Developing a Robotic Kit for Mechatronic Engineering Education

This paper discusses the development of a robotic kit for the courses in the Mechatronic Engineering program. Mechatronics is a discipline that combines elements of Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering and Control Engineering. Students in the program are required to possess not only broad multi-disciplinary knowledge but also strong hands-on technical skills. To achieve the program's educational objective, a robotic kit the VEX® robotic arm with a granular jamming gripper has been developed. Using the robotic arm and gripper system, students can visually understand the design process of a robotic manipulator based on the theorem they learned from the classes, such as forward and inverse kinematics, robotic dynamics and trajectory planning. Particularly, the granular jamming gripper is a creative and universal solution for robotic gripper designs. The flexible VEX® robotic arm in combination with the gripper can be used as an ideal educational platform. The easily implemented robotic system with the creative gripper design can inspire students to explore more novel and feasible solutions in their future careers in engineering.