Accessing a Robot Arm Through the Internet to Play Tic-Tac-Toe

A computer program used to control a robot arm was written to allow an internet user to enter commands in the robot arm's program that would allow the robot arm to play tic-tac-toe. This initial success was refined to correct problems in order to control the height of the robot arm's movement to prevent unscheduled movements of board game pieces used to mark each player's movement in the game. Students and instructors envision this research to be a sound laboratory exercise for computer language acquisition and the teaching of computer programming writing skills and problem solving strategies.