16-869 AUTONOMOUS MULTIROBOT SYSTEMS

Student Evaluations

Students evaluate the course each year on a scale of 1 to 5 in 11 areas. I'm happy to see that the course improved in all but one area from 1999 to 2000. In 1999 some students wanted more of a challenge -- they wanted to really dive into creating multiagent teams. So I added a new sequence of programming assignments. I think the response was positive.

Question	1999 Course Mean / SCS Mean	2000 Course Mean / SCS Mean
Did the instructor state clearly the goals of the course?	4.20 / 4.09	4.36 / 4.18
Was the course well planned?	4.40 / 4.12	4.57 / 4.09
Did the instructor state cleary the criteria for grading?	4.40 / 3.96	4.50 / 3.99
Did the instructor respond to questions adequately?	4.80 / 4.13	4.86 / 4.26
Did the instructor show concern for the needs of indivdiual students?	5.00 / 3.96	4.79 / 4.10
Did the instructor communicate clearly and effectively?	4.70 / 4.06	4.79 / 4.21
Did the instructor present material and activities at an appropriate level of difficulty?	3.80 / 3.95	4.21 / 4.07
Did the instructor stimulate critical or creative thinking about the subject?	4.30 / 3.97	4.43 / 4.10
Overall, how would you rate this instructor's teaching?	4.50 / 4.06	4.50 / 4.19
What was the overall quality of this course?	4.20 / 4.03	4.50 / 4.09

Suggestions/comments from the 2000 survey:

• I really think the programming aspect of the course makes this class stand out; especially since the programming environment is so easy to use. Would like to see head-to-head competition between the soccer teams students develop.

  Thanks. Yes, I'd like to include head to head competition. Maybe we can do this in 2001.

• Good format, encouraging students to do in-depth research on topics of interest and get practice presenting. Could use a "wrap up" day or two to summarize state of the art and current challenges.

  Glad you like the format. I agree, a wrap up day would be good.

• Great topics and the material is interesting.

• I thought this was a great course but it was clearly designed for grad students taking 2 classes, not undergrads taking 4+ classes...

  It is definitely a graduate course, but I enjoy having bright undergrads join in.

• There are too many presentations [by students]. There should be more basic introduction covering the main ideas of autonomous multi-robot systems presented by the teacher himself.

  It is important for everyone do do a presentation, but we can probably have two students present on some days, leaving more lecture days for the instructor.

• I enjoyed having the freedom and responsibility for the assignments. But would like more structure with checkpoints.

• I wanted to have firsthand experience of programming robots such as behavior implementation.

  This was my original vision for the course. I plan to have robots for next year.

• Overall coverage of the basic concepts was very good. Exposure in more depth to some more formal areas would have been useful.

  OK, sounds reasonable.

• Would like to get the assignments back faster.

  I regret that I was not able to get the assignments back faster. If only I had a TA!