Abstract—It is known that learning programming can be cumbersome. The majority of courses on programming languages utilize console-based interface. This is especially true for C language courses. The console-based problems are simply “not-engaging”. Moreover the problems itself are usually focused on a particular part of the language and do not have any interaction with the real world. Consequently, quality of education suffers from the lack of motivation. To improve educational environment and engage students into learning process we propose a methodology to mitigate and even prevent such a situation. In our methodology we follow the idea of making classes more interactive by incorporating mobile robots into the education process. However, cost of robots and their complexity often can be a factor that prevents students and/or institutions incorporating robots in education process. In this paper we describe a platform that aims to overcome these issues. Thus, in comparison to other similar projects, the advantages of our system is low implementation costs due to sensors simulation using a single camera complemented with the proposed computer vision algorithm. Moreover, robots are accessed via the network that allows students to program and test their algorithms from home.

Index Terms—learning programming, mobile robots, tele-operation

Cite: Jun Su Park and Artem Lenskiy, "Mobile Robot Platform for Improving Experience of Learning Programming Languages," Jounal of Automation and Control Engineering, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 265-269, September, 2014. doi: 10.12720/joace.2.3.265-269