Player/Stage: A Unifying Paradigm to Improve Robotics Education Delivery

Training students in intelligent robotics requires a large investment both in time and cost. Intelligent controller development requires proficiency in many areas including math, programming, electronics. Students that are not patient with themselves can be frustrated by the large learning curve. This frustration increases when the robot equipment used for assignments is not available (broken or limited in number). Frustration and a sense of failure can cause students to avoid robotics in the future. In this article, we propose a new approach to teaching robotics to new students. This approach uses a general purpose, opensource package called Player/Stage. This package provides a hardware abstraction layer to several popular robot platforms. In addition, the Player/Stage provides a simulator for controller testing prior to robot implementation. With Player/Stage as both the simulator and the implementation API, the students are able to apply robot automation concepts in simulation as well as to low and high cost platforms. We believe that Player/Stage, when coupled with robust hardware, is a viable paradigm for classroom instruction that moves the students up the learning curve in small, digestible chunks. A bonus is that experience with Player/Stage can be leveraged into more complex applications and research.