UT Institute of Computer Science Graduation Theses Registry

Name

Kaspar Sarapuu

Abstract

In recent years the demand for people with higher education in engineering and science does not meet the demand in Estonia. Not enough students graduate in scientific fields. This is because students are not interested in math and science. Math and science classes are too dry for ordinary student in high school and middle school. There is too much theory and numbers with too little practical work. Using robots in school is a good way to make classes more interesting and fun. Usually robotics is too expensive and complicated for middle school children but LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robots are fairly cheap and simple to build and to understand. Since LEGO bricks can be used over and over again the children can work with them for years. The main goal of this bachelor thesis is to study an aftermarket component multiplexer SPLIT-Nx-v2 for LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT by Mindsensors. Side goal is that this paper could be read by middle school and high school teachers for educational purposes so they could use this multiplexer in classroom. Firstly technologies used in the multiplexer SPLIT-Nx-v2 are discussed. There are two main subjects: multiplexing in general and I2C protocol. For those subjects a brief introduction is written which both could be used independently to study those matters. In the second chapters various properties of SPLIT-Nx-v2 are discussed. It is pointer out which kind of sensors work with the multiplexer and how to get the multiplexer operating with standard LEGO programming environment NXT-G.

Graduation Thesis language

Estonian

Graduation Thesis type

Bachelor - Computer Science

Supervisor(s)

Anne Villems, Taavi Duvin

Defence year

2012