computer science

Open Roberta

Open Roberta is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Open Roberta rather than just read about it. In short: Open Roberta is a project within the German education initiative "Roberta – Learning with robots", initiated by Fraunhofer IAIS, which is an institute belonging to the Fraunhofer Society. With Open Roberta Fraunhofer IAIS is looking to encourage children to code by using robots such as Lego Mindstorms, and other programmable hardware systems such as Arduino, BBC Micro-Bit, and the Calliope mini.

Key takeaways

Open Roberta belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Open Roberta to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Open Roberta from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Open Roberta is a project within the German education initiative "Roberta – Learning with robots", initiated by Fraunhofer IAIS, which is an institute belonging to the Fraunhofer Society. With Open Roberta Fraunhofer IAIS is looking to encourage children to code by using robots such as Lego Mindstorms, and other programmable hardware systems such as Arduino, BBC Micro-Bit, and the Calliope mini. The Cloud-approach of the Open Roberta Lab is intended to simplify programming concepts and make it easier for teachers and schools to teach how to code. Open Roberta is free and does not require any installation. The project was initially founded with €1m by Google.org. Users from up to 120 countries now access the platform.

Open Roberta Lab Open Roberta Lab is cloud-based programming environment and is the user-facing middleware in a chain of software and firmware bits that make a robot work in a classroom environment. This environment allows children and young people with no technical pre-knowledge to program a LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 and NXT robot, as well as the Arduino based robot Bot'n Roll ONE A, the BBC micro:bit, and the Calliope mini. As of the release 2.3.0, the microboard B-O-B-3 and as of release 3.0 the microboards Arduino Uno, Arduino Nano and Arduino Mega can also be programmed using Open Roberta. There is a variety of different program blocks available to program the motors, sensors, and the EV3 brick. Open Roberta Lab uses the approach of visual programming. This approach makes it easier, especially for beginners with no experience, to learn how to code. As a cloud based programming environment no installation is needed and any operating system (Mac OS, Windows, Linux) and computer hardware device may be used. One of the advantages of Open Roberta Lab is that it can be used with any device (PC, tablet, smartphone); only a web browser is needed. The Lab can be used without registration, and no user account is needed. As of the release 2.2.1, the Linux-based operating system EV3dev is officially supported for the LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 robot. Open Roberta Lab is available in the following languages: Catalan, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Turkish always in school students.

Open source community The programming platform Open Roberta Lab is open source developed. Both the software as well as the open source development tools are available on a server of Fraunhofer Society. The development team at Fraunhofer works together with teachers and education experts from the Roberta network. Therefore, also universities and students are involved in the development. It should address especially female students - the guiding principle of the Roberta project.

Programming language NEPO®

NEPO is a free open source meta programming language that can be used by students, scholars, teachers, and other interested persons within the Open Roberta Lab. NEPO translates to New Easy Programming Online (or simply OPEN read backwards). NEPO is the name of the graphical programming language and its coupled hardware connection layer. NEPO uses the freely available Blockly library. In addition within NEPO there are additional functionalities and improvements which have been adapted for Open Roberta. The programming paradigm of NEPO is inspired by Scratch, which was developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A NEPO block always represents and encapsulates a certain robot functionality. A blocks feature set can easily be recognized through the associated block category, for example »sensors«. Programming with NEPO follows a simple principle. The blocks are interconnected and will be executed by the robot according to their order. This principle is called "sequential operation."

NEPO block categories All available blocks are listed and categorized as the Action, Sensors, Control, Logic, Math, Text, Colours, Variables, Functions, and Messages as shown in the table below.

NEPO input / output connector

Depending on the block different values can be passed to a block. The type of the value can be identified by the colored compounds (called including »connectors«) of a block. In the chapter »block category« you can see the different values a block may have. Only if the colors of the input and the output connector match, these blocks can be connected. A block may optionally also pass a value to another block. These blocks have colored output connectors. Only if the colors of the input and the output connector are the same, these blocks can be connected.

In total there are six input and output types within NEPO. These types can have the following values:

Logical value (light blue) Number (dark Blue) String / Text (green) Colour (yellow) List (purple) Connection (pink)

Artificial neural networks

Since August 2022, the Open Roberta Lab offers the functionality to program artificial neural networks. With this integration, the topic "Artificial Intelligence" was integrated into the Open Roberta Lab. This is done along the framework curriculum for computer science in North Rhine-Westphalia. The project is funded by the Ministry for School and Education of North Rhine-Westphalia. The graphical integration enables a low-threshold access. The feature makes AI algorithms intuitively experienceable and understandable through graphical programming. The goal is for students from grades 5 and 6 to understand what an artificial neural network is and how it works. They also learn to program themselves, for example to enable a robot to move independently in its environment. The structure and functioning of simple neural networks can be understood step by step. The networks programmed by the students can be tested directly in the 2D simulation provided in the Open Roberta Lab, so that the children receive immediate feedback. Once the basics are understood, students can train the artificial neural network. A robot can thus be "taught" to avoid obstacles, as vacuum cleaner robots do, for example.

Open Roberta Simulator

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Open Roberta: NEPO program Hello World. — NEPO program Hello World.

Open Roberta: NEPO typ check input connectors. — NEPO typ check input connectors.

Open Roberta: NEPO typ check output connectors. — NEPO typ check output connectors.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Open Roberta

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Open Roberta claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Open Roberta before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Open Roberta ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Open Roberta

In research: Open Roberta appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Open Roberta in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Open Roberta is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2014 software, Children's websites, Educational programming languages, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Open Roberta outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Open Roberta in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Open Roberta means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Open Roberta out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Open Roberta in simple terms?

Why does Open Roberta matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Open Roberta?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Open Roberta.