PiBot: An Open Low-Cost Robotic Platform With Camera for STEM Education

Abstract

This paper presents the robotic platform, PiBot, that has been developed and that is aimed at improving the teaching of Robotics with vision to secondary students. Its computational core is the Raspberry Pi 3 controller board, and the greatest novelty of this prototype is the support developed for the powerful camera mounted on board, the PiCamera. An open software infrastructure written in Python language was implemented so that the student may use this camera, or even a WebCam, as the main sensor of this robotic platform. Also, higher level commands have been provided to enhance the learning outcome for beginners. In addition, a PiBot 3D printable model and the counterpart for the Gazebo simulator were also developed and fully supported. They are publicly available so that students and educational centers that do not have the physical robot or can not afford the costs of these, can nevertheless practice and learn or teach Robotics using these open platforms: DIY-PiBot and/or simulated-PiBot.

Systematic Review on Which Analytics and Learning Methodologies Are Applied in Primary and Secondary Education in the Learning of Robotics Sensors

“…We found articles where authors present their own robotics solutions: Balaji et al [ 74 ] present FastBot, Bellas et al [ 75 ] present the Robobo Project, Camargo et al [ 115 ] present a low-cost Android and Arduino-based mobile robot, Costa, Santos and Sousa [ 111 ] created the SquirlRob, and Vega and Canas [ 28 ] present the PiBoot Tool implementation. Although all of these articles present their own solutions, the objectives tend to differ.…”

“…Hence, robotics is growing in importance in pre-university education. Furthermore, it has the power to motivate young students, either as a field of knowledge in itself to learn complex notions in an almost play-like environment, or as a tool to present technology and other subjects to those students in an attractive and motivating manner [ 28 , 29 ].…”

“…These include such examples as advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) for facial recognition [ 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 ], industrial robotics, and automation in society as well as autonomous and self-driving cars, aerial drones, or the integration of robots in the workplace and in manufacturing [ 34 , 35 , 36 ]. Moreover, robots are expected to perform the work of about 800 million employees by 2030 [ 28 , 37 , 38 ]. Policymakers have understood that adding the teaching of scientific concepts to these examples is essential to addressing the future needs of society and industry [ 39 ].…”

“…Furthermore, practice for robotic competitions involves and promotes STEM. Students need to collaborate, communicate, and use skills beyond science-based ones to solve competition challenges [ 28 ].…”

“…Besides, for many schools in developing countries, the acquisition of these toolkits could become an economical barrier [ 73 ]. Hence, some authors remark that it is important to integrate open robotics frameworks [ 73 ] and to incorporate other kinds of robotic sensors, such as vision systems [ 28 ].…”