Welcome to 16-311 Spring 2006!

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 nominally 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, which includes current robot lab research, applications, robot contests and robot web surfing. Click here for the syllabus
Who should take this class: Advanced sophomores, juniors, and seniors interested in robotics. Familiarity with programming and basic calculus is also required. Students should also know the following.
Location: Lecture: Monday & Wednesday 10:30am-12:00pm (SH 125)
Recitation: Tuesday 1:30pm-2:20pm (PH 125C)

Lab: Hamerschlag Hall B301 (Click here for directions)

Complete list of lab hours and corresponding TA's.

Non-lab related TA hours: Mondays, 4:30 - 5:30 pm. Newell-Simon Hall - Atrium
Communication: Email:

TAs for 24-354 - privately send to just the TAs

BBoards:

academic.mech-e.24-354.2004.discuss: 
     General discussion. Questions, gripes, discussions, anything.
academic.mech-e.24-354.2004.announce: 
     Official announcements
Personnel:
Teams: Click here for team photos
Text: P. J. McKerrow, Introduction to Robotics, ISBN: 0201182408
One copy of the text (in loose leaf form) will be provided to each group. Note 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  Homeworks are due in class on the specified due dates. Late assignments will not be accepted for grading under any condition. Group members must be present when demo'ing their assignments. A student not present for the demo will receive a zero, unconditionally. However, provided that all assignments have been handed in by the end of the semester (on-time or late), the lowest grade will be dropped, excluding Homeworks 1 and 2.

Assignments will be distributed via the web. Hard copies will not be distributed in class.
Labs: New advancements in micro controller technology, and their interface with Lego blocks, provide a new opportunity for self-paced labs for robotics education where students build small robot devices, such as an arm, to reinforce topics covered in lecture. With these tools, students will also develop skills in self-education while exploring concepts relevant to Engineering and Computer Science that go far beyond robotics.

Please click here for detailed info on the labs.

A copy of the Lego kit contract is available.  

These are the Lego Kit Contents images.
Grading: Homeworks 60%
Midterm 20%
Final 20%
last updated by Michael North
(c) 1999-2003: Howie Choset, Carnegie Mellon