**3. Lego MindStorm as teaching tool for mechatronics, measurement & instrumentation courses**

Information and Automation Technology will be part of the future careers of virtually all students in Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering & Technology (FET of the university of Botswana (Marumo., 2007). Traditionally students are exposed to a course in a higher order computer language, which is perceived by many students as unexciting and tedious. To introduce students to automation in a far more challenging and exciting manner, LEGO Mindstorms will be used in the following courses: measurement and instrumentation and mechatronic, robotics, process control and systems & control. The LEGO Mindstorms kits contain a programmable brick which essentially is a micro controller built in a plastic LEGO package with three connectors for actuators (motors) and three sensor inputs such as switches, optical analog sensors, angle encoders etc. The micro controller has an infrared serial link through which programs can be uploaded and executed. The brick also has buttons to start, stop, and select programs and to check the status of actuators and sensors in real time. The Mindstorms brick can be programmed in a variety of languages. LEGO supplies its proprietary pictorial ladder-style language, there is NQC (Not Quite C), which is a C-derivative, and advanced users can even use C/C++ that runs on a dedicated operating system called BrickOS. Robolab is a pictorial programming environment, where actuators, sensors and control structures are joined together has shown to be very suitable for students with no procedural language background. The reason for selecting this language was the widespread use of Lab View in industry and the basic philosophy behind it. Users select components and attach modifiers to change their properties. Components are linked using a wiring tool very similar to building electrical circuits.
