The document serves as a comprehensive training course on using various sensors with LEGO Mindstorms, including motors, touch sensors, light sensors, ultrasonic sensors, and sound sensors. It outlines the purpose and usage of each sensor, provides tasks for students to complete, and details the educational collaboration among several European schools to develop this curriculum. The course aims to introduce students to programming and robotics through practical, hands-on activities.

1. BASIC COURSE
2 Contence | Cursus Basiskennis LEGO MINDSTORMS
C ON T E N C E
CONTENTS
...............................................................................................
........................................ 2
PREFACE
...............................................................................................
........................................... 3
USE OF SENSORS
.......................................................................................... .....
.............................. 4
INTRODUCTION

2. ...............................................................................................
.................................... 4
TASK 1 : USING MOTORS
...............................................................................................
........................ 4
WHEN DO YOU USE A MOTOR?
...............................................................................................
....................... 4
HOW TO USE A LEGO MOTOR
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.......................... 5
HOW TO USE THE “DISPLAY”SCREEN
...............................................................................................
................. 5
TASK
...............................................................................................
........................................................... 5
TASK 2 : USING THE TOUCH SENSOR
...............................................................................................
.......... 7
WHAT IS A TOUCH SENSOR AND WHAT CAN YOU USE IT
FOR? .............................................................................. 7
HOW TO USE THE LEGO TOUCH SENSOR
...............................................................................................
............ 7
TASK
...............................................................................................

3. ........................................................... 8
TASK 3 : USING A LICHTSENSOR
...............................................................................................
.............. 9
WHAT DO YOU USE THE LIGHT SENSOR FOR?
................................................................................ ...............
..... 9
HOW DO YOU USE THE LEGO LIGHTSENSOR?
...............................................................................................
.... 10
HOW TO CALIBRATE THE LIGHT SENSOR
...............................................................................................
........... 11
TASK
...............................................................................................
......................................................... 11
TASK 4 : USING THE ULTRASONIC SENSOR
...............................................................................................
. 13
WHAT IS AN ULTRASONIC SENSOR AND WHAT IS IT
USED FOR? ...........................................................................
13
HOW TO USE THE LEGO ULTRASONIC SENSOR
...............................................................................................
... 13
TASK
...............................................................................................

4. ......................................................... 14
TASK 5 : USING THE SOUND SENSOR
...............................................................................................
........ 15
WHAT IS A SOUND SENSOR AND WHAT DO WE USE IT
FOR? ............................................................................... 15
HOW TO USE THE LEGO SOUND SENSOR
...............................................................................................
......... 15
TASK
...............................................................................................
......................................................... 16
Cursus Basiskennis LEGO MINDSTORMS | Preface 3
P R E F AC E
This course material is the result of a Comenius project 2007 –
2009 between VTI Veurne (Belgium), Budai
Középiskola (Hungary), ISS Deambrosis Natta (Italy), Portalens
Gymnasium Uddevalla (Sweden) and Vocational
High School of Orestiada (Greece).

5. In 2007 these schools decided to start a LEGO MINDSTORMS
project.
The purpose was to get the students of these schools
communicating about the project, having them carry out
experiments with the LEGO NXT and ultimately develop
attractive course material for students / teachers.
Very soon other teachers became interested and the LEGO NXT
motivated them to introduce it in their lessons.
Therefore a basic course was made up to enable starters to get
introduced to the NXT.
At our school group work exercises will be introducing LEGO
NXT in the ICT lessons of the first grade of
secondary education, without dealing with sensors though.
In the second grade the students will learn how to work sensors
and they will try more difficult exercises with
LEGO NXT..
In the third grade they will start using LabVIEW to program the
LEGO NXT.
Please, enjoy!

6. 4 Use of sensors | Cursus Basiskennis LEGO MINDSTORMS
U S E OF S E N S ORS
I N T R O D UC TI O N
We subdivide the class into groups of 3 to 4 students. Each
group has to complete 5 tasks. Whenever a group
thinks they are ready to do the task they ask the teacher to take
their time. The groups can have 3 tries to
correctly complete each task. The teacher notes down the time
in the table. If a group does not manage to
complete a task they get the maximum penalty time of 25
seconds for that task.
Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4 Group 5
Task 1
Task 2
Task 3
Task 4
Task 5
All tasks can be done on a standard classroom table.

7. T A S K 1 : U SI N G M O T O R S
W H E N D O YO U U S E A M O T O R ?
In our daily life a lot of things need a motor. Everyone knows
that.
Can you give some examples?
*………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
*………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
Cursus Basiskennis LEGO MINDSTORMS | Use of sensors 5
H O W T O U SE A L E G O MO T O R
You can drive a little car with a LEGO motor.
But you could also use a motor to have it hit a ball.

8. H O W T O U SE T H E “ D IS P L A Y” SC R E EN
Switch on the NXT by pressing the orange button .
The main menu appears. Press the right hand button twice and
you will get the “Display” or ‘View’ screen.
Press the orange button again.
With the display you can determine the exact distance that the
NXT has to drive. In order to find the number of
revolutions for a certain distance you scroll with the arrow
buttons until you find the button ‘Motor rotations
R’. Press the orange button once more. Next you have to select
which gate the motor is connected to. If you
now push the robot forward you will see how many rotations it
makes.
T A S K
What you need:
• NXT basic model
• an extra motor mounted onto the NXT and built in compliance
with the

9. model in the manual
• ball with a little holder built like the model in the manual
• black tape for the circuit.
Here you can select a
gate on the NXT.
Here you can define the direction:
forward, backward or stop.
Here you make the NXT turn
under a well defined angle..
Here you can define the next action
the NXT has to take.
Here you can define the distance
the NXT has to cover.
Here you can define the
power of an engine.
6 Use of sensors | Cursus Basiskennis LEGO MINDSTORMS

10. Task
The NXT basic model has to complete the course as represented
below. At the end of the course, there is a
little ball. You have to knock away this small ball with the extra
motor.
Take care, the NXT robot should stay within the black lines.
This can only be done by accurately defining the
angles and by choosing exactly the same starting position with
every try. Therefore it can be interesting to
mark this position with a piece of black tape.
See to it that the NXT robot performs the test as fast as
possible.
Track
Write down every step of your program in the table below.
Which block do you use? Which are the settings you apply?

11. Cursus Basiskennis LEGO MINDSTORMS | Use of sensors 7
T A S K 2 : U SI N G T H E T OU C H S E NS OR
W H A T I S A T O U C H S E NS O R A ND WH A T C A
N YO U U S E I T FO R ?
A touch sensor is a sensor that works as a switch and reacts
when you press the button. The sensor signals the
NXT module if it is pressed or not. A good touch sensor can
even measure how strong the pressure on the
sensor is. This is measured in Pa.
A touch sensor is used a lot in daily life, but it isn’t that
obvious. Can you come up with 2 examples in which
touch sensors are used?
*………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
*………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
H O W T O U SE T H E L E G O T O U C H S EN S O R
The LEGO touch sensor is a very simple sensor which can only
check if the sensor has been pressed or not.
The touch sensor has a hole in the middle in which you can fit

12. an axle. You can build a construction on it that
allows the sensor to “feel” objects better.
You can use the touch sensor in different ways:
A first way in which you can use it, is with the ‘Wait’ block.
When using this
block the NXT waits until the touch sensor registers pressure.
The robot
can then start on the next task.
A second way to use the touch sensor is by using the ‘Switch’
block. With
this block you can give the robot a task when the touch sensor is
pressed
and another task when it is not. This is called true/false
programming.
An example: you can have the robot drive forward as long as the
touch
sensor isn’t pressed. When the sensor touches an object the
robot must
stop.

13. 8 Use of sensors | Cursus Basiskennis LEGO MINDSTORMS
T A S K
What you need:
- NXT basic model without sensors
- the touch sensor which you mount at the front of the NXT
- black tape to mark the track
- 2 little vertical boards which will serve as walls.
Task
The goal is to programme your NXT robot so that it keeps to the
track and uses the touch sensor.
Have the basic model of the NXT drive forward until it detects
the wall with the touch sensor. Next it has to
turn and drive to the other wall and then turn again. Now the
robot has to drive to the finish and stop. In the
drawing below you can see the track. You have your robot do
the track as fast as possible. It’s not allowed for
the NXT to cross the black lines. You can solve this problem by
accurately measuring the angle at the turning
points and by always taking the same starting position. That’s
the reason why it can be useful to mark the

14. starting position with black tape.
Track
Cursus Basiskennis LEGO MINDSTORMS | Use of sensors 9
Write down every step of your program in the table below.
Which block do you use? Which are the settings you apply?
T A S K 3 : U SI N G A LI G HT S E N S O R
W H A T D O YO U U S E T HE L I G H T S EN S O R F
O R ?

15. With a light sensor, you can detect different light intensities.
Can you give an example from everyday life in which a light
sensor is used?
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10 Use of sensors | Cursus Basiskennis LEGO MINDSTORMS
H O W D O YO U U S E T HE L E G O L I GH T S E N S
O R?
The new light sensor is an improved version of the somewhat
older
MINDSTORMS for schools. This sensor is much more sensitive,
so you can do
more precise light measurements on a scale of 0 to 100. It’s also
possible to

16. turn off the infrared light that can be found just below the
sensor. In this way
the sensor only measures light of the environment.
Here you can select the port the sensor is connected to.
Here you can set the moment of activation.
Here you can see the If you switch on the button ‘ Generate
current light value. light’ ,the light sensor will generate its
own
light that will be reflected onto the light
sensor.
The button ’Generate light’ can be useful.
The button ’Generate light’ can be useful if the light conditions
are difficult, such as in very sunny

17. weather. The sensor only detect differences in how much light
reflects off an object. Closer objects
are brighter than further ones, light-color objects are brighter
than dark ones, and redder objects will
seem brighter than blue ones.
How do you detect different light intensities on the NXT?
Switch on the NXT by pressing the orange button.
When the main menu appears, you press the right hand arrow
twice so that you get ‘View’ on the
screen. Press the orange button again. Now scroll with the grey
keys until you find the light sensor.
On the ‘Display’ screen you can now see the brightness that the
sensor perceives. You can have the
light sensor generate light with the button ‘Reflected light’ or
let it work with the light of the
environment with the button ‘Ambient light’. Select the port
which the light sensor is connected to.
Direct the sensor to different objects and you will see the
intensity, shown in percentage. Just like
the other sensors you can combine this sensor with the ‘Switch’

18. block or the ‘Wait’ block.
Cursus Basiskennis LEGO MINDSTORMS | Use of sensors 11
You can use the light sensor in different ways.
The first way is with the ‘Wait’ block. The program will wait
until the
sensor perceives a certain light intensity. As soon as this
condition has
been fulfilled the program will continue running.
The second way is using the ‘Loop’ block. The program part
inside the
‘Loop' block will continue until the light sensor measures a
specific light
intensity.
The third way is with the ‘Switch’ block. Here you can give the
robot a
certain task when the desired light intensity is reached and
another task

19. when this is not the case. This is called true/false programming.
So for
example you have the robot drive forward until it meets an
object with a
higher light intensity than the selected value and then you have
the robot
turn.
H O W T O C AL IB R A T E THE L I G H T S EN S O R
Sensors can sometimes be influenced by their environment.
Therefore it is useful to calibrate them to let them
work correctly in every environment. In order to do this the
sensor must be connected to a computer (via the
NXT).
Place the sensor block in the programming window and select it.
In the menu you will find the submenu 'Extra'. In this menu you
select 'Calibration of sensors'. Ensure the
sensor is connected to the correct gate. Aim the sensor at the
darkest place and press the orange button. Next,
aim at the brightest place and press the orange button again.
The calibration is now complete. For the NXT the

20. darkest place now equals 0 and the brightest place 100.
T A S K
What you need:
- NXT basic model with light sensor fitted onto a long arm.
- black tape.
Task
The NXT (basic model equipped with a light sensor) is placed
inside an area, defined by a black line (as you can
see underneath). The NXT starts inside the area, at its edge. It
has to make a complete lap along the edge of the
area, as fast as possible.
The NXT will have to detect the line with the light sensor and
then execute a movement in order to stay in the
area and close to the line. The NXT must be able to fulfill this
task no matter where it is positioned to start.
The task has to be completed as fast and accurately as possible.
12 Use of sensors | Cursus Basiskennis LEGO MINDSTORMS

21. Track
Write down every step of your program in the table below.
Which block do you use? Which are the settings you apply?
Cursus Basiskennis LEGO MINDSTORMS | Use of sensors 13
T A S K 4 : U SI N G T H E U LT R A S O N IC SE N S O
R
W H A T I S AN U L T R A S ON I C S E N S OR A N D W
H AT I S I T US ED F O R?
An ultrasonic sensor is a sensor that can measure distances. The
sensor sends and receives a signal. The time
between sending and receiving determines the actual distance to

22. an object. So, the longer it takes for the
sensor to get the signal back, the further away the object is.
This sensor is used in the parking aid system of new cars. In
this case the sensor determines the distance
between the cars to prevent the cars from bumping into each
other.
Name 2 other examples in which the ultrasonic sensor is used.
-
…………………………………………………………………………
……………………………….
-
…………………………………………………………………………
……………………………….
H O W T O U SE T H E L E G O U L T R A S O NI C S EN
S O R
The ultrasonic sensor created by LEGO has a reliable range
from 5 till 220 cm. The distance shown is the
distance measured from the back of the sensor, as it were the
rear side of the ‘eyes’ of the sensor.
You can use the sensor with the ‘Switch’ block. With this block
you can choose between two conditions: closer
or further away than the selected distance. Similar to a camera a

23. flower suggests nearby, the closer or ‘less
than’ option. The mountain suggests further away, the ‘farther
than’ option.
You can also use the ‘Wait’ block. The action of the next block
can only start when the condition of this block
has been fulfilled. So the robot waits for the condition to be
realized. This condition could be “a distance
smaller than or bigger than a selected value”.
14 Use of sensors | Cursus Basiskennis LEGO MINDSTORMS
T A S K
What you need:
- tape, to mark a zone
- LEGO NXT with the LEGO ultrasonic sensor
- free standing table.
Task
You let the robot drive along the edge of the table, but ensure
that the robot does not fall off the table. The

24. robot must always drive within an area of 20 cm from the edge
of the table. At the corners of the table the area
is slightly rounded.
Track
Write down every step of your program in the grid below.
Which block do you use? Which are the settings you apply?
Cursus Basiskennis LEGO MINDSTORMS | Use of sensors 15
T A S K 5 : U SI N G T H E S OU N D S E N SOR
W H A T I S A S O U N D S ENS O R A ND WH A T D O
W E U S E I T F O R?

25. The main function of a sound sensor is registering sound. With
most sensors you can also register the sound
level. The best known example of a sensor that can measure the
sound level is the decibel meter, but a baby
alarm can also register the sound level. If a baby cries too loud
the “alarm” in the baby intercom of the parents
will sound: they will hear their baby cry.
Can you think of some examples yourself ?
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H O W T O U SE T H E L E G O S O U N D S EN S O R
We measure the sound level in decibel (dB). When you talk to a
person in a normal voice the sound level will be around 40 to 60
dB.
When you make a lot of noise the membrane of the microphone
will
move much more and you will measure a level of sound that is
higher
than 90 dB.
The sound level of this sensor is represented in %.
< 5 % : quiet room

26. 5-10% : talking at a distance from the sensor
10-30% : talking into the sensor/ playing background music
30-100% : shouting into the sensor/ very loud music
The sensor can also be turned into dBA mode by a contact point
in the data hub.
The human ear is not as sensitive for all frequencies . The dBA
mode will adapt the level of the measured sound
more to how we experience the sound level as a human being.
The sound sensor can register the difference between a normal
voice and a loud voice. You can programme the
robot to complete a certain task when one person is giving the
command and another task when there are
more people giving the command simultaneously.
The sound sensor is also able to recognise several sound
patterns. Clapping your hands twice can have a totally
different meaning to the robot than clapping once.
Apart from different sound patterns the sensor also has the
capability to register the difference in tone. This
way you are able to programme different commands depending
on the pitch.
You can use the sound sensor in different ways:

27. This block can measure the actual sound level and then send
this in a logical signal
(true/false) via the data link. If the sound level is above a
certain limit, then the
‘true’ signal will be sent. If it’s under a certain limit it will
send a ‘false’ signal.
16 Use of sensors | Cursus Basiskennis LEGO MINDSTORMS
A second way is using the ‘Wait’ block. It allows you to make
the NXT robot wait until
the sound sensor registers the required sound level. Once this
demand has been
fulfilled, the robot will continue to the next task.
A third way is using the ‘Switch’ block. This way you’re able to
give the NXT robot a
task when it does not hear the required sound signal and one
when it does. We call
this a true/false function. For example you’re now able to make
the robot move

28. forward as long as the sound sensor doesn’t register 50% of its
sound range. When it
does reach this sound level it will perform another task, such as
driving around in
circles until the sound drops below 50% again.
T A S K
What you need:
- NXT basic model without sensors
- the sound sensor which is mounted on the side of the NXT
- black tape to mark the starting position
- bell or toy that makes a noise when you drive a lego car into it
- a cardboard box which is used as a garage.
Task
In this task the NXT robot must start from the starting position
(S) and activate the bell (B). When the sound
sensor registers the signal the robot has to drive to the garage
(G).
Track

29. Cursus Basiskennis LEGO MINDSTORMS | Use of sensors 17
Write down every step of your program in the grid below.
Which block do you use? Which are the settings you apply?
Revising Tips for Literary Analysis Assignments
Throughout the semester, we have “studied a selection of
literary works of different genres” (poetry, drama, short fiction,
novel, etc.) and for each major genre introduced you have
“received instruction in the literary terminology/vocabulary
necessary for an informed discussion of literary features of
texts”.
Your performance on various quizzes and short written
assignments demonstrate that you have “developed some basic,
analytical reading and writing skills relevant to the study of
literature in general”. Moreover, from the caliber of your small
group and our full-class discussions, it’s clear to me that you
have “become more comfortable with and adept at reading,

30. analyzing, and thinking about literature” over the course of the
semester.
I have designed this “tip sheet” to help you further refine your
critical thinking and persuasive writing skills – particularly for
short written assignments where you analyze literature. (In our
class, these include short essays, informal journal entries, etc.).
Even though these tips are targeted to literary analysis writing
assignments, some of them may prove useful for other courses
that require critical thinking and persuasive writing skills.
Proofreading, Editing and Revision Tips
In general, writing assignments require three stages of student
work:
I. Pre-Writing (gathering notes, jotting down ideas, making an
outline, etc.)
II. Drafting (writing out your main points in sentence and
paragraph form).
III. Editing (print out draft and review your writing in 3
stages):
1. Proofreading/marking BASIC ERRORS (grammar, spelling,
wrong words, etc.)
2. Editing for ORGANIZATION and LITERARY ANALYSIS
ELEMENTS (quotes/specific textual examples, explanation of
your ideas and interpretations)
3. Revising for CLARITY and STYLE
IV. Make changes*
* Then, of course, go back to your saved draft & make the
changes accomplished on paper in the document (RE-SPELL
CHECK new changes and SAVE/Print/Upload, etc.)

31. ***Don’t skip the crucial 3-part editing phase and lose
credibility for your otherwise great ideas in the paper!***
Here are a few things to consider as you edit and revise draft
material. (I recommend that you print out your complete rough
draft to do these edits.):
1. Proofread carefully so that your writing is clear and free of
significant grammatical errors.
· One of the best ways to do this is to read the entire essay or
journal entry aloud—slowly—to catch grammatical mistakes;
then make corrections as you go.
A few common grammatical issues to look for and fix, if
needed:
· Subject-verb agreement – Subject and verb should match:
plural-plural ("they go"),
singular-singular (he goes).
· Verb tense agreement – Verbs in the same sentence/paragraph
should be in the same tense
(all past tense or all present tense)
· Run on sentences - Unnecessarily long sentences are hard to
understand. Split these up
with a semi-colon or a period.
Be sure to adjust pronoun references to the author, so that
your pronoun reflects the correct gender.
· In 20th C. American Women Writers, ALL of the authors
should be referred to as “she” not “he”.
2. Editing for Organization / Literary Analysis
· Double check each allusion or reference you mention (for
example ‘Meinkampf’ in “Daddy”, etc.).
· It's possible to look these up, so while in a freewrite or very
rough draft you might just be speculating, there's no reason not
to confirm specific meanings whenever possible. It will

32. strengthen your overall analysis.
· Each time you make a claim about what something means
(interpretation), back it up with a quote (or quotes) or specific
example(s) from the text as evidence (textual support) and
explain why you think that example means something
(argument).
INTERPRETATION
=
TEXTUAL SUPPORT
+
ARGUMENT
(Claim about Meaning)
(Quote(s) or Specific Examples)
(Explanation of “why”)
3. Revising for Clarity and Style (Fine tuning )
· For any kind of writing-- but especially literary analysis -- it
is important to be as CLEAR AS POSSIBLE about WHO IS
DOING WHAT to WHOM. There are 2 major tips for
improving this:
1. Whenever possible, replace a PRONOUN (he, she, it, they,)
with a NOUN (person, place or thing) or PROPER NOUN
(specific name of person or city, etc.).
[Same thing goes for POSESSIVE PRONOUNS (his, her, their,
its’).]
EASIEST WAY TO DO THIS: Wherever you have a vague
pronoun or possessive pronoun ask yourself a short question to
get at specifics. Then use the "answer" in your revision:
Example from student draft of Journal 1:

33. Question: "Who is 'she' (PRONOUN) in this sentence?
Answers: "the poet" (NOUN), "Sylvia Plath" (PROPER NOUN,
or "Plath" (PROPER NOUN).)
Look how much stronger these two sentences become when I
replace the vague PRONOUNS with NOUNs or PROPER
NOUNS:
DRAFT: "Daddy was written to create an image of the
relationship between her and her
father.Her father died while she was 8 years old therefore she
had a brief relationship."
REVISED: "'Daddy' was written to create an image of the
relationship between Sylvia Plath and her father. Plath’s father
died while she was only 8 years old; therefore the poet had a
brief relationship with him."
2. Whenever possible, revise sentences to use ACTIVE VERBS
instead of PASSIVE VERBS.
EASIEST WAY TO DO THIS: When you rewrite sentences,
put the SUBJECT (whoever DID or IS DOING the action) in
front of THE VERB (what is BEING DONE.).
DRAFT: "The poem is written in a nursery rhyme so it shows
how it makes her feel like a little girl again."
The sentence above is not clear about what "it" is (the poem?
the nursery rhyme style?). Or maybe the two "its” refer to two
different things? Also it is not clear WHO or WHAT the subject
is, WHAT the action (verb) is or what the DIRECT OBJECT is.
REVISED (for PRONOUNS & ACTIVE VERBS): Sylvia Plath

34. wrote “Daddy” in the style of a
nursery rhyme. By writing in this nursery rhyme style, Plath
demonstrates for readers how
thinking about her father makes the poet feel like a little girl
again.
CREATIVE RESEARCH PROJECT and SHORT LITERARY
ANALYSIS PAPER
Although these 2 assignments are informal, they comprise a
significant portion of the course grade. The Short Literary
Analysis Paper (20%) and the Creative Research Project
(20%)both ask students to apply and demonstrate the literary
analysis and critical thinking skills that you have honed
throughout the semester.
SHORT, INFORMAL LITERARY ANALYSIS PAPER
This short, informal literary analysis paper assignment invites
students to explore a broad theme or reflection topic from 1 or 2
of the literary texts that we have studied together in depth in
our course. Students will select one of the optional paper topics
to write about. Each paper topic focuses on a particular theme
or issue in a literary work(s).
Students will take a very focused and simple approach to
writing about this broad thematic topic. You will select only 1
or 2 short passages or excerpts that you believe relate to the
broader topic question. For the majority of this informal, short
paper, your writing will demonstrate the “close reading” skills
you have gained this semester by explaining how you analyze
these passages. Students should also clearly explain a few
simple connections you have identified between your “close
reading” observations of the shorter passages and the broader
paper topic.
The purpose and structure of this short informal literary

35. analysis paper most closely resembles that of the “Response
Paper” genre of student writing:
A response paper is a great opportunity to practice your close
reading skills without having to develop an entire argument. In
most cases, a solid approach is to select a rich passage that
rewards analysis (for example, one that depicts an important
scene or a recurring image) and close read it. While response
papers are a flexible genre, they are not invitations for
impressionistic accounts of whether you liked the work or a
particular character. Instead, you might use your close reading
to raise a question about the text—to open up further
investigation, rather than to supply a solution
From Harvard College Writing Center Brief Guide Series “A
Brief Guide to Writing the English Paper”
Please note: For this paper, you do NOT have to include most
of the typical elements of a longer, formal college English
literary analysis paper, such as:
* a well-developed “argument” that ties into one overarching
interpretation of the work
* detailed analysis of numerous sections of a literary text (or
texts)
* organizing /marshaling all “close readings” to support a
massive, complex project/argument.
In organizing your ideas (pre-writing), writing and revising this
short paper, you will use the literary analysis skills you
practiced and developed this semester:
1. Choose one of the optional paper topics for our course
section.

36. 2. Select an appropriate passage or passages from the literary
work that relate to the paper
topic you plan to write about.
a. Use critical thinking to make connections between what is
happening on the “micro”
level of the passage and how that fits in with the broader themes
and ideas in the literary work as a whole
b. Suggested / approximate lengths of selected passages:
Fiction: one or two passages of prose (totaling up to 3 pages)
Drama: a scene excerpt or portion of 2 scenes (again, no more
than 3 pages)
Poetry/Blues lyrics: lines or stanza excerpts related to paper
topic (varied
lengths, but generally no more than 2 pages)
3. Apply “close reading” skills to analyze your selected
passages
a. Identify special uses of figurative language and/or sonic
elements
b. Think about how the language in this passage “works” to
communicate the meaning
c. Consider how the smaller “parts” of each excerpt contribute
to the tone, mood, ideas
and overall theme of this short passage.
4. In clear, grammatically correct prose, explain what you
have learned through your “close
reading” of the selected passage(s).
a. When appropriate, use specific literary terminology to name

37. the literary devices used.
b. Describe how the language in this passage “works” to
communicate meaning.
c. Explain how the smaller “parts” of each excerpt contribute to
the tone, mood, ideas
and overall theme of this short passage.
5. Revisit your initial “connections” between the passage(s)
you selected for close reading and
the broader paper topic. Revise your draft as appropriate.
a. Identify any changes or complications that have developed in
your thinking about the
broader paper topic or theme after your close reading of the
select passage(s).
b. Where necessary, add sentences, transition phrases, or a
paragraph at the end to
account for your more nuanced understanding of the
“connections” between the short passage(s) you analyzed and
the literary work as a whole.
*** Remember: Flexible and exploratory thinking is good! You
don’t need to “prove” any single argument for this paper! ***
Optional Paper Topics: Summary
* This page is a summary overview of the optional paper topics
and questions.
* Each optional paper topic has its own expanded page (see
below). For your convenience, those expanded pages also
include

38. 1. introductory/background statements
2. more detailed and expanded “sub questions” and
3. helpful hints/tips for tackling each paper topic option.
Optional Paper Topic:
Blues Lyrics
Choose 2 – 3 thematically or topically connected blues lyrics
(from our packet) and put them
into “conversation” with each other. Which specific shared
topic or “link” in these 2 or 3 pieces
do you plan to write about? How are the poems or songs similar
in their treatment of this topic?
In what ways do they differ?
To address this comparative paper topic, you’ll first need to
consider the questions below for each individual blues lyric you
analyze: [See expanded “sub questions” below.]
Optional Paper Topic:Fences – August Wilson
In what ways does Troy Maxson fit the classification of a
“tragic hero”? On the other hand, in
what ways is Troy Maxson a “realistic” hero who reflects the
social, historic and cultural context
in which Fences is set?
* How might these choices to characterize Troy Maxon in this
way fit in with and support August Wilson’s broader project in
the “Pittsburgh Cycle” plays? How might this characterization
challenge or complicate the playwrights goals?
Optional Paper Topic:Their Eyes Were Watching God -- Zora
Neale Hurston
A great writer can be the voice of a generation. What kind of
voice (or voices) does Hurston
employ and why would she use a novel to express this voice?

39. What does her voice reveal
about her generation? Is it still relevant?
Is Their Eyes Were Watching God primarily concerned with the
experiences of those living in
specific – and unusual -- cultural communities? Or with the
unique gendered perspective
represented through Janie? Or does the novel actual center on
universal human questions and
themes? What do you think was Hurston’s most important
message and why might have she
chosen to convey this in a fictional novel rather than a speech
or essay?
Blues Lyrics
Blues lyrics are rooted in a rich set of African American oral
traditions that simultaneously celebrate “borrowing” (repetition)
and “riffing” (creative variation and improvisational
development). This paradox exists on both the level of the form
(or structure) of the blues and on the level of content (topics &
themes).
As a musical form, the blues contain many obvious examples of
structural “sameness,” or repetition. Most blues lyrics follow
one of the common rhyme scheme patterns while the music
generally adheres to common chord progressions. Different
stanzas or “verses” cover new ground, but these are almost
always interspersed with repeated lines and “chorus”. In
practice, blues musicians frequently “cover” each other’s songs.
And blues lyrics often include recurring tropes, images,
metaphors or cultural allusions.
Originally, these recurring poetic devices reflected specific

40. historical and social experiences shared by many African
Americans – including the first great blues musicians -- in the
early 20th century. Over time, these same metaphors, tropes,
images and allusions came to be understood as part of a shared
Blues heritage; even musicians from different cultures and those
born much later historically “draw upon” these elements when
crafting new blues songs.
Yet even as this collection of shared tropes reminds us that the
Blues emerged from a particular cultural group and historical
context, these same devices are used to explore “universal”
human themes. The enduring appeal of the Blues – and their
widespread influence on other musical genres – is largely due to
the “familiar” stories their lyrics tell and the common, deeply-
felt emotions so eloquently expressed in Blues songs.
Option:
Choose 2 – 3 thematically or topically connected blues lyrics
(from our
packet) or blues poems (by Langston Hughes) and put them into
“conversation” with each other. Which specific shared topic or
“link” in these 2 or 3 pieces do you plan to write about? How
are the poems or songs similar in their treatment of this topic?
In what ways do they differ?
To address this comparative paper topic, you’ll first need to
consider the questions below for each blues lyric you analyze:
How does this particular Blues lyric or poem depict and explore
the topic at hand? What poetic devices are used in this lyric to
describe or address the topic you have chosen? What sonic
elements are used and what do they emphasize? How do these
sonic elements contribute to the overall tone and mood of the
lyric? What is the position or attitude of the singer or song
towards the topic?

41. Is the “linked” topic you have identified the central theme or
“argument” (aka “take-away lesson”) of this particular song?
Or is this topic only referenced in passing? Alternately, is this
“linking topic” assumed as the basis of another theme, but not
explicitly developed in the song?
Hints / Tips:
* Whenever possible, be sure to identify appropriate examples
of unusual diction (word choice), striking syntax (grammar) and
figurative language (metaphors, similes, images,
personification, etc.).
* However, don’t name every single poetic device used in the
songs/poems you analyze. Instead, focus only on those that are
used in relation to the “topic” you have chosen.
* Review class notes and your earlier blues “theme” essay
homework to solidify your understanding of the difference
between “theme” and “topic”.
* Keep in mind our class discussion – and the ideas above –
about “difference in sameness”. Wherever you see repetition in
a Blues song (repeated word, phrase, line or verse/chorus) -- try
to identify how the repeated element is changed or developed
over the course of the poem or song.
Fences – August Wilson
August Wilson’s award winning play Fences is the best known
drama from his ambitious “Pittsburg Cycle” -- a series of 10
plays that represent African American experiences over the span
of a century (one play per decade). Fences stages the
experiences of an African American family from the late 1950s
through the early 1960s.

42. Numerous critics have described the main character of Fences -
Troy Maxson - as a larger-than-life "tragic hero", similar to
those found in classical and mythic drama. On the other
hand, many have noted that Troy is depicted in accurate, hyper-
realistic detail throughout the play. Troy’s life experiences,
manners and "authentic" speech patterns resemble those of other
black men of his generation, who were shaped by similar social
contexts and historic events.
Option:
In what ways does Troy Maxson fit the classification of a
“tragic hero”? On
the other hand, in what ways is Troy Maxson a “realistic” hero
who reflects the social, historic and cultural context in which
Fences is set?
* How might these choices to characterize Troy Maxon in this
way fit in with and support August Wilson’s broader project in
the “Pittsburgh Cycle” plays? How might this characterization
challenge/complicate the playwrights goals?
* Especially consider how “radical” it was to put black
experiences – literally -- “center stage” in a society the
playwright considered to be still stifled by quiet racism.
Hints / Tips
Successful papers on this drama topic will do the following:
1. Include an accurate literary definition of the “tragic hero”
and briefly explain his or her major characteristics
* For this, you may refer to our notes from class on “tragic
hero”, some of which are archived on Bb. Alternately, you may
cite a definition/description of the “tragic hero” in a reliable

43. literature textbook or dictionary/glossary of literary terms.
2. Formulate a tentative hypothesis of where Troy Maxon falls
on the spectrum of the classical/mythic “tragic hero” vs.
“hyper-realistic protagonist”.
* Specifically, you’ll need to explicitly identify what you think
are Troy Maxon’s heroic qualities, “tragic flaw”, his downfall,
effect on the other characters, etc.
* Likewise, you’ll need to state the ways in which Troy Maxon
is staged very much as a “realistic” / historical “man of his
time” – or even as the “anti-hero” type common in other 20th
century realist American dramas (Death of a Salesman, A
Streetcar Named Desire, etc.)
3. Choose 1 or 2 scenes in Fences that showcase the aspects of
Troy’s personality, speech, behavior and actions that you have
identified as related to his dominant character traits (whether as
‘tragic hero’, ‘realistic protagonist’, or both).
4. For your close reading of the scene excerpt(s) depicting Troy
Maxon: In addition to noting common poetic devices (ex:
metaphors, figurative language, unusual diction, etc.), your
paper should name and discuss at least a few of the genre
elements specific to drama:
For example: Stage directions regarding character
description/appearance or indicated gestures; delivery of
speeches.
* Extra points for solid analysis of the performance-based
theatrical conventions in Fences -- songs, dance, lighting/set
design, etc.
Their Eyes Were Watching God -- Zora Neale Hurston
Reflection on the overall novel “as a spokesperson for her
generation and specific cultural community:

44. Option:“A great writer can be the voice of a generation. What
kind of voice (or voices) does Hurston employ and why would
she use a novel to express this voice? What does her voice
reveal about her generation? Is it still relevant? What do you
think was Hurston’s most important message and why might
have she chosen to convey this in a fictional novel rather than a
speech or essay?
Some related “sub-questions” to consider when thinking through
the broader topic above: Is Their Eyes Were Watching God
primarily concerned with the experiences of those living in
specific – and unusual -- cultural communities? Or with the
unique gendered perspective represented through Janie? Or
does the novel actual center on universal human questions and
themes?
* More details on this option are forthcoming.
1
T HESI S WR I T I N G G UI DELI N ES FOR SEN I OR A N
D SOFT WA R E EN G I N EER IN G PR OJEC T S
The most difficult part of writing a thesis for your Final Year
Project or Software Engineering project is often 'where
to begin'. Here are a few tips to help you:
1. Think of a topic in your course that you have found
particularly interesting. This may be a chapter or an
issue in a book associated with your course. Or it could be the

45. whole or part of an assignment that you
wished to explore in more detail. On the other hand, there may
be an issue in the news (read a good
newspaper regularly!) that excites your attention. Your chosen
advisor can help you with this and give you
some ideas if necessary.
2. Make sure that the issue is researchable. This means that
there must be a literature base either in
textbooks or periodicals.
3. Be prepared to spend several hours in an academic library
and/or the internet to help you search out
good sources on your intended topic. Remember the Internet is
good for some things but there is no
'quality control' so some of the articles you get might be too
ephemeral or journalistic for an academic
piece of work.
4. It is probably better to think of the whole of your project as
essentially answering a question rather than
researching a field.
5. Make a plan of the chapters. Your plan is likely to look like
this:
• Introduction
• Literature review

46. • Updating/applying new research
• Recent developments
• Case study/small survey
• Conclusion
6. Think of reading around the subject and writing your initial
plan as a process in which each activity
reinforces the other in a circular process. Do some initial
research, then make a tentative plan, then do
more reading to 'flesh out' the plan, then revise the plan and so
on. Your plan only needs to be tentative
at this stage - in all probability it will actually get revised as
you make progress through your project. You
should provide your supervisor with a copy of your plan on your
first substantive meeting.
7. Do not think you have to do all of the reading around the
topic before you start to write. Read or research
sufficiently to write the first chapter (literature review – look:
Writing a Literature Review) and then start
writing a first draft.
8. When you start writing, set yourself a target - say 500-1000
words per day and then you will feel that you
are making progress

47. GET T ING ST ART ED
All undergraduate theses must be formatted in a consistent
manner so that evaluations are based on content, not
presentation. The following section defines this format.
1. Title page
The title page should contain the title, the name of the author,
the degree(s) to be awarded at FUC/FIT, the date
the degree(s) will be conferred, and names and signatures of the
author, supervisor, and the department
Undergraduate Committee.
2
The preparation of the thesis is a process of investigation and
discovery, the precise scope of your study may well
only emerge as you become closely involved in a detailed
review of the literature. At this early stage, your title may
be a provisional one that you will revise later. Your thesis
supervisor may advise on the title in order to help you
find and define the focus of the thesis.
You should examine articles in scholarly journals for examples
of appropriate titles for a study of this length.

48. 2. Acknowledgements
Each thesis may contain a short biography of the candidate,
including institutions attended and dates of
attendance, degrees and honors, titles of publications, teaching
and professional experience, and other matters
that may be pertinent. This space may also be used to give
acknowledgement to those who have helped in the
preparation or process of the thesis. This section may be single
spaced.
3. Abstract
Abstracts are important because they give a first impression of
the document that follows, letting readers decide
whether to continue reading and showing them what to look for
if they do. Though some abstracts only list the
contents of the document, the most useful abstracts tell the
reader more.
4. Table of Contents
A list of all chapters and/or subsections within the thesis should
be provided. This will prepare the reader for the
organizational scheme of your thesis.
5. Table of Figures
A list of all the figures in the document

49. 6. Main Document
7. Appendices
FORM AT OF T HE D OCU M ENT
Page Numbers
All page numbers should be placed bottom center with a 1”
margin beneath. The entire thesis (every single page)
must be paginated in one consecutive numbering sequence, with
the number printed on each page. The title page
is always considered to be page 1, and is the only page that does
not require that the page number be included.
Every page must be included in the count regardless of whether
anything is physically printed on the page.
Footnotes.
3
All footnotes must appear at the bottom of the page. Footnotes
should begin renumbering with 1 at the beginning
of each new chapter. Footnotes may be continued on the next
page, but must begin on the page they are cited.

50. Endnotes will not be allowed.
Page layout (margins, header, footer, line spacing)
Top, bottom, and both side margins must be at least 2,5 cm to
allow for binding and trimming. All information (text
headings, notes, and illustrations), excluding page numbers,
must be within the text area.
The thesis text should be double-spaced, although peripheral
parts like the abstract, title page, acknowledgments,
table of contents, bibliography and appendices should be single-
spaced.
Typeface and Size
The typeface (font) should be clear and professional in
appearance. Specifically, you should choose a serif font, size
10, 11, or 12.
The main body of the text, including appendices, title page and
table of contents, should use a font size 11-point or
greater. Notes, figure captions and the text in tables, etc.,
should use a font size 10-point or greater.
Figures and Tables
Figures and tables can be embedded in the text or collected at
the end, but embedded is preferred. If you are
having difficulty embedding tables or figures, remember that
the content is most important.

51. If tables and figures are embedded, captions should appear
directly below the figure or and above the table. If
collected at the end, captions should precede the figure or table.
Captions should completely and accurately
explain the content of the image in a few sentences. If the
caption grows too long, maybe the figure is too
complicated.
Charts, tables, figures and graphs should not be hand-labeled.
No material should be taped or glued to pages.
Separate lists of figures and tables are necessary and should
follow the Table of Contents.
Appendices
The same paper size, pagination, margin, and illustration
requirements apply to appendices. They support the
research in your thesis and should be as readable and
reproducible as the rest of your work.
Corrections
Correction fluid; hand-written corrections are not permitted.
Page limitations
Though there is no minimum or limit, most theses range
between 30 and 40 pages for all material.
Supplementary Media

52. You may submit CD-ROMs, floppies, videocassettes, etc., with
your thesis, but the written portion must make
sense by itself.
4
EL ECT RONIC VERS ION OF THESI S
The department will post your work as example and reference to
other students. You must also submit your theses
and presentations as .pdf files.
The electronic version of your thesis must be an exact copy of
the word processor file rendered as a single Adobe
PDF file. This single file must include all tables, figures, and
appendices.
You must also submit a separate file (in pdf form) of the
abstract of your thesis. This will be placed on the
department website along with your thesis. The abstract will let
the readers know what the thesis is all about.
THESIS CONT E NT AND ORGAN IZAT IO N
The thesis write-up is the fundamental record of your project.
Though we do not mandate a particular
organizational scheme, it is important to structure your paper

53. clearly and logically. The report should include:
� a clear statement of the problem and why it is of interest or
importance
� a description of the history and background literature on the
subject
� a statement of the author's work and observations
� a discussion of the author's findings in relation to those of
predecessors
� the author's conclusions and suggestions for further work
� a bibliography of cited references
Extensive data, code, or mathematical derivations should be in
appendices rather than in the body of the report.
The report must be well written, clearly organized, and contain
no stylistic or grammatical errors.
IMPORTANT: Supervisors require early drafts, provide
criticism and suggestions. The technical content may require
re-writes. The supervisors will insist that the final document
conform to the accepted standards of technical
writing.
Use direct and clear language. You should not approach word
selection as a way to impress your reader. Let your
ideas do that after you have carefully expressed your thoughts.
Use adjectives sparingly. Words have inherent

54. power; trying to inflate them can end up weakening them. A
word to avoid is "one," as in, "one can clearly see
that." It is also a good idea to avoid using the same words or
phrases more than once or twice in a paragraph. Such
redundancies are evidence of a poor proofreading job.
Your work will be a valuable research tool for other scholars
only if it can be located easily. Be sure to select a title
that is a meaningful description of the content of your
manuscript.
Each thesis must include an abstract, preferably one single-
spaced page (generally between 300-400 words). The
abstract should be a brief descriptive summary rather than a
lengthy introduction to the thesis. It may be helpful
to reread your Thesis Proposal. The abstract should immediately
follow the title page.
5
CIT I NG RE FERENCE S
Since the foundation of a thesis relies on pre-existing
knowledge, there will probably be a great deal of information
in your paper that came from the work of other people.
Scholastic ethics require that we give sufficient credit to

55. the work of those who provide the foundation upon which we
build.
Therefore, information, ideas or phrases obtained from existing
literature should be adequately cited within your
text. The citation also points readers toward further information
regarding a topic you will not provide a full
explanation for.
Citations within the text are used to:
1. indicate the source of information, data, or a concept if not
new or original
2. give the reader other sources from which s/he can learn more
3. save space by referring to material elsewhere instead of
having it in the body of the text
4. give a historical perspective or show very recent
developments
5. allow the reader the opportunity to confirm your
interpretation of another 's work
6. help the reader to evaluate the evidence used in your
discussion by comparing it to others' work
7. indicate your familiarity with previous and current work in a
topic area.
As part of his/her research, the author must assess the quality
and accuracy of the sources and references used. If

56. a genuine controversy exists the author should acknowledge it
by citing appropriate conflicting opinions. Citations
should refer the reader to the original source of the concept or
results being discussed. If it is very inefficient or not
possible to cite original sources, or if the concept being
discussed is very broad, an authoritative review paper or
book may be cited. Especially be cautious and judicious in
using Internet sources. When at all possible, use
citations to reputable refereed journals, either in print or on-
line. When the source has not been reviewed as part
of a publication process, the citation should be viewed as a
personal communication. In general, authors should
choose the most authoritative permanently archived source
available.
Many students mistakenly believe that citations are required
only when quoting another author's work. On the
contrary, a citation must be included within the text of your
paper for all statements of fact, or ideas, acquired
from outside sources -- even if you do not quote the source
directly. The only exception is when the information is
common knowledge and cannot be attributed easily to a single
source (e.g., "Cyprus is an island"). Your reference
list must include all the sources cited in your paper -- in the
text, figures, tables, etc. -- and nothing more. During

57. proofreading, it is crucial that you compare your citations and
your reference list to ensure that they correspond
exactly.
REFERENCES
References to sources should be numbered sequentially by order
of mention in the text, with the number placed in
brackets and printed on line (not as a super- or subscript) like
[1]. The list of all references used in the text should
appear in numerical order of mention at the end of the document
as a separate chapter. References must follow
the IEEE reference format.
Below are some examples of references you might use:
Books
6
[1] E. R. Tufte, Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities,
Evidence and Narrative. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press,
1996.
[2] J. H. Watt and S. A. van der Berg, Research Methods for
Communication Science. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon,

58. 1995.
[3] M. S. MacNealy, Strategies for empirical research in
writing. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1999.
Articles/Chapters in Book
[4] J. W. DuBois, S. Schuetze-Coburn, S. Cumming, and D.
Paolino, "Outline of discourse transcription," in Talking
Data: Transcription and Coding in Discourse Research (J. A.
Edwards and M. D. Lampert, Eds.). Hillsdale, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1993, pp. 45-89.
Articles in Periodicals (journals, magazines, etc.)
[5] R. C. Carter, "Search time with a color display: Analysis of
distribution functions," Human Factors, vol. 24, no. 3,
pp. 302-304, 1982.
Papers Published in Proceedings
[6] P. Leone, D. L. Gillihan, and T. L. Rauch, "Web-based
prototyping for user sessions: Medium-fidelity
prototyping," in Proc. 44th Int. Technical Communications
Conf. (Toronto, Canada, May 11-14, 1997, pp. 231-234).
Unpublished Papers
[7] K. Riley, "Language theory: Applications versus practice",
presented at the Conf. of the Modern Language
Association, Boston, MA, December 27-30, 1990.

59. Technical Reports
[8] K. Kraiger and M. S. Teachout, "Applications of
generalizability theory to the Air Force job performance
measurement project: A summary of research results," Human
Resources Laboratory, Air Force Systems
Command, Brooks Air Force Base, Texas, Tech. Rep. AFHRL-
TR-90-92, July 1991.
Electronic sources
Give the author, title, type of medium (enclosed in brackets [ ]),
volume, issue number (in parentheses ( )), page
number (if given), and the year and month of publication (in
parentheses ( )). Then give the full Internet address or
the name of the online service provider prefaced by
"Available:"
Article in an Electronic Journal
[9] D. Blankenhorn, "Newsproducts: Panasonic debuts first
rewritable optical disk recorder," Newsbytes, [Online]
Vol. 7, Jan. 1990. Available: Knowledge Index File: Newbytes
(NEWS 1) Item: 08931265
Other online documents
[10] T. Land, "Web extension to American Psychological
Association style (WEAPAS)," [Online document], 1996

60. Mar. 31 (Rev. 1.2.4.), [cited 1996 Sep. 14], Available:
http://www.nyu.edu/pages/psychology/WEAPAS/
7
[11] P. Curtis, "Mudding: Social phenomena in text-based
virtual realities," [Online document], Aug. 1992, [1996
Aug 30], Available FTP:
parcftp.xerox.com/pub/MOO/papers/DIAC921992
[12] T. Adamowski, "Writer's resource," in IEEE PCS Online
Discussion Forum, 14 Dec 1999. [Online]. Available
WWW: http://ieeepcs.org/wwwboard/.
ST ART ING T O W RIT E T H E T HESIS
Supervisors have different ways of working and you will, to
some degree, need to negotiate your approach to
supervision style. For example, your supervisor may advise you
to write a short proposal or abstract, say of about
300-400 words, in which you set out as clearly as possible what
you intend to do in the thesis. The value of this
exercise is that it requires you to focus and articulate your
thinking. It may be that you will be able to summarize
the exact nature and scope of your study, in which case the
proposal can serve as guide to refer to as you write the

61. main chapters of the work. Alternatively, it may make you
aware of gaps in your knowledge and understanding,
and show you the areas that need further thought and research.
It is useful, therefore, to write the proposal and to retain it for
reference and revision. It helps to attempt such an
abstract even if your supervisor has not suggested that you write
one. However, practice varies, and your
supervisor will advise you on how to proceed. As you continue
to write the main chapters of the work, you may
find that your initial plan has changed. This means that when
you have completed the chapters that form the main
body of your thesis you can return to the proposal and revise it
as much as you need.
It is highly advisable to draft a plan of the thesis. There is a lot
in common between different theses regarding the
structure and although you do not need to stick slavishly to a
standard plan, such a plan is very helpful as a
template to impose some order on what may seem an
unmanageable task. Here is an indicative structure that
might help you with your initial plan. Each section mentioned in
Table 1 refers to a chapter in your thesis. You are
not limited to these chapters, but you can use this table as a
general structure.
Table 1. Thesis Structure

62. Section Section Description
Abstract Abstracts are important because they give a first
impression of the document that follows,
letting readers decide whether to continue reading and showing
them what to look for if
they do.
Introduction The field of study, the research question, the
hypothesis (if any) or, more generally, the
research question that is to be investigated. It should also
include a summary of the
contents and main arguments in the thesis.
The Literature
Review
Usually, this comes immediately after the introductory chapter.
This may be more than
one chapter, but should certainly be written in sections.
This should include previous work done on the field of study
and anything that you
consider to be relevant to the hypothesis or research question
and to its investigation. It
will include a large number of references to the literature in
your chosen area.

63. This is one of the most important sections of your thesis.
Methodology This section should include an account of the
research questions and/or hypotheses to be
investigated, relevant methods of investigation and an argument
for why you think these
methods are the most appropriate ones for the question and for
your circumstances. You
8
should consider the benefits of your chosen method as well as
identifying any
disadvantages and how you overcame them. Ethical issues and
the ways in which you
dealt with them should be noted. This section should also
discuss any variations from the
original fieldwork plan, and should conclude with a reflection
on the experience of doing
fieldwork.
Findings This section should present the main findings of your
research together with an account of
the strengths and weaknesses of your data relative to your
research question/hypothesis.

64. You may also wish to include an evaluation of any difficulties
you encountered in
collecting and analyzing data, together with an assessment of
how this affected your plan
of research.
Evaluation Here you can provide an assessment of whether and
how well you were able to answer
your research question and/or confirm/reject your hypotheses.
Discussion This chapter must relate the findings to the
theoretical/policy discussion in your literature
review. You should NOT introduce any new literature at this
stage.
Conclusions and
recommendations
An overall assessment of what you found out, how successful
you were and suggestions
for future research.
W RIT ING T HE ABST RAC T
Abstracts are important because they give a first impression of
the document that follows, letting readers decide
whether to continue reading and showing them what to look for
if they do. Though some abstracts only list the

65. contents of the document, the most useful abstracts tell the
reader more. An abstract should represent as much as
possible of the quantitative and qualitative information in the
document, and also reflect its reasoning. Typically,
an informative abstract answers these questions in about 100-
250 words:
1. Why did you do this study or project?
2. What did you do, and how?
3. What did you find?
4. What do your findings mean?
If the paper is about a new method or apparatus the last two
questions might be changed to
1. What are the advantages (of the method or apparatus)?
2. How well does it work?
Here are some other points to keep in mind about abstracts:
1. An abstract will nearly always be read along with the title, so
do not repeat or rephrase the title. It will
likely be read without the rest of the document, however, so
make it complete enough to stand on its
own.
2. Your readers expect you to summarize your conclusions as

66. well as your purpose, methods, and main
findings. Emphasize the different points in proportion to the
emphasis they receive in the body of the
document.
3. Do not refer in the abstract to information that is not in the
document.
4. Avoid using I or we, but choose active verbs instead of
passive when possible (the study tested rather than
it was tested by the study).
5. Avoid if possible avoid trade names, acronyms,
abbreviations, or symbols. You would need to explain
them, and that takes too much room.
9
6. Use key words from the document. (For published work, the
abstract is "mined" for the words used to
index the material—thus making it more likely someone will
cite your article.)
W RIT ING T HE INT ROD U CT ION
The introduction to your thesis should explain to the reader
what you are going to investigate. It should describe

67. the thesis's topic and scope. You should explain your reasons
for investigating your chosen topic by referring to the
appropriate literature. Having completed the work on the main
substance of your thesis, you should have a much
clearer idea of its nature and scope than you did when you
wrote your preliminary abstract or proposal. The
introduction to your thesis should explain to the reader what
you are going to investigate. It should describe the
thesis's topic and scope. You should explain your reasons for
investigating your chosen topic by referring to the
appropriate literature.
It is important, however, to write the introduction as though you
are setting out on a process of investigation. You
need to emphasize the exploratory nature of your work. You
should also avoid anticipating the discoveries and
conclusions that you have made in the course of your
investigations. So, you might simply say that you have
identified certain common features in the relevant literature, or
a particular issue that it deals with, and that your
thesis will examine the literature closely in order to demonstrate
the relationships between treatments of the
issue in the sample texts. When you have completed the main
body of the work and your supervisor has
commented on your complete draft, you may well wish to revisit

68. the introduction to take into account your
findings and your advisor's comments on their significance.
W RIT ING A L IT ER AT URE REVIEW
Your thesis is a substantial piece of written work that ideally
should conform to a number of academic
conventions. One of the most important of these academic
conventions is the literature review. In short, the
literature review is a discussion or 'review' of secondary
literature that is of general and central relevance to the
particular area under investigation.
Often students ask how long a literature review should be. This
is a difficult question. Obviously your supervisor
may be able to give some indication of the approximate length
of your literature review. However, don't become
pre-occupied with word “length”; the main thing is that your
literature review should capture the general and
specific aspects of the literature of your subject.
WHAT IS A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE?
A literature review is an account of what has been published on
a topic by accredited scholars and researchers.
Occasionally you will be asked to write one as a separate
assignment (sometimes in the form of an annotated

69. bibliography), but more often it is part of the introduction to an
essay, research report, or thesis. In writing the
literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what
knowledge and ideas have been established on a
topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As a piece
of writing, the literature review must be defined by
a guiding concept (e.g., your research objective, the problem or
issue you are discussing, or your argumentative
thesis). It is not just a descriptive list of the material available,
or a set of summaries
Besides enlarging your knowledge about the topic, writing a
literature review lets you gain and demonstrate skills
in two areas:
10
1. Information seeking: the ability to scan the literature
efficiently, using manual or computerized methods,
to identify a set of useful articles and books
2. Critical appraisal: the ability to apply principles of analysis
to identify unbiased and valid studies.
A literature review must do these things:
1. be organized around and related directly to the thesis or

70. research question you are developing
2. synthesize results into a summary of what is and is not known
3. identify areas of controversy in the literature
4. formulate questions that need further research
A literature review is a piece of discursive prose, not a list
describing or summarizing one piece of literature after
another. It's usually a bad sign to see every paragraph beginning
with the name of a researcher. Instead, organize
the literature review into sections that present themes or
identify trends, including relevant theory. You are not
trying to list all the material published, but to synthesize and
evaluate it according to the guiding concept of your
thesis or research question
WHY IS A LITERATURE REVIEW NECESSARY?
The literature review is an important device in your thesis as it
performs a number of related functions:
1. It demonstrates to whoever reads the thesis that the author of
the work has read widely and is aware of
the range of debates that have taken place within the given
field. It provides the proof that you have
more than a good grasp of the breadth and depth of the topic of
the thesis. The literature review is a

71. great place to start, because it should demonstrate that you
know what you are talking about because
you have read everything that is relevant to your thesis.
2. It can provide the rationale for the research question in the
study. This can be done by highlighting
specific gaps in the literature – questions that have not been
answered (or even asked), and areas of
research that have not been conducted within your chosen field.
In this way the literature review can
provide a justification of your own research.
3. It can allow you to build on work that has already been
conducted. For example you might adopt a similar
methodological or theoretical approach in your work to one that
exists within the literature, yet place
your actual emphasis elsewhere. In this way you are building on
work that has already been conducted by
adopting similar strategies and concepts, yet focusing the
question on something that interests you.
4. It helps to define the broad context of your study, placing
your work within a well defined academic
tradition. Poor theses often fail to relate to broader debates
within the academic community. They may
have a well defined research question, yet without placing this
question in the appropriate context, it can

72. lose its significance. The literature review therefore can add
weight to your question by framing it within
broader debates within the academic community.
ASK YOURSELF QUESTIONS LIKE THESE:
1. What is the specific thesis, problem, or research question that
my literature review helps to define?
2. What type of literature review am I conducting? Am I looking
at issues of theory? Methodology? Policy?
Quantitative research (e.g. on the effectiveness of a new
procedure)? Qualitative research (e.g., studies )?
3. What is the scope of my literature review? What types of
publications am I using (e.g., journals, books,
government documents, popular media)?
11
4. How good was my information seeking? Has my search been
wide enough to ensure I've found all the
relevant material? Has it been narrow enough to exclude
irrelevant material? Is the number of sources
I've used appropriate for the length of my paper?
5. Have I critically analyzed the literature I use? Do I follow

73. through a set of concepts and questions,
comparing items to each other in the ways they deal with them?
Instead of just listing and summarizing
items, do I assess them, discussing strengths and weaknesses?
6. Have I cited and discussed studies contrary to my
perspective?
7. Will the reader find my literature review relevant,
appropriate, and useful?
ASK YOURSELF QUESTIONS LIKE THESE ABOUT EACH
BOOK OR ARTICLE YOU INCLUDE:
1. Has the author formulated a problem/issue?
2. Is it clearly defined? Is its significance (scope, severity,
relevance) clearly established?
3. Could the problem have been approached more effectively
from another perspective?
4. What is the author's research orientation (e.g., interpretive,
critical science, combination)?
5. What is the author's theoretical framework (e.g.,
psychological, developmental, feminist)?
6. What is the relationship between the theoretical and research
perspectives?
7. Has the author evaluated the literature relevant to the
problem/issue? Does the author include literature

74. taking positions she or he does not agree with?
8. In a research study, how good are the basic components of
the study design (e.g., population,
intervention, outcome)? How accurate and valid are the
measurements? Is the analysis of the data
accurate and relevant to the research question? Are the
conclusions validly based upon the data and
analysis?
9. In material written for a popular readership, does the author
use appeals to emotion, one-sided
examples, or rhetorically-charged language and tone? Is there
an objective basis to the reasoning, or is
the author merely "proving" what he or she already believes?
10. How does the author structure the argument? Can you
"deconstruct" the flow of the argument to see
whether or where it breaks down logically (e.g., in establishing
cause-effect relationships)?
11. In what ways does this book or article contribute to our
understanding of the problem under study, and in
what ways is it useful for practice? What are the strengths and
limitations?
12. How does this book or article relate to the specific thesis or
question I am developing?

75. HOW DO I 'DO' A LITERATURE REVIEW?
Writing a literature review is not as simple as at first it may
seem. What follows is a step by step guide on how to
go about conducting and presenting your literature review.
1. Generate a list of references: The first stage of your literature
review is to collect a list of literature that is
relevant to your study.
2. Make sense of your reading: Once you have a list of
references for your thesis, you now have to access and
read this material. This process is going to be time consuming
because you will be reading a large amount of
material. Furthermore once you start your reading you might
find that some of the literature is of little
relevance to your study. Don't panic, this is something that
many researchers and thesis students go through
and is often a necessary part of the process. It is better to read
something that is not central to your thesis
than miss something that might be an important and relevant
contribution to the field.
While reading, make notes about the central themes and
arguments of the book, chapter or article. These
notes can then be incorporated into the finished version of your
literature review. Try and get a sense of the

76. theoretical perspective of the author, this will be of use when
you come to organize and present your
literature review. Also, emphasize the way in which the piece of
literature you are reading seeks to set itself
12
apart from other literature. Importantly, start to think critically
about the piece you are reading; ask: what is
this person trying to say and why? How is it different from the
way others have dealt with this issue? This
critical component is very important as it demonstrates that you
are engaging with relevant literature in an
appropriate manner and that you can discriminate between
different perspectives and approaches that exist
within your chosen field.
3. Organization and presentation: Once you have generated a
large number of notes around your reading you
might start to feel overwhelmed by the literature. In terms of
the organization and presentation of your
literature review, it is worth dividing your review into two main
areas: general reading and literature that is of
central importance. You will also need to further divide the
literature into specific areas relevant to your study

77. for e.g. theories and concepts; policy analysis; empirical studies
and so-on. What follows are some general
guidelines on how you might do this.
GENERAL TEXTS
It will be clear that some of the reading you have done is of
more relevance than others. It is important, however,
that you do not discard the less relevant work; instead this can
form the broad background of your discussion of
the more relevant literature within your field. For example you
may mention different authors that have dealt with
a question related to your field but may not be central to it.
Highlight these in broad terms, state how these works
have impacted on your particular area. You need not go into
great detail about these more general works, but by
highlighting these works you are demonstrating your awareness
of the scope and limits of your study and how it
touches upon other areas of study.
CENTRAL TEXTS
Once you have discussed the range of literature that is only of
general interest to your study, you can then go into
more detail on the literature that more sharply focuses on the
questions that are of interest to you. Devote more

78. detail to these particular works as they are more important to
your topic. Indeed they may highlight the gap in the
literature that exists that you seek to fill; they may provide the
basis on which you seek to build, or they might be
works which require some critique from your particular
perspective.
BEGINN ING W ORK ON T HE M AIN BOD Y OF T HE T
HESIS
Once you have produced the proposal and discussed it with your
supervisor, you may want to write the first draft
of all chapters of the thesis. When you hand in this draft, you
should arrange a meeting with your supervisor to
receive your supervisor's verbal or written comments and
suggestions on how it may be improved. You may, for
example, produce a draft introduction setting out the issue,
together with a literature review which covers what, if
any, treatment of the topic has gone beforehand. You may also
wish to draft those sections of the methodology
chapter that cover the methods that you wish to use, together
with a justification for why you think those methods
are best.
REVISING SECTIONS AFTER RECEIVING THE
SUPERVISOR'S COMMENTS
When you have received your supervisor's comments on the

79. draft of any chapter, you should revise that particular
chapter immediately. Prompt revision is easier than letting
things drift, and you should do it while the advice of
your supervisor is fresh in your mind. This will also avoid
building up a backlog of work that needs to be revised,
13
which can be discouraging. Having the material on a computer
disk will enable you to do revisions efficiently and
with a minimum of fuss. Be sure to back up all your work on a
CD, memory stick, or external drive.
D EAD L INES FOR P ROD UCING D RAFT S
You will decide with your supervisor precisely when to produce
drafts, but if you are taking a thesis module over
one academic year then by the end of the first semester you
would normally expect to produce a proposal or
abstract and a first draft of one or two chapters. You would then
produce the drafts of the remaining chapters and
complete the process of revision and writing-up during the
second semester.
In the second semester, when drafting the remaining main
chapters of the thesis, you will follow the practice

80. established in the first semester of submitting the drafts to your
supervisor for comments and advice. You should
take advantage of the period between the first semester and the
start of the second semester to write a draft of a
chapter, and you should plan to have produced first drafts of all
the main chapters by at least four weeks before
the submission date (also allowing for any vacation periods
when staff may not be available).
If, however, you are taking the thesis module over one semester,
you will need to adjust this time frame
accordingly.
T HESIS ST RUCT URE
1. Title page
2. Signature Page
3. Acknowledgements
4. Abstract—of approximately 300-400 words. (It should not
exceed 700 words.). The Abstract or summary
should summarize the appropriate headings, aims, scope and
conclusion of the thesis.
5. Table of Contents
6. Table of Figures
7. Main Text

81. 8. Bibliography or References
9. Appendices
The title page is followed by a letter from the candidate
addressed to the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and
Applied Sciences saying ‘This thesis is submitted in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Bachelor of Science’ and certifying that it represents the
candidate’s own work.
The thesis proper consists of the Main Text (numbered 5
above). Looking closely at the Main Text, we should see
something like this:
1. Chapter 1: Introduction
2. Chapter 2: Literature Review (previous work done)
3. Chapter 3: Methodology
4. Chapters 4 to n: Experimental Chapters (case studies)
5. Chapter (n + 1): General Discussion or Conclusions
14
Looking closely at the Experimental Chapter (numbered 4
above). In this section you specify specific case studies

82. that you studied and performed experiments on. You mention
the results and experimental procedure followed.
1
VROBO: A Virtual Robotics Platform for use in Robotics
Education and Research
by
Giorgos A. Demetriou
Student Number: 1821
A thesis submitted to the faculty of undergraduate studies of
Frederick University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science

83. Advisor
Dr. Georgios A. Demetriou, email: [email protected]
School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Department of Computer Engineering and Computer Science
Frederick University, Lemesos, Cyprus
2
Signature/Approval Page
This thesis by <insert name> submitted to Frederick University
in partial fulfillment of the degree of
Bachelor of Science on 28 April 2010 has been examined by the
following faculty and it meets or
exceeds the standards required for graduation as testified by our
signatures below.
_____________________________________
Dr. Georgios A. Demetriou, Advisor

84. _____________________________________
<Committee Member 1 - Type name>
_____________________________________
<Committee Member 1 - Type name>
_____________________________________
<Committee Member 1 - Type name>
3
Biography
Dr. Giorgos A. Demetriou received his Ph.D. in computer
science and his M.S. in computer engineering
from the Center for Advanced Computer Studies at the
University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 1998 and
1994, respectively. Since January of 2006 he has been with the
Computer Engineering and Computer

85. Science Department of Frederick University, Lemesos, Cyprus.
Before that he was with the Computer
Engineering Department of Purdue University, Fort Wayne,
Indiana, and with the Computer Science
department of the University of Southern Mississippi-Gulf
Coast (USM-GC), Long Beach, Mississippi. At
Purdue University he was a visiting assistant professor of
computer engineering. At USM-GC, he served
as an assistant professor, as the director of the Robotics and
Graphics Laboratory, and as the
coordinator for the computer science graduate and
undergraduate programs. Research interests include
Intelligence Systems, Robotic Systems, and Robotic Mobile
Systems. His teaching interests include,
Robotic Systems / Automated systems, Intelligent Systems,
Control Systems, and Computer Graphics.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank his advisor, Dr. Georgios A.
Demetriou, for his guidance, advice,
and encouragement toward successful completion of this
project. Additional thanks go to….
(thank anyone else you feel that have helped you in this project)
….

86. 4
Abstract (sample)
Robotics will continue to become intertwined with our daily
lives, which will ultimately result in the
need for more highly trained individuals to both operate and
repair robotics equipment. The ability of
academics and researchers to supply individuals capable of
performing these tasks will be a substantial
challenge in the future. Currently, there are few individuals
available to perform these highly skilled
tasks; furthermore, institutions and programs for training these
individuals are scarce. All of the various
sectors of growth point to an increase in the need for robotics
technicians in the near future. With this
increase will come the need for educational programs to supply
the technical skills and training in the
various areas of robotics research and development. To keep up
with this demand institutions of higher
learning will have to adapt and come up with diversified

87. programs for robotics education while
overcoming spatial, temporal, and budget limitations. This
paper discusses the impediments that face
the researcher and academic institutions when trying to
implement such training programs and explains
the ability of Virtual Modeling and Simulation (VM&S) systems
to mitigate such problems. In addition, a
solution system, Virtual-Robots (VROBO), is developed to
demonstrate the effectiveness of the
approach, and its constituent parts are analyzed to show the
mapping between the part and the
impediment that it tries to eliminate.
5
Table of Contents
Table of Figures
...............................................................................................
.............................................. 6
1. Introduction
...............................................................................................
........................................... 7

88. 1.1. Problem Domain
...............................................................................................
............................ 7
1.1.1. Next Section
...............................................................................................
........................... 7
1.2. Physical Robot Problems
...............................................................................................
................ 8
2. Previous Work (Literature Review)
...............................................................................................
........ 8
2.1. Subsection
...............................................................................................
...................................... 8
2.2. Subsection
............................................................................. ..................
...................................... 8
3. Methodology
...............................................................................................
.......................................... 8
3.1. Tool Selection and Meeting Cost, Portability and
Networking Criteria ...................................... 10
3.2. System Design and Implementation
...........................................................................................
11
3.2.1. Flexibility

89. ...............................................................................................
.............................. 11
4. Experimental Results
...............................................................................................
........................... 12
4.1. Case Study 1
...............................................................................................
................................. 12
5. Conclusion
..................................................................................... ..........
............................................ 12
6. References
...............................................................................................
........................................... 13
Appendix A – Test Data
...............................................................................................
................................ 14
Appendix B – Technology Transfer Plan
...............................................................................................
...... 15
Appendix C – Code
...............................................................................................
....................................... 15
6

90. Table of Figures
Figure 1. Block diagram of VROBO
...............................................................................................
............... 10
Figure 2 Screen capture of VROBO using the Joint Actuator
controller to articulate the Cobra 600 robot,
the ArticulatedLine2D, and the ArticulatedLine3D respectively.
............................................................... 12
7
1. Introduction
The idea of robotic mechanisms has fascinated humans since the
first machines were built. Before the
first robot was even constructed, the popular view of robotics
consisted of human-like machines that
could walk, talk, and perform as well as their human
counterparts [4]. Despite this popular view of
humanoid robots, industrial robotics has been the most
dominant area of research and growth in the
years that followed. Even today, sophisticated humanoid type
robots are still far away from realization.

91. Their industrial type counterparts still constitute the largest
percentage of robotics sales and research
[23], [13].
Our need for robotics will continue to grow, as we become more
emerged in technology and prices for
robotic manipulators decrease. The International Federation of
Robotics (IFR), a leading authority in the
robotics industry, estimated that worldwide robotics sales were
up 15% in the year 2000 [23]. Even
though the majority of robotics sales will continue to be
generated by manufacturing industries such as
automotive companies, we are beginning to see robotics spread
into other areas including military
applications, and aids for home and work use [23]. Some recent
examples of the growth of industrial
robotics into other areas include the recent use of robotics in
packaging the new European currency and
the development of a robotic system that de-bones pork loin
[18], [11].
Bla bla …
1.1. Problem Domain
Bla, bla, bla….

92. 1.1.1. Next Section
More bla bla …
8
Bla, bla, bla….
1.2. Physical Robot Problems
More bla bla…
2. Previous Work (Literature Review)
Most existing and future robotic applications are geared towards
the military, workspace, and home.
Military use promises to be a strong source of growth for the
robotics community. Since its formation in
1990 the federally funded Joint Robotics Program (JRP) has
received substantial funding averaging
around 12 million dollars per year. The main purpose of the
program is to develop autonomous and
remotely operated robots for use in surveillance and
reconnaissance. The military sees benefits that
robotics have to offer as remotely operated vehicles for
surveillance of hostile areas and remote
disarming of explosives [7]. The first area where robots are

93. making our tasks easier is the workplace.
One work area that has promising growth is in the aid to
medical technicians. Various robots are
undergoing trials ……..
2.1. Subsection
……
2.2. Subsection
……
3. Methodology
9
Before the implementation of VROBO certain criteria were
established to be used as guidelines during
the design and evaluation phases. The criteria are shown below
and they are the same as the criteria
used to evaluate virtual modeling and simulation:
• Reduced Cost
• Flexibility
• Complexity

94. • Portability
• Network/Internet capabilities.
VROBO’s architecture is shown in the block diagram in Figure
1, and the systems functionality is as
follows:
• The user selects a specific robot to program.
• The programming is done using a generic programming
language that was developed
specifically for this system and is based on existing robotic
programming languages.
• The program is simulated on the robot that is displayed on the
GUI.
• The program can be modified and tried again until the user is
satisfied with the results.
• Once the program is complete, the user can download the
program to the controller of the
actual robot being simulated.
• During the download phase, a translation is done from the
VROBO programming language to
the specific language of the actual robot.
• Finally the program can be executed on the real system.

95. 10
Figure 1. Block diagram of VROBO
The GUI, was built using current Java technologies. The
interface consists of four main areas: the
Controller Selection List Box (CSLB), the Controller Panel
(PL), the Robot Selection List Box (RSLB), and
the Robot Panel (RP). When the application is first executed
……….
3.1. Tool Selection and Meeting Cost, Portability and
Networking Criteria
In selecting technologies to implement the system, it was
necessary to pick tools that would maximize
realization of the goals at hand. Some of the choices may
actually meet an entire goal, while others just
encouraged the success of a compliant system. Nevertheless, by
the selection of tools, the system was
able to realize large progress for the cost, portability, and
networking criteria.
Since the system is based on freely available Java technologies,
it was possible to reduce the costs of the
developer and the user of the system. The Java components
consisted of both core Java technologies

96. and the use of add-on libraries. The Java3D API provides the
ability to build customized scene graphs
that can be rendered into Java based interfaces using native
OpenGL calls on UNIX based and Windows
based systems. In addition to the OpenGL binding, support for
native DirectX use is available for
Windows users [26].
High levels of portability were achieved through the selection
of Java technologies. This was possible
due to the availability of JREs and Java3D implementations for
both UNIX platforms and Microsoft
Windows. Furthermore, since OpenGL implementations are
provided on most platforms, it is possible
for the OpenGL Java3D binding to be used on either UNIX or
Windows platforms also [1].
GUI
Computer
System
Robotic
Controller
11

97. Java itself was developed to take advantage of networking from
the beginning. In addition, Java makes it
easier to make use of networks and supplies different layers to
suit different needs. For example, it
provides high-level APIs to the user for HTTP and FTP
protocols while still giving access to lower level
programming interfaces such as sockets [9]. Not only does the
Java environment provide mechanisms
for protocol communications, it also provides ways of
downloading remote code to be executed either
in the Browser or thru the use of Java Web Start technologies.
3.2. System Design and Implementation
In the previous section, three of the criteria were discussed. The
entire criterion for portability was
realized; however, the criteria of cost and networking were only
partly fulfilled by choosing Java based
tools. In the case of cost, the only additional gesture that must
be performed is the release of the
software as open source. The open source paradigm would allow
individuals to freely use and modify
the code without paying licensing fees or having other types of
costs incurred [16]. However, that still

98. leaves the criterion of networking to consider in the design and
implementation of the system. This
criterion, accompanied by the criteria not directly affected by
the tool selection, results in making
careful design decisions that will increase the overall
flexibility, decrease the technical complexity, and
take advantage of the networking capabilities that the Java API
has to offer [12].
3.2.1. Flexibility
The system provides a number of controllers and articulated
figures via the GUI. These controllers and
articulated figures can be mixed and matched as needed which
in itself provides a great deal of
flexibility. The CSLB currently provides the user with three
different controllers.
12
Figure 2 shows the MCP controller with the Cobra 600 robot
and the ArticulatedLine2D and
ArticulatedLine3D. Each of these controllers can be selected at
anytime during the duration of the
program.

99. …………
4. Experimental Results
4.1. Case Study 1
……..
5. Conclusion
The VROBO system meets most of the criteria considered under
the new system development. Due to
the use of freely available JAVA application programming
interfaces it was possible to keep the cost of
Figure 2 Screen capture of VROBO using the Joint Actuator
controller to articulate the Cobra 600 robot, the
ArticulatedLine2D, and the ArticulatedLine3D respectively.
13
system development to zero. In addition, the system provides
the ability to use pre-constructed
controllers and articulated figures, create additional controllers
and articulated figures via extension of
JAVA interfaces, and the ability to do offline programming of
the robot with the built in language. These
features of the system demonstrate the flexibility of the system.

100. Furthermore, the complexity of the
system is provided in a layered approach with the user only
needing to manipulate the articulated
figures through the supplied controllers. The next layer of
complexity is the use of the offline
programming capabilities of the system. The user who needs
more functionality than these two provide,
can extend the system to create new controllers, robots, and
work cells. The reliance on Java APIs
provides the platform-independent capabilities of the system.
This is possible because of the multiple
platforms that provide Java Runtime Environments, which the
software system developed is capable of
utilizing. Finally, increased networking support is demonstrated
thru the use of applets and the
possibilities that are possible by using the networking packages
that are available in the JAVA
application-programming interface. Since the system that was
developed significantly reduces the
barriers that impede the development of robotics programs, it is
more likely for these programs to be
implemented and utilized to meet the current and future needs
of the robotics industry.
6. References

101. [1] Angel, Edward. Interactive Computer Graphics: A Top
Down Approach with OpenGL.
Reading: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc., 2000.
[2] “The Availability of Low-Cost Prototyping.” Prime Faraday
Technology Watch. November 2001.
http://www.primetechnologywatch.org.uk/documents/low-cost-
prototyping.pdf
[3] Bouvier, Dennis J. “Chapter 2: Getting Started.” Getting
Started with the Java API. Sun
Microsystems, Inc., 2001.
[4] Brooks, Rodney. “Humanoid Robots.” Communications of
the ACM. Vol. 45 No. 3 (March 2002): 59-
63.
[5] Brutzman, Donald P. “Dissertation: A Virtual World for an
Autonomous Underwater Vehicle.” Naval
Post Graduate School. Dec. 1994. 2 Nov. 2002.
<http:/www.stl.nps.navy.mil/~brutzman/dissertation/>
[6] Fuller, James L. Robotics: Introduction, Programming, and
Projects. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.,
1999

102. 14
[7] “Funding for U.S. Joint Robotics Program expected to rise.”
Aerotech News and Review. 14 Jan.
2002. 23 May 2002.
http://www.aerotechnews.com/starc/2002/011402/robotics.html
[8] Gaspari, A. L., and N. Lorenzo. “State of the Art of
Robotics in General Surgery.” Business Briefing:
Global Healthcare. University of Rome. 2002
http://www.wmrc.com/businessbriefing/pdf/healthcare2002/refe
rence/18.pdf
[9] Harold, Elliotte R. Java Network Programming. Cambridge:
O’Reilly and Associates, Inc., 1997.
[10] “A History of Educational Robotics.” General Robotics
Cooperation. 28 May 2002
http://www.edurobot.com/stories/overview.html
[11] “IPA Delivers Automated System to Debone Pork Loin.”
Robotics Newsletter. No. 44 Dec. 2001 and
Jan. 2002. International Federation of Robotics.
http://www.ifr.org/newsletter//news/news44.htm
[12] Lambert, Allan and Demetriou, Georgios. “An Extensible
Object Oriented Virtual Robotics
Development Platform for use in Robotics Education and
Research”, 2003

103. [13] “Learn More: History.” Robotics Research Group.
University of Texas at Austin. 29 May 2002.
http://www.robotics.utexas.edu/rrg/learn_more/history/
[14] Merriam, Charles. “Comp.robotics FAQ.” Aug. 2001. Dec.
2002. http://www.truegift.com/robots/
[15] Michel, Oliver. “Khepera Simulator version 2.0 User
Manual.” University of Nice. 1 Mar. 1996. 22
Jan. 2003.
[16] Minansi, Mark. Linux for Windows NT/2000
Administrators. San Francisco: SYBEX, Inc., 2000.
[17] Niku, Saeed B. Introduction to Robotics: Analysis,
Systems, Applications. New Jersey: Prentice Hall,
2001.
[18] “Robots Play a Role as Europe Changes to Euro.” Robotics
Newsletter. No. 44 Dec. 2001 and Jan.
2002. International Federation of Robotics.
http://www.ifr.org/newsletter//news/news44.htm
[19] “RoboWorks Frequently Asked Questions.” Newtonium. 9
Dec. 2001. 1 Oct. 2002.
http://www.newtonium.com/public_html/Products/RoboWorks/R
oboWorks_faq.htm
[20] “RoboWorks Support.” Newtonium. 9 Dec. 2001. 2 Sep.
2002.

104. http://www.newtonium.com/public_html/Products/RoboWorks/R
oboWorks_support.htm
[21] Rosenblatt, M. and Choset, H. “Designing and
Implementing Hands-On Robotics Labs.” IEEE
Intelligent Systems. Vol. 15 No. 6 (November-December 2000):
32-39.
[22] Smith, Nathan, Christopher Egert, Elisabeth Cuddihy, and
Deborah Walters. “Implementing Virtual
Robots in Java3D using a Subsumption Architecture”. State
University of New York at Buffalo. Nov.
1999 http://www.cs.buffalo.edu/~egert/papers/webnet99ns.pdf
[23] “Solid Growth for Robotics in the Year 2000.” Robotics
Newsletter. No. 41 Mar. 2001. International
Federation of Robotics.
http://www.ifr.org/newsletter//news/news41.htm
[24] van der Smagt, Patrick. “Simderella: a Robot Simulator for
Neuro-controller Design.” Jan 1994.
Department of Computer Systems, University of Amsterdam.
http://www.robotic.dlr.de/Smagt/papers/Sma94b.ps.gz
[25] “Simderella 2.1”. 6 May 1998.
http://www.robotic.dlr.de/Smagt/software/simderella/software/si
mderella.2.1.tar.gz

105. [26] “What Can Java Technology Do?” The Java Tutorial. Sun
Microsystems. 2003. 2 Feb. 2003.
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/getStarted/intro/cando.h
tml
Appendix A – Test Data
15
Note to Students: This section is optional, but if included in the
report, the data should be tabulated
using the Microsoft Word Table construct. A page of
representative test data (single spaced) usually
helps bolster any claims you make about the resutls of your
project, and can be useful as a starting point
for in-depth discussion.
Appendix B – Technology Transfer Plan
Note to students: A technology transfer plan is an optional one
or two paragraph summary of
how you plan to introduce the results of your project to business
or industry. For example, in the
case of the mythical Astute grading system, one might list (a)
corporate contacts that are

106. interested in receiving more information about the software (list
only companies and individuals
that you have actually spoken to or contacted); (b) possible
future applications that your project
results could address, and how you plan to develop such
applications; and (c) market potential
for your project results, if you have such information. Don’t
include a lot of wordy nonsense,
just a tight summary.
Appendix C – Code
Here you must include your code and other necessary
information you thing is relevant.