Redesign of an educational robot platform using web-based programming

Robots intrigue many people. Moreover, their development is quite complex and can involve different subjects of electrical engineering, as well as computer science. Therefore, robots are a very suitable basis to teach students different subjects of these disciplines. In this paper, we present the design of an educational robot platform. The platform, called Robonova, was used for practical sessions in undergraduate courses. The redesign was motivated by a lack of support for current technologies, such as the internet of things and cyber-physical systems. Moreover, the manufacturer no longer maintained it. To enable further usage we developed an up-to-date educational system based on the old robot platform. The redesign includes the control system, which is connected to all sensors and actuators, and a development environment, that is platform independent and includes predefined libraries. In first evaluations with students, the responses were very positive and the new platform enables higher connectivity, as well as solving tasks that are more complex.