Abstract:

At universities for many years, teachers have focused on improving the teaching of robotics through the possibility of involving students in practical activities in laboratories and in cooperation with companies. Robotics, as a rapidly evolving discipline and increasingly demanding for industry, is constantly evolving, and this is closely related to the need to develop teachers' knowledge and skills in this area. Practical tasks assigned to students in the teaching process are a very good motivation for students, for their development of thinking and teamwork in solving assigned tasks, as well as for their subsequent facilitation of integration into production practice. Educational robots can be programmed, resp. control using various software and hardware solutions. There are several software on the market that is used to operate the robot, such as off-line simulation software ABB Robot Studio, RoboDK, DobotStudio, etc. Today, there are a large number of different freely distributable extension platforms on the market for creating management programs. Arduino is one of the most widely used platforms in the world. It is very popular in several areas, especially for its wide range of uses. It is most often used in electronics, 3D printers as well as to control production processes and robots, due to its small size and ease of programming. Various plug-ins and devices can be connected to the device for a wide range of ports. A suitable tool for teaching robotics is the Dobot Magician educational robotic arm, which is used mainly for practical teaching at secondary schools and universities. Several expansion modules can be purchased for the Dobot robotic arm, such as the Arduino Kit, primarily intended for the possibility of developing students' teaching in the field of programming small educational robots. Part of the additional educational set Arduino Kit from the company DOBOT is a microcontroller board Arduino Mega 2560, for which the company has developed an expansion platform with connectors for connecting other devices, such as buttons, LED identifiers, voice module and camera. This set becomes an interesting solution for developing students' understanding of programming extended robot movement commands via the Arduino Mega 2560 microcontroller with ATmega2560 processor, which provides all required calculations with direct integration on the main board of the Arduino programming set. The student as a programmer is able to implement various projects with the help of the Arduino Kit, based on the required functions that the robotic arm and Dobot accessories have to perform. The article deals with the description of the accessories of the Arduino Kit with a reference to the possibility of additional programming of the Dobot Magician robot control. Through the programming set, the student is offered the opportunity to work with software and hardware, as well as to develop their skills and imagination in creating interesting projects in the field of educational robotics.

Keywords:

Education, programming, Dobot, Arduino Kit, robotics.