First Technology Transfer

Standard and Advanced Technical Training, Consultancy and Mentoring

Introduction to the construction and programming of Arduino based robotic and mechatronic systems

Duration: 5 Days

An Arduino can lie at the heart of a small robotic, mechatronic or animatronic system. By having an Arduino interact with a more powerful system, e.g. an embedded Linux system running on a Beagle Bone Black or a RaspberryPi, for example, all kinds of interesting possibilities are opened up.

This workshop is really a starting point for newcomers to robotics, mechatronics and animatronics and aims to provide foundations in “robotic thinking” and “robotic programming”. It requires a sound knowledge of C or C++ programming and a reasonable familiarity in working with Arduino based systems and associated devices and sensors. The emphasis here will be on “putting things together” that may “exhibit intersting behaviours”,where "things" should be understood as meaning both hardware things and software things.

The course will also introduce the essential concepts and algorithms underlying feedback control algorithms and systems. If I was interviewing an applicant for an engineering degree course and during the course of the interview it transpired that they had a good basic understanding of the concepts underlying feedback control systems and the principles of PID control I, for one, would be favourably impressed. The case studies and examples used for this course will be

  1. A line following arduino robot
  2. A mechatronic arm