| Subject: | POB Technology Releases RISBEE Software: The robotics solution for junior high school and high school education |
| Date: | February 12, 2008 |
The robotics solution for junior high schools and high schools from POB-Technology
The POB-Bot robot and the graphical development software RISBEE are a simple and a cheap solution to introduce high school and junior high school students to technology and engineering sciences by exposing them to robotics and automation principles.
The POB-Bot Robot
The POB-Bot is often used in higher education and can be programmed in C, Java, Basic, however, the robot and the new software RISBEE is designed specifically to be easy to use as an introduction to robotics and assumes no technical knowledge. The color camera POB-Eye is the powerful programmable module which manages the other robot parts. The POB-Bot is delivered already mounted and a demo program is installed.
You can customize the robot for your specific educational needs :
The POB-Bot is equiped with a graphical screen and a joystick to make the robot very interactive to the user.
Robotics Initiation using RISBEE:
RISBEE is a new graphical software designed for non technical students. It is based on video games concepts that all young users know very well, thus they handle the software very quickly. Just put icons on the black board to build the program, select parameters in combo boxes when necessary and click the 'GO' button to upload the program into the robot.
Video games concepts are applied but RISBEE is still a very serious software. All the main aspects of computer science and robotics are present: Goto, loops, sub-programs, variables, moves, sensors acquisition....
RISBEE presents 33 animated simple and intuitive icons, grouped by 3 categories:
Representative icons for development languages: GOTO, loops, sub program, variables and operations on variables, comparison
Example for the GOTO: A gun with green bullets targets a green flag.
Representative icons for the actions common to all robots: Moves, delays, servomotors, analog and digital sensors management
Example to get an analog sensor value: the left bottom icon (analog multimeter) does the acquisition. Just select in combo boxes the input number where the sensor is plugged and the variable's name to store the value
Specific icons for the POB-Bot: Pattern recognition, joystick
Example to look for a pattern: Select a pattern to recognize in a combo box, select the variables to store the size and the coordinates of center dot of the pattern. If the variable are different from zero, the chosen pattern is in front of the camera!
Other icons like red ball tracking or move detection will be added soon.
Simulation and debug running mod:
Every educator needs an easy way to teach young students program design for them to understand the concepts. Using the debug running mod, the PC executes step by step the program. More than a simple debug tool, it is an excellent way to explain how things work.
Program example
In this example, the robot analyzes the pictures coming from the camera. If a cross is recognized then the robot runs. When the cross is no longer recognized the robot stops. We could easily modify this program to make the robot follow the cross if the cross moves left or right in front of the camera.
This "13 icons" example uses an infinite loop (green flag and green gun), form recognition, comparison (the 2 red scales) and 2 sub programs (red flags).
Watch a video of the POB-Bot and RISBEE
Robot Maker
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