Lego‐bike: A challenging robotic lab project to illustrate rapid prototyping in the mindstorms/simulink integrated platform

LEGO © Mindstorms is a widely spread affordable education robotic platform, that has recently gained native support from the Mathworks © simulation environment Simulink. The pros and cons of the integrated Mindstorms/Simulink framework are actually illustrated through a complex model based control design project featuring a self‐stabilized bicycle, that represents a proper example of the rapid prototyping capability of the platform. The importance of such an integration is discussed taking into account the history and the results of the LEGO‐based learning activities held at the Control Systems Laboratory of the University of Florence for graduate and undergraduate courses.