Increasing Students’ Interest With Low-Cost CellBots

This paper introduces the use of a flexible and affordable\ud educational robot specifically developed for the practical experimentation\ud inherent to technological disciplines. The robot has\ud been designed to be reconfigurable and extendible, serving as an\ud experimental platform across several undergraduate courses. As\ud most students have a mobile cell phone, this was used as the main\ud control computer for the so-called CellBot, thus avoiding any need\ud to deal with the details of microcontrollers or other embedded computing\ud devices. Assessment results are also presented, based on a\ud pre- and post-survey of student opinion administered to 204 science\ud and engineering students from several universities. Among\ud the conclusions are that 83% of the students prefer to use these\ud low-cost robots as tools to improve their learning of the theory in\ud several disciplines, and 71% of the students stated that they prefer\ud to have their own robot to experiment with, instead of using a didactic\ud kit loaned to them by the universityCNP

HEURÍSTICA PARA GERENCIAR A COOPERAÇÃO DE UM GRUPO DE ROBÔS EM EXECUÇÃO DE TAREFAS

Propomos uma heurística que define as regras para uma cooperação eficiente de um sistema multirrobô, empregado para a resolução de tarefas em um ambiente controlado. Essa heurística possibilita que um grupo de robôs tenha melhor desempenho na resolução de uma lista de tarefas sem a intervenção de algum agente externo ao ambiente. Por meio das regras definidas para as trocas de experiências, o ambiente obteve ganho de conhecimento, melhor utilização dos robôs e redução no tempo de execução das tarefas