History
The original TekBots program was developed by the Oregon State University College of Engineering. Professors there wanted to provide a fun and interesting way for students to get excited about engineering. In 2000, the TekBots program was able to get off the ground with a $500,000 grant from the Oregon based company, Tektronix inc.
Freshman students entering Oregon State University's engineering program start out with $80 worth of electronics to build their initial TekBot. As the students take more and more classes while in the electrical and computer engineering program, more and more functionality is added to the robots; such as bump sensors to sense when the robot has struck a wall or LCD screens to display a message or even infrared (IR) transmitters and receivers to communicate with the robot.
Students program the robot using such software as AVR Studio 4 in order to write and compile a C program. The program is then transferred to the robot via a USB or parallel port dongle.
The TekBots program at Oregon State University is still seed-funded by Tektronix today.
TekBots is currently offered by 5 universities worldwide:
- Oregon State University
- Iowa State University
- Rochester Institute of Technology
- University of Nebraska
- Fukuoka Institute of Technology
Several community colleges and other universities have also purchased TekBots over the years.
Read more about this topic: Tek Bots
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