Paper Info
Title
Key factors for freshmen education using MATLAB and LEGO mindstorms
Abstract
Undergraduate engineering courses with strong focus on theoretical concepts often have an adverse effect on student motivation due to a lack of illustrative applications to real---world problems. To identify and overcome this problem we point out educational key factors to design practical laboratories for first semester students using MATLAB and LEGO Mindstorms robots. By means of evaluation results of the freshmen course "MATLAB meets LEGO Mindstorms" and follow---up projects using the same teaching concept, we show that freshman students can develop creative applications and solutions, even if only first fundamentals have been taught. Using the RWTH --- Mindstorms NXT Toolbox for development, beginners foster their programming and engineering skills in a fast and intuitive way. Providing successive tasks and ensuring enough room for creativity, a surprising variety of sophisticated projects is reported by student teams in final presentations and competitions, thus boosting their motivation and interest in future engineering tasks.
Year
DOI
Venue
2011
10.1007/978-3-642-25486-4_55
ICIRA (1)
Keywords
DocType
Volume
undergraduate engineering course,student team,semester student,mindstorms nxt toolbox,lego mindstorms robot,student motivation,freshman student,future engineering task,freshmen education,key factor,engineering skill,lego mindstorms
Conference
7101
ISSN
Citations 
PageRank 
0302-9743
2
0.41
References 
Authors
4
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Alexander Behrens18011.81
Linus Atorf2233.74
Dorian Schneider331.09
Til Aach4855117.45