Before going into the tutorials, we are assuming the programming environment is already configured. If it is not the case, please refer to the ‘Donnie’s Developer Manual’.

About Donnie

Robotics has been used to teach young students the basics of programming. However, most of the programming environments for kids are high visual, based on grab and drag blocks. Blind students or students with some visual disability cannot use these teaching resources.

The Donnie project proposes an inclusive robotic programming environment which all students (with or without visual disabilities) can use.

Donnie comes with two usage options: with the simulated and with the physical robots. It is recommend to start with simulation since it does not require building the robot. Moreover, the physical robot is functional, but still under test.

Features

• Robot programming environment for young students with or without visual impairment;
• Assistive programming language called GoDonnie. GoDonnie is TTS and screen reader friendly;
• Integration with a Arduino-based robot with Player robotic middleware;
• Extension of Stage simulator to generate sound clues while the robot is moving;
• Software developed for the simulated robot is compatible with the real Donnie robot;

The simulation is recommended if you want to known about Donnie but don’t have the required resources to build your own Donnie robot.