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13 February 2004

Cultivating Tomorrow's Robot Creators: Student Robotics in China and the United States:

Roger G. Gilbertson

IT'S A ROBOT WORLD

All around the world, robots inspire interest. People, especially children, respond with excitement no matter their economic or cultural background. No translator is needed to comprehend the feelings of children when they meet a robot face to face or triumph in a robot contest. This holds promise for all of us interested in robotics, for the inspired students of today will develop the robots of the future.

Until recently, I had never visited China. My first invitation came from a company that produces one of the world's most widely used educational robotic systems, the AS-M robot from Shanghai Grandar Electronics and Information Company. Since 2000, over 300,000 high school students have used the AS-M robot, and as many as 5 million students have used the corresponding SVJC robot simulator software to learn first hand about robotics. As in the USA, Chinese schools have limited budgets, and even schools that cannot afford the actual robot can successfully teach many aspects of robotics by using a robot simulation software package.

JUST LIKE NEW YORK?

After the invitation arrived, I inventoried my impressions of China: rickshaws... rice fields...Kodachrome colored communist leaders standing on The Great Wall. My preconceptions of China seemed rooted in Nixon and Mao's meetings in the early 1970's. Then, just days before my scheduled departure, China sent aloft their first human to circle the Earth - taikonaut Yang Leiwei flying aboard the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft. Clearly, my preconceptions of China needed updating.

"You'll be amazed!" commented a friend and advisor who had just returned from a two week tour of China. "Shanghai is just like New York!"

This I could not comprehend. How can a Chinese city be like New York, let alone a city in the country with the world's largest population (1.3 billion to the USA's 0.3 billion), and one of the last standing communist countries?

Sitting in a window seat of a 747-400, my flight seemed to brush the edge of space. I gazed down through a purple twilight haze into the impossibly frozen and remote Arctic regions of Alaska and Kamchatka and knew that soon my views would change. After ten hours, we descended into warmth and light, and into a world I could not have imagined.

SHANGHAI CHINA 2003

Find a map of New York City, photocopy it, then cut-and-paste two, or maybe three, of them together. Arrange these maps along either side of a great river. Sprinkle them with dozens of ultra-modern skyscrapers and a wide variety of bold new civic centers, museums, and sporting complexes straight out of "The Jetsons.”

Lace it all with ribbons of surprisingly western streets, parkways, freeways and skyways, illuminated at night from below with blue lighting effects. Post large neon billboards wherever space permits, and pack the whole place with all manner of pedestrians, wooden carts, bicycles, gas and electric scooters, cars, busses and trucks
from all eras, smoothly interweaving with each other in a flowing dance of traffic and transit.

The ultra modern Shanghai Pudong airport terminal building rivals similar structures in any country, and if you arrive during its operating hours, a high-speed magnetic levitation monorail system will whisk you from the airport to the city. It’s the first and only commercial system of its kind in the world. What a world. And I wondered why many of us in the west simply don't know about this?

THE EVENTS

My host, Dr. Yun Wei-Min, founded Shanghai Grandar soon after graduating from university. He quickly became recognized as a leading innovator and entrepreneur in China. In 1998 the Chinese government selected Dr. Yun to meet and lunch with US President Bill Clinton.

Dr. Yun had observed that robotics combined so many areas of technology and that students naturally responded to robotics with great energy. His team created the AS series of robots and convinced the Chinese government to try it as an educational
"demonstration" program in 2000. The tests proved successful, and robotics has been integrated into China's national high school curriculum. In some provinces, every high school student now studies robotics for at least one semester.

The morning of the 4th China Intelligent Robot Competition, I ventured across the busy city from my thoroughly western hotel room to the Shanghai East Normal University, the site of the games. The university's large gymnasium already seethed with students from ten years through college age. Over 500 students and 170 robots, accompanied by 160 educators, converged from nearly every province of China - including Hong Kong, Macau and even Taiwan. In addition, key educators from the Chinese government attended and spoke to the crowd on a variety of topics.

Kids are Kids. Professor Zhyi and her students from ShangDe Experimental School, with the author.Click image to enlarge.

The dozen robot events included many popular international robot games, most notably RoboCup Jr. style soccer and the Connecticut Robot Fire Fighting challenge.

RoboCup Jr. style soccer competiton.

Two on two. Push the glowing ball into the opponent's goal to score points.

Connecticut Robot Fire Fighting event. Find the candle burning somewhere in the maze, extinguish it, then return to the start in the shortest period of time.

In addition many students competed in a high-pressure "day of the event" competition. Here, the judges revealed a new robotic challenge on the morning of the event, then students worked fervently for most of the day to assemble, program and test their systems. Then, they had just one chance to successfully demonstrate their solutions before the judges. One did not need a translator to understand the expressions of elation or despair on the contestants faces as their robots either succeeded or
failed at the assigned task.

The Intelligent Robot Competition received considerable media coverage. Eleven articles appeared in seven different newspapers, and seven separate news reports appeared on four different national and local television channels. Grandar plans for
even more events with larger attendance at the next competition in November 2004.

MADE IN CHINA

Perhaps not surprisingly, the design of nearly all the robots in the competition was based on the Grandar AS-M robot and related models. However, as with any robot system, many students performed modifications and additions to their machines, often to the point of unrecognizability!

The AS-M robot arrives fully assembled, tested and ready to go. This gives students and teachers immediate success at getting a robot up and responding. Without having to assemble a kit of parts, to perform soldering or circuit assembly, or to do
extensive programming, students gain initial successes that increase their confidence and keep them motivated for more.

The AS-M robot operates on a Motorola 68HC11 processor, and the innovative programming language teaches object-oriented programming and the "C" language. The AS-M hardware suite includes:

* 8-zone bump sensor skirt
* Reflected IR object detection
* Photo sensors
* Speaker (not a buzzer)
* Microphone
* Dual drive motors
* Dual optical wheel encoders
* Third motor driver on board (for your own motor)
* 3-wire R/C-type servo motor port
* Full hardware bus access to HC11 processor

In addition Grandar also produces many expansion boards, and accessories.

All integrated circuits on the main electronics board are socketed and replaceable by the user! This means no dead robots in the classroom or home lab, since faults can be diagnosed and repaired with basic electronic tools and procedures. The robot's documentation includes complete schematics for all its systems. The AS-M package
even includes a plug-in proto board and connectors so that more advanced students and experimenters may add hardware projects of their own design.

The AS-M system meets the needs of a wide range of roboticists. Beginners learn the robotic basics of electronics, mechanics and software programming. The AS-M's "VJC" graphical programming language teaches logic and proper design right from the start. For intermediate students the AS-M's unique interchangeable sensor system lets users create sophisticated solutions with minimal delay. More experienced programmers can actually "lift the hood" on the graphical programming language, and work directly with the "C" code inside, giving them complete control. The VJC software runs with any version of Windows from 98 onward, and we've even had good results using it on a Macintosh running Virtual PC software and a USB to serial converter.

The VJC programming environment for the AS-M robot. Work in graphical "flow chart" mode or "lift the hood" and work in the resulting "C" code (to right). Powerful, flexible and expandable with the growing skill of the experimenter.

For advanced roboticists the AS-M's expandable hardware permits the addition of all kinds of circuitry, sensors, output devices and more. And advanced programmers can work directly in C for maximum power and flexibility.

WHAT ABOUT U.S.?

The AS-M robot's thoughtful design and highly practical implementation makes it ideal for students of a wide range of ages and experience levels. I found the entire package so impressive that we've arranged to bring it to the USA via our RobotStore.com web site and catalog starting in the fall of 2003. The software and documentation have been translated into English, and several independent groups in the USA have created educational curriculum packages for schools and even home school students.

In these days of restricted school budgets, and with rising demands for improved technology education, the AS-M robot provides students, teachers, principals and parents the opportunity to reach new levels of academic achievement. Why? Because robots are cool! Robotics motivates students, and motivated students learn better, enjoy what they learn more, and achieve higher academic results in all areas.

As in the USA, parents believe that information technology courses provide great value for students. Schools that provide more exciting and fulfilling programs produce more capable students, who in turn have a wider range of career choices and more options for the future.

Robotics is provides an exciting means to stimulate learning in many areas of science and technology. Robotic competitions teach team work and even international cooperation.

IMAGINE

As the only foreigner in attendance, and as a representative of the US robot building community, my hosts asked that I join in the awards ceremony, and give a brief speech.

I spoke of how the moon landings of the 1960's provided great inspiration to me to study science and engineering, and eventually robotics. I compared my feelings to the excitement and inspiration that they must feel at the successful mission of Yang Leiwei and the Shenzhou 5.

I challenged them to strive for great achievements of their own and to reach for the moon, Mars and beyond. I then reminded them that the same step ladder that helps a person reach higher also makes it more dangerous to fall. So we must always choose carefully what we want to build.

We must all, no matter our place in the world, strive to create more and greater opportunities for students of all abilities and backgrounds to experience the full range and power of our technologies. After all, if our children cannot fully command the
technologies of the future, who will?

We frequently hear the cries about jobs lost to lower wage countries. The people of China see the amazing benefits that technology has brought the western countries, and they of course want the same for themselves and their children. Just like us, they want
robots to take over dangerous, boring and repetitious jobs.

So as robot builders, and as the teachers of tomorrow's robot builders, lets keep in mind how our efforts today affect the world we'll live in tomorrow. Every embodiment of technology, from a sharpened stick to a space station, has the potential to make our
lives better, and robotics provide some of the greatest promises of all technologies.

I find envisioning a world where robots give every human being the opportunity to pursue their highest potential far more challenging that picturing what I was to encounter on my first trip to China.

Working to create such a bright robotic future will be worth the effort, and we will even have some fun along the way.

Build more robots!

About the Author

During college Roger G. Gilbertson studied engineering, robotics and the
walking patterns of living creatures. In 1987 he co-founded
Mondo-tronics, Inc. to explore the commercial applications of Shape
Memory Alloy wires, and in 1995 launched RobotStore.com, the
internet's first commercial robotics site. Mondo-tronics' Robot Store
continues to lead the field in presenting the best and most
innovative new robot products for students, educators, hobbyists and
experimenters. Roger lives and works in Marin County, California,
where a robot answers the phone during dinner but still refuses to
clean up the dishes.

Copyright 2004 by Roger G. Gilbertson.

Editors Note.

This article is based on a longer piece to be published in the March 2004 issue of Servo Magazine (www.ServoMagazine.com). Robotics provides an increasingly important method for students to learn about electronics, sensors, programming, servos and many related subjects. While the E-Bulletin is an advocate of student robotics and robotic competitions and an admirer of Roger Gilbertson's many contributions to the field, this article describes commercially available systems that the Society for Amateur Scientists does not endorse.