Flexible controller for educational robot kit

The long term use of Parallax Boe-Bot robots in teaching has brought out some problems of the kit. To further use the robot´s hardware platform, we made some modifications of the controller unit. In the process we developed a PCB with XESS XuLA FPGA board and Bluetooth module to replace the kit´s initial controller. The Bluetooth module adds wireless programming functionality for the FPGA, which in turn is running on MicroBlaze soft-core processor. The outcome of the work is an over-the-air and in C language programmable Boe-bot robot kit. Simple tests were conducted to make sure the robot´s power consumption can stand for one session of handson exercises.