Spherical Robot for Planetary Explorations: An Approach to Educating Concepts of Mechatronics and Robotics to High School Students

Many countries and international organizations have carried out rover missions to explore planetary surfaces. Accordingly, the demand for mechatronics education, which is closely related to building exploratory robots, is also steadily increasing. However, due to the complexity in understanding the background information needed for mechatronics, it is hard for pre-college students to study such process. In this study, we suggest an educational platform for mechatronics using a combined robot kit with a spherical robot and a smartphone application. To provide a visual understanding, the dynamic model of the robot is constructed while analyzing the error between actual driving and a simulation, and the educational algorithm of the game and a feedback method are proposed to improve the learning efficacy by considering the user's level of knowledge of mechatronics. We use this educational spherical robot to develop a curling game platform that can impart engineering education even when students lack significant knowledge.