15-494 Cognitive Robotics
Spring 2010
Course Links:  Main Lectures Labs Homeworks

Tekkotsu Links:   Tutorial Resources Wiki Bugs CVS
Reference:

Week 1
Mon 1/11 Lecture: Course intro; Chiara overview; C++ for Java programmers
Videos: XOR demo, Two-Armed Bandit demo, Regis demo, Chiara walking
Read: C++ review
Wed 1/13 Read tutorial sections: Introduction, Documentation, Behaviors, Events
Lecture: Tekkotsu behaviors and events
Drill: Behaviors and events drill
Fri 1/15 Read: tutorial section on Robot safety
Lab 1: Teleoperation with ControllerGUI; compiling Tekkotsu behaviors
Week 2
Mon 1/18 Martin Luther King Day: no class.
Wed 1/20 Read: tutorial sections on State nodes, Shorthand notation, Defining node classes
Lecture: State machine formalism
Drill: State machines drill
Fri 1/22 Read: tutorial chapter on The Storyboard Tool
Lab 2: State machines and the Storyboard tool
Week 3
Mon 1/25 Lecture: Tekkotsu vision pipeline; color image segmentation
Read: overview of the Vision Pipeline Read: tutorial section on color image segmentation and EasyTrain
Homework 2: Color segmentation with EasyTrain (due by Friday, 1/30/09)
Wed 1/27 Read: S. Ullman (1984) Visual routines. Cognition 18:97-157.
Lecture: Ullman's visual routines; Sketches in Tekkotsu
Fri 1/29 Read: tutorial sections on VisualRoutinesStateNode, Sketch primitives, Tekkotsu simulator
Lab 3/Homework 3: Tekkotsu simulator; programming with Sketches
Week 4
Mon 2/01 Read: MIT Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science articles on Mental Representation and Imagery
     (both mention Paivio's dual coding theory)
Read: tutorial section on Shape primitives
Lecture: Shape representations
Wed 2/03 Read: How qualitative spatial reasoning can improve strategy game AIs, by Forbus, Mahoney, and Dill.
Read: tutorial section on the Map Builder
Lecture: Shape predicates; Tekkotsu's local map builder
Fri 2/05 Lab 4: Map building and visual search
Homework 4: Parsing the tic-tac-toe board
Week 5
Mon 2/08 Read: tutorial section on State signalling
Lecture: Architectures for robot control; advanced state machines
Wed 2/10 Read: tutorial chapter on Postures and Motion Sequences
Lecture: Postures and motion sequences
Videos: standlie.mp4, pan_head.mp4, headwag.mp4, fallover.mp4
Fri 2/11 Lab 5/Homework 5: Motion Sequences
Week 6
Mon 2/15 Lecture: World maps and localization
Wed 2/17 Read: tutorial chapter on Walking
Lecture: Navigating with the Pilot
Fri 2/19 Lab 6: Knock down a soda can
Week 7
Mon 2/22 Lecture: Object recognition
Supplemental: Fred Birchmore's soda can detector
Wed 2/24 Leture: Gestalt perception
Fri 2/26 Lab 7: Gestalt perception exercise
Week 8
Mon 3/01 Read: B. Kuipers (2005) Drinking from the firehose of experience.
Lecture: Consciousness and groundedness
Video demo: the flash lag effect
Wed 3/03 Midterm exam
Fri 3/05
mid-semester break
Week 9
Mon 3/08
Spring Break
Wed 3/10
Spring Break
Fri 3/12
Spring Break
Week 10
Mon 3/15 Read: tutorial section on Motion commands
Read: documentation for MotionManager, MotionCommand, MMAccessor, LedEngine
Lecture: Motion commands and real-time programming
Wed 3/17 Read: tutorial chapter on Forward kinematics
Optional: A gentle introduction to homogenous transformations and robot kinematics, by Jennifer Kay.
Lecture: Body representation and the kinematics engine
Video: Denavit-Hartenberg Reference Frame Layout
Video: Tentacle arm path planning
Fri 3/19 Lab 8: Kinematics lab
Week 11
Mon 3/22 Lecture: Affordances
Video: AIBO tool use
Optional: Affordances and Design, by Don Norman
Wed 3/24 Lecture: Human-robot interaction
Video: Cythia Breazeal on Nova
More Kismet videos
Fri 3/26 Lab 9: LookingGlass tool
Week 12
Mon 3/29 Lecture: Manipulation and path planning
Video: Tekkotsu arm path planning
Wed 3/31 Lecture: Manipulation with friction
Handout: PID Control Simulation - Excel Spreadsheet
Fri 4/02 Lab 10: Manipulation exercise
Week 13
Mon 4/05 Lecture: Robot learning
Wed 4/07 Special lab meeting: project prototyping experiments
Fri 4/09 project clinic
Week 14
Mon 4/12 project clinic
Wed 4/14 project clinic
Fri 4/16
Spring Carnival
Week 15
Mon 4/19 project clinic
Wed 4/21 project clinic
Fri 4/23 project clinic
Week 16
Mon 4/26 Project presentations/critiques
Wed 4/28 Project presentations/critiques
Fri 4/30
Public demo of class projects
Finals Week
Mon 5/10 Final exam 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm in GHC 4307
Final projects due