Contributing to the Development of Linguistic and Logical Abilities

through Robotics

G. Barbara Demo

Dept of Informatics, Turin University

Giovanni Marcianó

National Agency for Development of Schools Piedmont

Ministry of Public Education ITALY

Our activity environments• primary schools, 6-11 years old kids• also: 11-16 years old pupils in italian secondary first and second level schools• LEGO RCX robots and NXT• in our region Piemonte: 8 schools involved with about 500 kids• cooperations with groups in the south of Italy: Salerno and Cosenza

the marriageour best loved holidayswe wanted it very good looking but it becomes too heavy

Motivations

• a feeling of being at a crossroad: we have to change something because those who do not like to introduce TIC in schools will not change their minds

and those who like it would appreciate something new

• this new can be micro robots becoming affordable• not robotics per se but in cross-disciplinary

experiences • our goal is not to teach pupils how to program but

through robot programming leading them to the ... LOGO philosophy

G. Marcianó and his groupprojects with the National Agency Development of Schools Piedmont

• LOGO in 90ties• LOGO & robotics in projects 2001-2003, 2003-2005,

2005-2008: www.robotica.irrepiemonte.it

technology in schools should be introducing to a new language, the "language of the technology": experiences with Logo have already promoted teaching about C.S. as teaching Language-3 (where Language-2 is a foreign language)

but many think more reasonable projects for ECDL: these are not negative unless they are the only way to talk informatics in schools

from LOGO projects great experiences*

• "commas and spaces also in the italian exercise book"• the dictionary• cooperation in finding "how do you say to tarta..."• random: "with this word tarta does what she wants and

nobody can say what she will do!"• kids discover by themselves: for example the use of

repeat and even procedures because "I do not want to loose my time"– abstraction, generalization, synthesis

• they teach each other what they discover

* guided particularly by S. Siega and Patrizia Battegazzore

after some activities using ROBOLAB

• "in the beginning you think it is easy but you do not actually understand what the robot is doing"

• "icons are not so easy because you do not clearly see what you are putting toghether"

• "pupils do not understand all these commands and where to modify when the robots moves but not in the way you meant"

of course the difference is also due to the use of a compiled rather then an interpreted language

Tangibile programming with Tern

• http://www.eecs.tufts.edu/~mhorn01/tern/

• it is a woodden puzzle-like way to specify robot behavior • particularly thought for schools where there are a few

computers

• Tern or similar tools do not eliminate, obviously,

the time for designing the robot behavior the time for thinking how to specify the decided

behavior the effort of making explicit the intuition of a behavior

still must be done

Textual language

• textual languages allow a step-by-step learning activity that can be coordinated with children learning the writing of their native language thus helping a correct development of linguistic and logical abilities

• as for logical abilities we think to the ability of designing a behaviour for a robot and its specification/translation in a systematic/formal description using words and linguistic forms of a given grammar

• previous point abilities are unconsciously used building sentences of his/her native language and viceversa when using robot textual languages which becomes a reinforcement of the need to follow rules pupils are learning in both environments

a textual language was chosen

• NQC, not Quite C

• Bricx Command Center (BCC) integrated development environment

yet, it is a language robot oriented, i.e. not high level enough to be pupils oriented

NQCBaby: a LOGO-like language• high level programming language, according to

Papert suggestion “child-oriented rather than robot-oriented”

• native language• incremental work as for the primitives to explore

what is more natural for kids• forward(100) for a tarta is different from

forward(100) for the RCX we have built but– there are discussions on differences– posters are prepared with correspondences– pupils find out that the behavior of their robot

• is different if the environment is different• it is different for different robots

ExamplesRobby //any name

forward(100) back(100) //avanti(100) indietro(100)

ciao //see you

Robbyrepeat(4)

forward(100) right(90)

endciao

Robbyripeti(4)

avanti(100) destra(90)

fineciao

Robbi

ciao

veloce(x)

avanti(v)

indietro(w)

destra(t)

sinistra(u)

A teacher can choose the methodology of proposing NQCBaby to pupils in different steps by means of a dictionary, in the translator, enriched according to the pupil level of knowledge

NQCBaby01: Robbiciaospeed(x)forward(v)backward(w)right(t)left(u)

NQCBaby03:

aspetta(z)sensore1_toccose_toccaaltrimenti

NQCBaby02

ripeti(z)

fineripetisempre

NQCBaby03:

wait(z)sensor1_touchif_toucheselse

NQCBaby02

repeat(z)

endrepeatalways

Children assemble a robot, decide its behavior, describe it in NQCBabyh, and look at the resulting specification in NQC; then they enter the next step to learn the next level NQCBabyh+1

NQCBaby04:

sensore2_toccose_toccadietrose_toccadavanti

NQCBaby05:

sensore3_lucese_chiarose_scurosinoache_chiarosinoache_scuroaccendilucespegniluce

NQCBaby04:

sensor2_touchse_toccadietrose_toccadavanti

NQCBaby05:

sensor3_lightif_clearif_darkuntil_clearuntil_darkswitchonlightswitchofflight

Robbysensore1_tocco // touch sensor goes to sensor number 1 of the robotripetisempre // repeat always

avanti(100) // forward(100)se_tocca // if hits

accendiluce // switch on the lightindietro(100) // back(100)destra(50) // right(50)spegniluce // switch off the light

fine // endfine

ciaothe robot assumed here is the simplest one

Robbysensore1_tocco repeat always

forward((100) if_hits

on_light back(100) right(50) off_light

end end

ciao

NQC TRANSLATION task main()

{ SetSensor(SENSOR_1, SENSOR_TOUCH);while(true)

OnFwd(OUT_A+OUT_C); Wait(100); if (SENSOR_1 == 1) {

On(OUT_B); OnRev(OUT_A+OUT_C);

Wait(100);OnFwd(OUT_A); OnRev(OUT_C);

Wait(50);Off(OUT_B);

} }Off(OUT_A+OUT_C);

}

dealing with NQCBaby: evolution

• macro, i.e. #define P Q

easy, language primitive but errors.....

• precompiler

• experimental feed back

• precompiler generated by a translator generator

NQCBaby translator IDE*work of two students RosaAnna and Veronica

NQCBaby Levels

Dictionary

writable text area where NBCBaby programs are written

errors

not writable text area: here the translation in NQC appears

* IDE: Integrated Develop- mentEnvironm.

Bricx Command Center

Currently under development

NXCBaby for the recent NXT robot

a NXCBaby program has the following structure:

robot description

environment description

behaviour specification

example:

Robbi

superficie(liscia, piana);

porta(A) motore-destro;

porta(C) motore-sinistro;

ripeti(4)

destra(70, 450)

avanti(100, 1000)

conta

ciao.

english translation:Robbi

ground(smooth, flat);port(A) motor-right;port(C) motor-left;repeat(4)

right(70, 450)forward(100,

1000)end

ciao.

end of september 07meeting with three directions of work

• general

• education

• leisure time: our department "kids"(30-...) will show their products, robots and other initiatives

Documentation on the meeting and NQCBaby translator at

www.di.unito.it/~barbara/MicRobot

Workshop by Simonetta Siega

videos from 6 years old pupils to 13 years old:

• the marriage

• our best loved holidays

• we wanted it very goodlooking but it becomes too heavy