**3. Robot virtual worlds**

The Robot Virtual Worlds (RVW) product, offered by Robomatter, Inc., provides a powerful virtual robot platform [27] that gives programmers an option to run their code on a virtual *or* physical robot. The following information describes the setup of a Windows-based computer lab or laptop cart in *one* building. RVW is licensed software that has an option to obtain a 30-seat perpetual, one-time purchase for Vex or Lego Mindstorm robots [12]. Robomatter wrote RVW to work with the Windows operating system. One must download and install the licenses on *each* computer running the Windows operating system or to each Apple or Chrome computer running a Windows "partition" such as Parallels [28] software on a Mac OS or Chrome OS device. A *partition* is a region of your computer's memory dedicated to simulating the Windows operating system. The cost of a 30-seat, perpetual RVW license is approximately \$600 with an available trial license to test-drive the software [12]. The Robot Virtual Worlds Level Builder, akin to the VR Vex playground, is free. Download a Level Builder package to each computer using Robot Virtual Worlds to "play" challenges or "build" a custom virtual world.

To facilitate students working from home, RVW offers homework pack licenses [12] to install on students' home computers running the Windows operating system. If a student owns a Mac or Chrome computer, the cost to the student for the partition software is approximately \$80. Each student should download the free Level Builder software to facilitate "play" challenges or "build" custom activities. The following sections describe the RVW Vex IQ virtual robot.

### **3.1 RVW technological knowledge (TK)**

This section addresses the technical knowledge in the TPACK framework (**Figure 1**) necessary to implement the fundamentals of the RVW RobotC programming software focusing on a Vex IQ virtual robot. The "C" programming language is an industry standard to program robots [29]. RVW provides a graphical user interface (GUI) with drag and drop blocks similar to VR Vex. Once installed on a computer, RVW provides a desktop icon named ROBOTC for Vex Robotics. Double click on this icon to invoke ROBOTC. Kindly refer to **Video 2**, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Aj0sxMaZGRnMeIIa0Nijmis9fp7rQjj/view?usp=sharing and **Table 4** that contain suggested steps for educators to establish RVW on each licensed computer, to create a simple program, and to run this program in the *Turning Challenge* virtual world.


**Table 4.**

*Suggested sequence to establish RVW.*
