Welcome to 16-311 Spring 2013!

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
    WEH 5302 (Mostly in the REL)
    Lab:
Communication:

    Email:
Personnel:

    Prof. Howie Choset:

    choset@cs
    NSH 3211, 268-2495

    Peggy Martin:
    (Howie's secretary)

    NSH 3218

    Jonathan Butzke:
    (Head TA)

    jbutzke+16311@andrew
    NSH 1612
gm = gmail.com; andrew = andrew.cmu.edu; t = toebes.com

    Lab TAs:

    Emails:

    Andrew Willig
    Brock Allen
    Franklin Ditzler
    James Wahawisan
    Jessica Tiu
    Margeret Toebes
    Melissa Mann
    Neil Abcouwer
    Sid Soundaranajran
    Sylvia Han
    Trevre Cusma
    Yigit Bilgen

    andrew.willig@gm
    jballen@andrew
    fgd@andrew
    jwahawis@andrew
    jtiu@andrew
    margaret@t
    mlmann@andrew
    nabcouwer@cmu.edu
    sid.the.gears.player@gm
    sylviah@andrew
    tcusma@andrew
    mbilgen@andrew
 
 
 
Teams
 Team Contract
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 01/06/2013 by Jonathan Butzke
(c) 1999-2013: Howie Choset, Carnegie Mellon