Welcome to 16-311 Spring 2010!

Descriptive
Blurb:
 This course presents an overview of robotics in practice and research with topics including vision, motion planning, mobile mechanisms, kinematics, inverse kinematics, and sensors.

In course projects, students construct robots which are driven by a microcontroller, with each project reinforcing the basic principles developed in lectures. Students usually work in teams of three: an electrical engineer, a mechanical engineer, and a computer scientist.

This course will also expose students to some of the contemporary happenings in robotics, including current robot lab research, applications, robot contests and robot web surfing.
Who should take
this class:
 Juniors, seniors, and advanced sophomores interested in robotics.

Familiarity with programming and basic calculus is required.

Students should also know or plan to learn the following.
Locations and times:
    Lecture:
    Monday & Wednesday
    10:30am-11:50am
    NSH 3002
    Recitation:
    Tuesday
    3:30pm-4:20pm
    GHC 5222
    Lab:
    TA lab hours:
Communication:

    Email:
Personnel:

    Prof. Howie Choset:

    choset@cs
    NSH 3211, 268-2495

    Office Hours: TBA

    Peggy Martin:
    (Howie's secretary)

    NSH 3218

    Alan Kraut:
    (Head TA)

    Jason Geist:
    (Bossman)

    Lab TAs:

    Emails:

    Austin Buchan
    Ben Gemperline
    Brian Goldfain
    Victor Marmol
    Ben Matzke
    Alexander Kan May
    Justin Moidel
    Ben Morse
    Brad Neuman
    Swi Raparla

    abuchan@andrew
    bgemperl@andrew
    bgoldfai@andrew
    vmarmol@andrew
    bmatzke@andrew
    amay@andrew
    jmoidel@andrew
    bmorse@andrew
    bneuman@andrew
    yraparla@andrew
 
 
 
Teams
 Rube Goldberg team lists
Team Contract
Team Pictures
Text:
 Introduction to Robotics, P. J. McKerrow, ISBN: 0201182408

One copy of the text (in loose leaf form) will be provided to each group.
Note that the text is not required.

If you want your own copy, you can try ordering from:
Related Texts:
 Introduction to Robotics, John J. Craig, Addison-Wesley Publishing, Inc., 1989.

Machine Vision, D.H. Ballard and C.M. Brown, Prentice-Hall, 1982.

Robot Motion Planning, J.C. Latombe, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991.
Homework 
 Assignments will be distributed via the web. Hard copies will not be distributed in class.

Assignments are due at the specified dates and times. Late assignments will not be accepted for grading under any condition.

All group members must be present for demos. A student not present for the demo will receive a zero, unconditionally.

If all assignments have been handed in by the end of the semester (on-time or late), the lowest grade will be dropped. (Homeworks 1 and 2 will not be dropped.)
Labs:

Self-paced collaborative lab projects will compliment the weekly lectures of Introduction to Robotics. Whereas the lectures emphasize the underlying math and algorithms of each sub-discipline of robotics, the projects will emphasize the pragmatic facets of implementing robotic and mechatronic devices. The labs give students an education that go well beyond robotics into fields like control, embedded systems, programming, signal processing, interfacing, and electronics.

Lab details.
Grading:
 60% Homeworks
15% Midterm
25% Final

Grades are posted on the CMU Blackboard
Lectures:
 No student may record or tape any classroom activity without the express written consent of Howie Choset. If a student needs to record or tape classroom activities, the student should contact the Office of Disability Resources to request an appropriate accommodation.
Last updated 12/15/09 by Alan Kraut
(c) 1999-2009: Howie Choset, Carnegie Mellon