CORC 3303 – Exploring Robotics Fall 2012 Section EM6 ... - CUNY

CORC 3303 – Exploring Robotics Fall 2012
Section EM6 Monday 6:30-9:15 PM 3208N
Final Exam: TUESDAY 12/18/2012 6 PM
Room: To be announced
Instructor: Joel Kammet
http://www.sci.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~kammet
email: kammet AT sci.brooklyn.cuny.edu
Office hours: by appointment
Required textbook:
The Robotics Primer by Maja J. Mataric
(MIT Press, 2007; ISBN 978-0-262-63354-3 )
Exploring Robotics Coursepack (incl. Lab Worksheets) available at Far Better Printing, 43 Hillel Pl., and also
available on the course website.
A USB flash drive is required (to save your work in progress from week to week). An ordinary calculator is
optional, if you need it for use during exams. Smartphones, tablets, laptops, etc., are NOT PERMITTED for
any purpose during exams.
Labs:
Lab work is a major portion of this course and accordingly ATTENDANCE IS MANDATORY. You will be
assigned to groups of two or three students for lab work (assembling and programming robots). There will be
no opportunity to make up missed lab assignments.
Grading:
Your course grade will be based on lab assignments, homework, and examinations. Grades will be determined
as follows:
Lab work 30%
Homework and class discussion 10%
Exams and quizzes 30%
Final exam 30%
Preparation for classes:
Read the lab worksheets BEFORE class. Unless you are thoroughly familiar with the assignment before you
arrive at class, you will find it difficult to complete the lab work in the limited time available. Also, read the
textbook and outside reading assignments before class. You will get more out of it if you come to class having
some familiarity with the material so you can participate in a meaningful dialog.
Late homeworks will not be accepted unless under extraordinary circumstances, e.g. medical emergency.
Academic Integrity:
All assignments that you hand in (homework and labs) must be completed by YOU. Even though you are
collaborating on the labs with other students, you are expected to write your own answers, not copy them from a
lab partner. And of course, homework assignments must be strictly your own work. To quote from the
Brooklyn College policy on academic integrity, "If a faculty member, upon investigation, confirms that a
suspected violation has occurred and/or if the student admits to the violation, the faculty member must report
the violation." The complete text of the CUNY Academic Integrity Policy and the Brooklyn College procedure
for implementing that policy can be found at this site:
http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/bc/policies.

Class Lecture Topic Lab Readings
8/27 Course introduction.
What is a robot? What is an RCX?
9/10 Fundamental concepts: basic robot
control, sensing, perception, sensor
space, state space.
Intro to Robolab programming.
9/24 Robot construction: effectors,
actuators, gears, gear ratios, torque,
degrees of freedom.
10/1 Review of gears, gear ratios, & torque:
practical application to robot design.
10/10
(Wed)
**
Locomotion: methods, effectors for
movement. Trajectory vs. path.
Programming with loops.
10/15 Legged locomotion: gaits, center of
gravity, static/dynamic stability.
Program flow control: loops, forks,
jumps. Conditional vs. unconditional.
10/22 Sensing: types of sensors, noise,
redundancy, complexity, passive vs.
active sensors; touch sensors, light
sensors.
10/29 Robot vision: sonar, laser rangefinders,
cameras.
11/5
**
Intro to robot control: feedback (closed
loop), feedforward (open loop).
Lab A part 1
Robot assembly; output ports;
first program.
Finish Lab A part 1
Lab A part 2
Simple movement; random
numbers; coordinating
movement and sound.
RP ch. 1,2,3
Autonomous Robots pp. 14-
24 ( A)
Artbots show talent (C)
Finish Lab A part 2 RP ch. 4
BigDog Rough-Terrain
Quadruped Robot (A)
Lab B part 1
Gear ratios; understanding wait,
stop, power levels
Lab B part 2
Altering robot design: speed vs.
acceleration vs. precision
Finish Lab B part 2
Lab C part 1
Input ports; touch sensors;
program loops
Finish Lab C part 1
Lab C part 2
Dancing robots
Lab D part 1
Program forks and jumps;
introduction to light sensors
Lab D part 2
Obstacle avoidance; touch
sensor forks; "infinite" loops;
breaking out of loops
11/12 Control architectures, representation. Lab E
Multitasking (task split);
start task, stop task
11/19 Deliberative control, reactive control. Lab E (continued)
Using light sensor for line
following and searching
11/26 Subsumption architecture, behaviorbased
control, emergent behavior.
Lab E (continued)
Using light sensor for line
following and searching
12/3 Robot teams, multiagent systems Lab F
Robot soccer
12/10 Lab F (continued)
Robot soccer
** Tentative exam dates
Horsepower and Torque (B)
Great Robot Race video(B);
Stanley: The Robot...(B)
RP ch. 5
Locomotion Systems in
Robotic Application (C)
RP ch. 7, 8
A Dancing Robot for
Rhythmic Social Interaction
(C)
RP ch. 9
Then and Now: Robot
Sensors (D)
RP ch. 10
RP ch. 11, 12
RP ch. 13,14
RP ch. 16, 18
Basics of Robot Control (E)
RP ch. 20
Autonomous Mental
Development (see website)