Page - 226 - in Proceedings - OAGM & ARW Joint Workshop 2016 on "Computer Vision and Robotics“

disassembledmultiple timesand tobemaintainedeasily,withas little effort aspossible. Besides, the proposededucational robotplatform had to bedesignedsafe-to-useandaestheticallypleasing. Additionally this contribution pays respect to the fact that some authors even state, that the practice of introducing robotics into the academic process is still in an initial development stage (cp. e.g., [Ospennikovaet al., 2015]) – at least in specific sectors: the majority of contributions within the current body of literature refers to school education below university level (e.g., [Eguchi, 2010]). Othermajordevelopmentsandrespectiveprojectsandpublications in thefieldofeducational robotics are driven either by major industry players, i.e., robot manufacturers and similar companies (cp. e.g., [Yoo,2015]) with the disadvantage that disassembly for a deeper understanding is prohibited. Anotherfieldofhugeactivities is the topicof robotcompetitions (cp. e.g., [Eguchi, 2016]),primarily focusing on robot performance optimization, but rarely on the teaching of advanced robot functional andstructuralprinciples at the levelof robot engineeringmaster courseswithinuniversityeducation. Theremainderof thepaper isas follows: section2providesashortoverviewonthefieldandexplains general design principles with regard to the current endeavor. Subsequently sections 3-5 describe design details of the educational robot that has been developed in the course of this project. Finally section6drawsabriefconclusionwithregard to theachievedresultsandprovidesanoutlooktowards futureactivities. 2. Designprinciples foreducational roboticexperiences The abilities of collegiate robotic and computational thinking and sufficient ways to facilitate the achievement of respective learning objectives within educational programs have been widely dis- cussedintheliterature(seee.g., [Miller et al., 2008], [Wing,2008], [Eguchi, 2010], [Leeet al., 2011] or [Khanlari, 2013]). Although it is not the aim of this paper to provide an exhaustive literature overview, it can be said that the field of juvenile and undergraduate education is well elaborated in particular regarding elementary robot handling, control and programming. However the topic of advancedengineeringandmechatronicseducationhastofacefurther issues. AsAlessandriandPacia- roni[Alessandri, 2012]concludewithreferencetoneuroscience(inparticular,cp. [Varelaet al., 1995]), an educational robotic experience has to allow for a shift from (more or less passive) observation of a device towards a deep immersion into the system in action. Transferred to the learning target of gaining an in-depth understanding not only from an industrial robots behavior and control, but as well from its functional principles and structures with regard to mechanics, electronics and software development, this leads to the conclusion that advanced robotics and mechatronics students must be provided with the opportunity to construct, simulate, assemble and disable a robotic system alter- nating with physical system-behavior experiments. Thus, before-after explorations could be done, e.g., after having improved mechanical components like a gripper or a joint, after having modified the electronic circuits, after having changed software code or parameters, or even after having to- tally disassembled and reassembled the whole robot for either maintenance, repair or experimental purposes. Moreover, this practical education approach supports a further aspect that gains more and more im- portance in modern engineering disciplines, and especially in the field of mechatronics and robotics: teaching mechanical, electronic and informatics-related skills is a well-known issue. However, the interdisciplinary integration of these (and as needed also further) fields requires greater emphasis, and the same applies for system integration abilities [Go´mezet al., 2014]. The educational robot, developed in the course of the current project was also designed for the purpose of strengthening 226