Thymio

Thymio II is an educational robot in the 100 Euros price range. The robot was developed at the EPFL in collaboration with ECAL, both in Lausanne, Switzerland. A purely-visual programming language was developed at ETH Zurich.[1]


One of the unique features of these robots is its design, production, and commercialization by a full open-source and non-profit chain of actors. This very alternative approach has been justified by the educational goal of the project. The design has been mainly made by universities (EPFL,[2] écal[3] and ETHZ[4]) within research programs (NCCR Robotics[5]). Mechanics,[6] electronics[7] and software[8] are open source. The company producing Thymio, called Mobsya[9] is a non-profit organization.

Many articles have been written about how to teach with Thymio in the classroom including the article, "Classroom robotics: Motivating independent learning and discovery"[10] on Robohub. Research and new Thymio projects are constantly being done as noted by IEEE.[11] In 2020 Thymio's pedagogical design was evaluated by Education Alliance Finland. In the evaluation, a group of teacher-evaluators in Switzerland assessed Thymio's curriculum alignment, pedagogy, and usability through using a science-based product evaluation method, developed by Education Alliance Finland and Finnish educational researchers.[12] The product evaluation was funded by Stiftung Mercator[13] and as an outcome of the evaluation, Thymio was granted a pedagogical quality certification.[14]

The robot is in production and distributors of Thymio include Sturiel.com and TechyKids.com.

Simulation

A simulation model of the Thymio II compatible with Aseba Studio is available in Webots and a 3D interactive model of the robot can be found here.

Contests

Since August 18, 2017, the Thymio II robot is used in various international online contest on Robotbenchmark.

References

  1. ^ Shin, Jiwon; Siegwart, Roland; Magnenat, Stéphane (2014). "Visual Programming Language for Thymio II Robot". ETH Zurich. ETH Zürich. doi:10.3929/ethz-a-010144554.
  2. ^ EPFL
  3. ^ écal
  4. ^ ETHZ
  5. ^ NCCR Robotics
  6. ^ Mechanical CAD files and 3D PDF of the mechanics, bottom of the page
  7. ^ Bill of material and PCB layout for electronics manufacturing
  8. ^ Source code pointers of the firmware and applications linked to Thymio
  9. ^ Mobsya
  10. ^ Classroom robotics: Motivating independent learning and discovery
  11. ^ "Thymio Robots Turn Barcodes into Light Paintings". December 2014.
  12. ^ "Education Alliance Finland". Catalog of certified products. 9 March 2020. Retrieved 12 May 2020.
  13. ^ "Stiftung Mercator". Project: Education Alliance Switzerland. Retrieved 12 May 2020.
  14. ^ "Education Alliance Finland". Catalog of certified products. 9 March 2020. Retrieved 12 May 2020.
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