Cognitive Robotics Schedule
Spring 2023
Office hours (Lauren): see below
Date Lecture Office Hours Project/Assignment Hand-in
Week 1 Mon 1/16 No class. Martin Luther King holiday.
Wed 1/18 Course overview and introduction to Cozmo.
Videos: Chiara piano, Chiara chess, Calypso for Cozmo
Reading: Ten Big Ideas in Robotics
Fri 1/20 Lab 1: Meet Cozmo Browse the IEEE Automaton blog for photos and videos of cool robots.
Week 2 Mon 1/23 Robot software architecture and Python control structure. Read the slides from Beazley's 2009 coroutines lecture. Somehwat dated but still really good.
Wed 1/25 Finite state machines. Install cozmo-tools on your laptop.
Thu 1/26 Lauren 11-12 & 5:30-6:30
Fri 1/27 Lab 2: Odometry Finish Lab 2 for homework.
Week 3 Mon 1/30 Lecture: State machine misconceptions.
Lecture: More state machines, and intro to particle filters.
Try out particle_filter_demo and pfdemo.py.
Wed 2/1 Particle filters. If you would like to learn more, see these excellent lectures on probabilistic robotics.
Thu 2/2 Lauren 11-12 & 5:30-6:30
Fri 2/3 Lab 3: Particle filters. Finish lab 3 for homework. Lab 2 due
Week 4 Mon 2/6 Lecture: Kinematics.
Videos: Denavit-Hartenberg conventions, Towers of Hanoi, 3-dof arm IK, high-dof tentacle IK, tentacle manipulation
Resource: numpy quick start.
Read: Introduction to homogenous transformations and robot kinematics, by Jennifer Kay.
Watch: Denavit-Hartenberg Conventions
Wed 2/8 The world map. Visualizing quaternions video series.
Play with quaternions.online (click the bars to change rotation).
Thu 2/9 Lauren 11-12 & 5:30-6:30
Fri 2/10 Lab 4: Kinematics. Finish Lab 4 for homework. Lab 3 due.
Week 5 Mon 2/13 More kinematics, world maps, and SLAM
Videos:
Robot Navigation Using SLAM by Ibrahim Musba.
SLAM A 00 by Claus Brenner.
Lidar vs. Vslam for robot vacuums.
Wed 2/15 Path planning algorithms.
RRT Animation Gallery.
Videos: A* Search, Tekkotsu hand/eye planner
Thu 2/16 Dave 12:00 to 1:30
Fri 2/17 Lab 5: Cozmo's path planner, and intro to SLAM. Finish Lab 5 for homework. Lab 4 due.
Week 6 Mon 2/20 Intro to OpenCV. Demo: CircleWatcher.py
OpenCV part 2. Shape matching. Watershed algorithm (more info).
Files: water_coins.jpg, watershed.py.

Matplotlib slides. Examples: PlotDrive.fsm, PlotDrive.py; and Histogram.fsm Histogram.py

Browse OpenCV Python Tutorials, specifically on contours.
Matplotlib usage. Matplotlib tutorial info.
Wed 2/22 Speech generation and recognition. Demo: Speech1.fsm.
Google Speech API demo
Winograd's SHRDLU system, and a modern version.
Read about SHRDLU.
Review regular expressions in Python.
Thu 2/23 Lauren 11-12 & 5:30-6:30
Fri 2/24 Lab 6: Vision and speech recognition. Finish Lab 6 for homework. Lab 5 due
Week 7 Mon 2/27 Backpropagation learning.
Demos: linfit.py, encoder .py, approxfn .py, approxfn2 .py, approxfn3 .py, mnist1 .py
Wed 3/1 Autonomous driving with ALVINN.
Watch the ALVINN video
Read the ALVINN demo source code.
Thu 3/2 Lauren 11-12 & 5:30-6:30
Fri 3/3 Lab 7: Neural Networks and ALVINN Lab 6 due
Week 8 Mon 3/6 Spring break: no class.
Wed 3/8 Spring break: no class.
Fri 3/10 Spring break: no lab.
Week 9 Mon 3/13 Convolutional networks.
Demos: mnist1.py, mnist2.py, mnist3.py
Wed 3/15 ImageNet and transfer learning.
Try these MobileNet demos.
Thu 3/16 Lauren 11-12 & 5:30-6:30
Fri 3/17 Lab 8: Convolutional Neural Networks. Lab 7 due
Week 10 Mon 3/20 Machine learning in Python: scikit-learn.
Extra slides on EM algorithm.
Demo: emdemo.py
Demo: RGBClusterer.fsm, RGBClusterer.py
Wed 3/22 Transformer networks and large language models..
Thu 3/23 Lauren 11-12 & 5:30-6:30
Fri 3/24 Lab 9: Large Language Models. Lab 8 due
Week 11 Mon 3/27 Calypso for Cozmo. Watch Calypso videos: intro, and keep-away tutorial. Have a look at the Calypso Curriculum. Then read Computational thinking and mental models: from Kodu to Calypso.
Wed 3/29 Prompt engineering. Discussion of project ideas.
Thu 3/30 Lauren 11-12 & 5:30-6:30
Fri 3/31 Lab 10: Calypso for Cozmo Lab 9 due
Week 12 Mon 4/3 Final project ideas.
Work on final projects.
Wed 4/5 Work on final projects.
Thu 4/6 Lauren 11-12 & 5:30-6:30
Fri 4/7 Work on final projects. Lab 10 due
Week 13 Mon 4/10 Work on final projects.
Wed 4/12 Work on final projects.
Thu 4/13 Spring Carnival
Fri 4/14 No lab. Spring Carnival
Week 14 Mon 4/17 Work on final projects.
Wed 4/19 Work on final projects.
Thu 4/20 Lauren 11-12 & 5:30-6:30
Fri 4/21 Work on final projects
Week 15 Mon 4/24 Work on final projects.
Wed 4/26 Work on final projects.
Thu 4/27 Lauren 11-12 & 5:30-6:30
Fri 4/28 Demos of your final projects. Final project hand-in due by Sunday May 7.