Work In Progress - building MatBot - a platform for freshman robotics with use throughout the engineering curriculum

We intend to develop a unique "platform for education" that will be developed initially for the George Fox University freshmen engineering sequence and will enable our students to utilize a familiar platform in future engineering courses, providing for a cohesive design experience throughout the curriculum. Building on the foundation provided by the TekBot - Oregon State University's "Platform for Learning," we are developing MatBot. MatBot development is driven by two fundamental principles: 1) autonomous system control via Matlab and 2) independent module control. This Work-in- Progress describes the development philosophy of MatBot and the migration from controlling a robot arm to an autonomous platform such as a MatBot car. Currently, the MatBot controller board, sensor board, and motor driver board have been developed and tested. These systems communicate via a CAN interface and have been successful in controlling the robot arm. We are currently designing different controller options and will be developing an autonomous vehicle controllable via Matlab.