Tekkotsu has grown from a specialized framework for development on the Sony Aibo to a general purpose robotics development environment with support for a variety of hardware, algorithms for autonomous operation, virtual simulation, and associated curriculum for undergraduate education. This paper describes the implementation of these features, provides examples of their use in research and education, and draws a comparison with other popular open-source robotics frameworks.

Hand-eye systems combine computer vision with kinematics and dynamics calculations to achieve dexterous manipulation. These versatile platforms for teaching robotics principles have not been widely used in undergraduate laboratories due to cost. We describe a new hand-eye system constructed from Robotis Dynamixel servos, a USB interface module, and a webcam, that can be built for under $500 and run by a PC using the Tekkotsu open source software framework. A suggested curriculum is outlined.

A successful collaboration between Spelman College and Carnegie Mellon University led to an NSF-funded Broadening Participation in Computing project to set up robotics education laboratories and introduce undergraduate instruction in cognitive robotics at three other Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). We give a brief overview of cognitive robotics and the Tekkotsu software architecture, and describe our experiences teaching computer science students with no previous robotics exposure to program sophisticated mobile robots.