USING LEGO® MINDSTORMS® FOR TEACHING A COMPUTER LANGUAGE

Teaching a computer language often begins with teaching its theoretical background and testing small routines in ascetic console applications. Students studying computer science often avoid technical projects because of the fear of the unknown, while students of technical subjects, such as mechatronics, don't miss the technical aspects but they are bored by theory and console execution. Because of the direct feedback of technical automata and the "fun-factor" which technical experimentation includes the idea came up, that learning a computer language should have a connection to technical aspects. Robotics is an interdisciplinary subject and there will be no automation or robot movement without any programming line. In many ways robotics seems to be an ideal starting point to learn a computer language. With the LEGO (R) Mindstroms (R) System robots can be easily built adapted to special tasks and programmed in different languages, among them JAVA and C. It is even possible to have robots for a whole classroom.