LEARNING ROBOTICS VIA WEB: REMOTE EXPERIMENT SYSTEMS FOR DISTANCE TRAINING

In this paper two educational environments are described where Multimedia, Robotics, Java and Internet are got together. Both of them provide advanced and interactive distance learning, but each one represents a different educational approach: one gives remote access to a real lab where the user can experiment with a robot, view and practice, and the other provides access to a virtual sophisticated lab where the student can be trained eliminating physical risks for the students and operation problems for the lab material. The first environment is an educational web site developed to help a non-experienced user to learn a robotics programming language (LeJOS). The idea is to provide the student with access to a real laboratory (set up at the University) endowed with a robot and a web cam so that they can experiment with the real robot. The second environment, VRMLproCNC, makes use of Virtual Reality providing students with a set of distance training tools via Web for industrial numerical control lathe simulation. The simulator was developed using VRML and E.A.I. (External Authoring Interface) libraries, Java and JavaScript for those tasks that VRML can’t do properly. Because of the low-cost of the system, the requirements of the visualization equipment (equivalent to a domestic use PC) and the web-oriented technologies used, the system is specially suitable for being used in distance and continuous training courses. Both experiences try to contribute to the advance of the new learning methodologies, focused on autonomous and continuous learning, that are been promoted through the European Higher Education Space