Final grades will be determined as follows:
HOMEWORK AND PROGRAMMING ASSIGNMENTS: 5 or 6 homework assignments will be given during the first 9 weeks of the course. The assignments will involve some written problem solving but concentrate more on programming problems. Over the first nine weeks, you will incrementally construct a robot simulator - starting from basic spatial representations and transformations through kinematics, inverse kinematics, dynamics, and control. The programming assignments will correspond closely to the "Programming Exercise" sections at the end of each chapter of the textbook.
COURSE PROJECT: each student must complete a course project. Most of the work for the project will take place after Spring Break. But, we will discuss project topics in the first part of the semester. Usually, projects are done in groups of 2-4 students. Projects can involve use of our Puma robot(s) or may be robotics related programming or design projects.
Previous projects using our Puma robots include: painting, game playing, dominos, violin playing, building lincoln-log cabins. Some groups have also designed and built new grippers and end effectors with sensors. Other past projects: build Motorolla 68HC11 microcontroller-based mobile robot, interfaced Mattel Powerglove to Puma for teleoperated control, various projects in scenario control of autononous vehicles in driving simulation.
FINAL EXAM: general, not-too-hard, exam covering basics from textbook plus basics of advanced topics covered in second part of course.
LAB: we will have approximately 3 lab sessions early in the semester. Students will work in groups of 3 to familiarize themselves with use of our Puma robots and to learn to program the robot using the robot programming language VAL.
SHOW-AND-TELL: each student must find and report on some interesting/unusual robotics news. You might find something in a newspaper, magazine, or journal. Investigate it a bit and take about 10 minutes to tell the class about it. No "due date" on this, though I expect about 1 person per week to present what they've discovered.