction of the oriented towards university students [15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, robot and the participation in the competition add an 21] and non university students alike [22, 23, 24] as well as important element of motivation for the university student. activities for young people and hobbyists [25] For example, in [2] senior and masters engineering students In the following sections, the results of a survey taken (Mechanical, Electrical, Management and Software) by engineering students who participated in the finals of the participated in two tests which centered on the design of a international competition Eurobot 2007 will be presented robotic football team to compete in RoboCup. In [3], an [10]. The objective of the study intends to demonstrate that experience where students from the “Hors d’Oeuvres, the participation in robot competitions can be used as a way 978-1-4244-1970-8/08/$25.00 ©2008 IEEE October 22 – 25, 2008, Saratoga Springs, NY 38th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference S3F-9 Session S3F of improving personal skills that are useful in the future are organized by the University of Alcalá in the competition: professional lives of the students. To these ends, the Alcabot-Hispabot [15, 16]. following sections will introduce the most significant aspects In each edition of Eurobot, a specific challenge takes of robot design as an educational tool and the peculiarities of place. The challenge for 2007 was called “Recycle Rally” the Eurobot competition. [27] (Fig.1). In this challenge, two robots faced each other in a field of play with the mission of classifying plastic bottles, THE PARTICIPATION IN ROBOT COMPETITIONS AS AN soda cans and batteries and placing them into their EDUCATIONAL TOOL respective containers. The robots therefore had to be able to The design of autonomous mobile robots has certain search for the ‘waste’, identify it, transport it, find the characteristics that make it especially interesting. A robot is correct container and place it inside. made up of different subsystems and each one stems form a In the 2007 Eurobot final, which took place in La Ferté- different area of engineering: sensor system that captures Bernard (France), 50 teams from 22 countries and 330 environmental information (transducers and signal students (the majority from university) were involved. The adaptation electronics), locomotion system (motors for countries that competed in Eurobot were: Algeria, Austria, movement and its electronic drivers), mechanical structure Belgium, Canada, Greece, Denmark, France, Germany, (mechanical design and manufacture of pieces), electronic Hungary, Italy, Norway, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, control subsystem (embedded computer that executes the Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Tunisia and the United control program), a low level algorithm (control program Kingdom. that takes care of velocity control of the motors and movement commands to the different moving parts of the robot) and a high level algorithm (that takes care of the robot’s intelligence, planning of behavior, the generation of routes, actions etc.). Communications, remote control, power system (with batteries) etc. can also be added to the list. Each of these subsystems forms an area of engineering knowledge in itself, and is reflected deeply in coursework for Electronic Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Telecommunications and computer Science among others. In addition, the process of constructing robots in order to participate in a competition encourages group work, promoting the formation of teams among students and the development of communication and organizational skills FIGURE 1. such as time management and work under pressure. At the PLAYING FIELD FOR THE “RECYCLE RALLY” CHALLENGE, EUROBOT 2007. same time, students learn how to deal not only with how to solve a problem but how to deduce how their opponents SURVEY OF EUROBOT 2007 PARTICIPANTS might solve the same problem. This serves to increase intellectual maturity as well as the capacity to deal with new During the 2007 Eurobot final that took place in France, the situations and adversaries [26]. participants were given a survey on their opinions of the event. The survey was structured in two blocks or levels of THE COMPETITION OF AUTONOMOUS MOBILE ROBOTS analysis. Of all the teams that participated in Eurobot 2007, 63 valid surveys were obtained from 21 teams from 13 EUROBOT different countries. This represented 62% of the countries Eurobot [10] is an international competition of that participated and representatives of 42% of the teams that autonomous robots that is put together for European and non participated in the competition. European engineering students alike, although the The main objective, that is to say the first block of the competition always takes place in a European country. survey, tries to find out which skills and abilities were When compared to other international competitions, Eurobot developed during the process of making the robot for [1] is characterized by the presentation of a new challenge Eurobot. The set of skills that were taken as a reference and and the changing of the rules each year. In addition, the shown in the formulation of the questionnaire for the post challenges are relatively complex, requiring strong analysis of the survey were selected from the European teamwork in order to achieve good results. project: Tuning [28]. In relation to the questions asked to the In the international final, there is a maximum of three participants about the skills: the study was looking, in part, robots per country. In most cases, these participants are to detect participants who considered those skills more chosen beforehand in local competitions in each country in relevant and useful to their professional future on one hand order to select the three robots that will compete in Eurobot. and to detect whether the experience of making robots for In Spain, the trials that select the three best Spanish robots Eurobot had contributed to the development of these skills on the other.