Educational Robot for Learning Programming through Blockly based Mobile Application

Abstract

Education is progressing to get ready students for the up-to-date sociotechnical advancements. An expanding at-tempt to familiarize programming and other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-oriented subjects into the fundamental set of courses of primary and secondary education is emerging globally. Learning through robot has been considered as a powerful teaching instrument in the recent decade. This paper proposes a prototype of an educational robot that can be programmed by a mobile application through Bluetooth communication with drag and drop block-based programming interfaces well-known as Blockly. It will not directly teach any programming language but it will develop a learner’s logic developing capability which will work as the backbone of learning any programming language. Hardware development consists of micro-controller, motor, battery, sensors, etc. modules for the execution of the given instructions. The proposed educational robot has the capability to increase the learner’s skills of problem-solving, logical thinking, and divergent-thinking. Overall it offers an alternative method of learning which can be called learning through playing.