Integration of robotic arm manipulator with computer vision in a project-based learning environment

This work-in-progress paper describes our experience in introduction of a Project-Based Learning environment in teaching of undergraduate students in the field of electrical engineering at Sogn og Fjordane University College in Norway. In the scope of this work, a robot capable of playing the tic-tac-toe game with a human and an additional laboratory exercise in robotic manipulation with computer vision has been developed. In this lab, the students integrated the robotic manipulator with computer vision in order to prepare a fully autonomous robot navigation using a prepared library that provides the functions for robot control and image processing. The project can be an interesting tool for learning some advanced topics such as robot vision, robot mechanics and autonomous robot navigation. The results show that students with strong motivation start to carry out an advanced project without any theoretical background in robotics and image processing. Another advantage is that the students can test in practice the influence of all stages of image processing on final robot navigation and understand that we may control robotic manipulators by using the vision information.