Robot as Virtual Learning Object

Nowadays it is notorious that technology is part of our life, and it is being drastically evolving along the years. New forms of audiovisual medias are constantly being develop, nevertheless teaching methods still reaming the same as the ones that were approached before the advances of technology. These new technologies could transform the way we teach by creating interactive platforms in practical disciplines offered in technical and engineering courses that would not only improve the quality of teaching but also would enhance students learning process and reduce costs of laboratories. In this context, this work aims to present an alternative resource in the area, a virtual learning object and virtual laboratory with remote access that increases quality of classes by creating an immersive experience that is close to reality, and allows students to actually interact and test the knowledge acquired. The main goal was to provide remote access to the automation laboratory and to safely execute practical experiments. To being with, an environment consisting of a 3D model of the ARM-7220-4 robot arm was developed, containing the majority of the robot movement functions as well as mechanical, geometric and kinematic of the real robot arm, and granting its access through Moodle platform to students of CEFET-MG – Campus Leopoldina. The hardware, are composed by a real robot ARM-7220-4 that is connect to the virtual tool, and responds to the commands sent by the student through the virtual environment, and a camera is also connected, allowing the real-time monitoring of the physical laboratory. To evaluate the work, a teaching practice was proposed, consisting on movement of the robotic arm through tasks on order to validate the knowledge acquired through bibliographic didact sources, addressing theoretical aspects. Final results of the experiments with students from the campus that have tested the complete system showed that the learning object is a promising resource for distance learning courses.