CSCI 319: Advanced Topics in Robotics

General Information

Professor: Simon D. Levy
Schedule: MTWRF 1:25-3:25 Parmly 405
Office: Parmly 407B
Office Phone: 458-8419
E-mail: simon.d.levy@gmail.com
Office Hours: 11:15-12:10, 3:30-4:30 daily, and by appointment

Textbook: There is no textbook for this course. Robotics is changing so rapidly that it makes more sense to read selections from various authors than to try and find a single textbook. These readings will be available online.

Objectives

By the end of this course you will be able to

Explain the most important concepts in robotics, including well-established topics like Bayesian filtering and control theory, as well as current trends like intelligent robots and neuromorphic control
Write simple programs using the Robot Operating System (ROS)
Program a robot in simulation
Program an actual robot to do simple tasks
Use socket/wifi and serial-port APIs to add intelligent behavior to existing robots, toys, and other devices
Adapt different kinds of sensors for use with your robots, based on your understanding of various signal types (USB, RS-232, TTL, I²C)
Explain to a non-expert why it is so difficult to build and program a robot to do anything non-trivial
Apply concepts from robotics to understanding broader issues in science, technology and the humanities – such as perception, action, intentionality, ethics, and the mind/body problem

The informal goal of this class is to have fun learning about and building robots. The learning will come from the current robotics literature presented by you and your fellow students. We will pursue our goal in a spirit of friendly competition: your final robot project will be judged not just on its own, but against the robots built by your classmates, at our Spring Term Festival.

Prerequisites

Because of the amount of coding experience required, CSCI 209 is a prerequisite for this class.

Grading

Weekly quizzes: 50%
Participating in group exercises: 20%
Final robot project: 30% (5% from peer rating)

The grading scale will be 93-100 A; 90-92 A-; 87-89 B+; 83-86 B; 80-82 B-; 77-79 C+; 73-76 C; 70-72 C-; 67-69 D+; 63-66 D; 60-62 D-; below 60 F.

I expect everyone to show up every day and participate. Because of the teamwork required in this course, you will be letting down not just yourself, but also your teammates, if you miss class. The only legitimate reasons for missing class are illness, family emergencies, and the like (which must be handled through the Dean’s Office), as well as off-campus varsity athletic events.

Final Project

Starting on the third or fourth day of class, you will work in teams of two to four students on a final project of your choosing. Robotics changes so rapidly that there are now several platforms / technologies that we will be using for the first time in this course.

We are fortunate to have generous funding from the Provost’s Office that can be used to purchase new equipment, based on your own project ideas. Given the short amount of time we have to work with, it will be up to you to get such requests to me as soon as you can.

An email with your final project proposal (mainly just an email from one team member with the names your team members and the robot you want to work with), will be due from each team at 11:59 PM Friday 28 April. Failure to do this will cost you 5% of your final grade for each day it is late.

Class Format

The format of the class will be an hour of lecture / discussion followed by at least one hour of project work done in teams of two to five students. We will likely vary this schedule to accommodate additional work on projects as needed. To ensure that you are keeping up with the readings, there will be a weekly reading quiz each Friday.

After-Hours Work

Although you should have enough time to work on your robots during the regular class meetings, I have found that students enjoyed and benefitted from working on their robots outside of class. Parmly 404, the room where we will store the robot kits and other material, should be open from 9AM till late at night, so please let me know if you have trouble getting in there during those hours (and please lock the door when you leave, if no one else is around).

Tentative Schedule

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

27 April
Week 1

Course Intro

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Group Exercise

Sensors, Signals, Serial, Sockets

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