Contact: Nader Vadiee, 277-0327 Media Contact: Michael Padilla, 277-1816 http://pursue.unm.edu/robotics/

January 16, 2003 UNM NASA PURSUE PROGRAM INTRODUCES LOBOT JR. MOBILE ROBOT KITS AS TEACHING TOOL FOR 9-12 GRADE STUDENTS The PURSUE program at the University of New Mexico has introduced its first generation of cooperative mobile robot kits as a tool to teach high school and middle school students about robotics. The LOBOT Jr. mobile robot kit package, available by order, includes the latest model of the LOBOT Jr. Kit, user manual, CD-ROM and teacher education program. The LOBOT Jr. mobile robot kit package is designed and developed by NASA Partnership Award for the Integration of Research (PAIR) Program students and was created in the Intelligent Distributed Multi-Agent Robotic Systems (IDMARS) Laboratory at UNM. Nader Vadiee, director of the UNM NASA PURSUE Program and associate professor in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, said students will be given a robot kit by their instructor, and it includes the necessary parts and instructions needed to get the robot up and doing tasks. The tasks include but not limited to wall following, obstacle avoidance, line following, wireless reprogramming and maze following. “The students will be taught step-by-step how to assemble the robot practically from scratch, along the way learning about each component, what it does and why it’s important to the functioning of their robot,” said Vadiee. The LOBOT Jr. Package is an ideal platform for teaching about microcontrollers, sensors; electronics circuit design, soldering, microprocessors, computer programming (Java, C++), wireless communication and more. The specifications of the LOBOT Jr. includes 16 Digital Inputs, 16 Analog Inputs, 8 Digital Outputs, two 12V motor driver ports, two RS232 Ports, Javlin STAMP microprocessor, and wireless communication. The kit features low cost, durable, cooperative/scalable, powerful flexible design and processor, high speeds, large memory space and JAVA programming language. For more information concerning the LOBOT Jr. contact the PURSUE Program at 277-0327. ###

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