Simulating LEGO mindstorms robots to facilitate teaching computer programming to school students

Authors:
Torsten Kammer;Philipp Brauner;Thiemo Leonhardt;Ulrik Schroeder
Affiliations:
RWTH Aachen University, Lehr- und Forschungsgebiet Informatik 9, Aachen, Germany;RWTH Aachen University, Human Technology Centre, Aachen;RWTH Aachen University, Lehr- und Forschungsgebiet Informatik 9, Aachen, Germany;RWTH Aachen University, Lehr- und Forschungsgebiet Informatik 9, Aachen, Germany
Venue:
EC-TEL'11 Proceedings of the 6th European conference on Technology enhanced learning: towards ubiquitous learning
Year:
2011

Citing 5
Cited 0

Game programming in introductory courses with direct state manipulation

ITiCSE '05 Proceedings of the 10th annual SIGCSE conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
Mindstorms: children, computers, and powerful ideas

Mindstorms: children, computers, and powerful ideas
Using the Lego mindstorms NXT robot kit in an introduction to C programming class

Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges
Scratch: programming for all

Communications of the ACM - Scratch Programming for All
The Effect of Tangible Artifacts, Gender and Subjective Technical Competence on Teaching Programming to Seventh Graders

ISSEP '10 Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Informatics in Secondary Schools - Evolution and Perspectives: Teaching Fundamentals Concepts of Informatics

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Programmable robots like Lego Mindstorms have proven to be an effective mediator to teach computer programming to school children. Therefore several projects that aim at increasing the interest in computer programming and computer science in general use robots as a cornerstone in their course concepts. Handing out robotic kits to the school students who have participated in the courses is not feasible, thus the learning content cannot be repeated and enhanced at home. We developed a flexible multi-user simulation environment for LEGO Mindstorms NXT robots which is closely integrated into our pedagogical teaching scenarios. User tests show that this environment can be successfully used to increase the long-term outreach of our courses.