Enabling Collaborative Distance Robotics Education for Novice Programmers

Distance education has gained significance recently. However, its application to robotics education presents challenges as physical access to hardware is typically required. While educational robotics simulation platforms exist, most are limited in scope or do not facilitate remote collaboration well. This paper proposes a novel networked robotics simulator for education, where students are able to collaborate in a shared 3D virtual space their robots inhabit. The framework combines these simulated worlds with a block-based programming environment to enable distance robotics education for a wider audience. The users' programs run in a web browser on their computers and they issue commands to the virtual robots through a network protocol abstracted to simple-to-use blocks. Robots send back acknowledgements and sensor values through the same protocol. Interactive environments provide students with a more immersive educational experience, and allow for automatically evaluating student performance. In addition to sharing the virtual worlds remotely, students can also develop their programs together since the block-based environment supports both synchronous and asynchronous remote collaboration. The paper presents two scenarios showing a robotics challenge and an extension of the concept to a smart city scenario controlling traffic lights. Reduced barriers to entry for both robotics education and curriculum creation will allow for a more diverse set of students and course materials.