Ronald McNair Program
Edward Triplett	SCHOOL: Rust College    MAJOR: Computer Science    MENTOR: Pam Lawhead/Dawn Wilkins     GRADUATION DATE: May 2001    ORGANIZATIONS Greater Tupelo Ministerial Association  NAACP McNair Scholar American Boy Scouts

The purpose of my research is to demonstrate that a robot arm can be manipulated with an Internet accessible teach control pendant. To achieve this goal, a user-friendly web accessible interface was created to control the teach control pendant. This project required the use of a computer with Microbot’s TeachMover robot arm, a teach control pendant, and a color camera attachment.

The camera displays a real-time image of the robot arm in its environment, while the computer will host a web server. Buttons on this web page will allow users both local and remote manipulation of the robot arm. The TeachMover robot arm has been programmed to play a remote game of tic-tac-toe, via the Internet, during an earlier phase of this project.

In teach control mode, a hand-held control pendant controls the TeachMover arm. This control pendant can be used to teach, edit, and run a variety of manipulation programs on the robot arm. This project created a virtual pendant to be used via the Internet, while in teach control mode. All clickable buttons for the virtual pendant are presented in the left frame of the Web interface.  Each button, when clicked, invokes a different action of the robot arm. The robot arm takes the command and moves accordingly. Camera software produces real-time video of the arm, which is shown in a frame on the right side of the Web page, and broadcasts it over the Web.

Computer programs, used to control the robot arm, were written to allow an Internet user to enter commands. This project demonstrated a prototype, and can be expanded to many related applications. Since this project was conducted within a limited time frame, there are many possible extensions that will not be implemented. The approach of accessing a robot arm through the web can be used in real life, for instructional purposes, once this interface system is improved.