A case study of LEGO Mindstorms'™ suitability for artificial intelligence and robotics courses at the college level

Abstract

This paper examines LEGO Mindstorms 'TM suitability as a hardware platform for integrating robotics into an Artificial Intelligence course organized around the agent paradigm popularized by Russell and Norvig. This evaluation discusses how kits and projects based on Mindstorms supported students' exploration of the issues behind the design of agents from three classes in Russell and Norvig's intelligent agent taxonomy. The paper's investigation also examines several popularly-perceived limitations of the Mindstorms package for college-level robotics projects and shows that most of these "limitations" are not serious impediments to Mindstorms' use, while certain other of these "limitations" do indeed present challenges to the platform's use.

Personalizing CS1 with robots

“…We deliberately chose a fully assembled approach as opposed to build-your-own kits such as the Lego Mindstorms TM because previous work has shown that even advanced computer science students feel that they spend too much time on the "design of robot chassis" when using Mindstorms TM [8]. Because we are not teaching a multidisciplinary class such as that by Weinberg et al [16], presenting students with a fully assembled robot removes the unnecessary complications of mechanical assembly, allowing them to focus on computer science concepts.…”

Using RoboCup in university-level computer science education

“…It is also possible to extend the range of tasks by using a more sophisticated programming language. BrickOS , BrickOS 2004] provides a more complete version of C than NQC, and one can also program the Mindstorms in Java [Laverde et al 2002] and Lisp [Klassner 2002;Klassner and Anderson 2003]. …”

Lego Based Computer Communication for Business and Learning

“…Although the MindStorms kit is a wonderful way to teach students about robotics, it is limited to a dry environment, such as class room floor. For the past decade, the MindStorms have been used in computer science resources to teach concepts from object-oriented programming (Barnes D., 2002) to artificial intelligence (Klassner F., 2002). They have been used to introduce students to the exciting world of computers (Weisheit F., 2004).…”