A modular and extendable robotics platform for education

This paper presents a robotics platform designed as a educational tool for teaching middle school, high school, and college students. The robotics system is built upon various existing technologies, including a Vex Robotics kit, a Bluetooth modem, and a Nintendo Wii remote. The system can be used to introduce a wide variety of computer science and engineering concepts, while promoting a high level of enthusiasm among students. The modular system components allow students to replicate, improve, and experiment with individual parts of the system in both research-oriented and lecture-based environments. We present the details of our system, as well as our observations from using the system in an ongoing high school robotics club.