Goals

Complex modern digital problems often require sophisticated computer programs, or agents, that act autonomously on behalf of their users and interact with hardware. This course will introduce students to the foundational principles behind robotic agents and to the civic issues, public challenges, and opportunities in this field. Areas of discussion include, but are not limited to sensors, perception, robot navigation and localization, motion planning, machine learning in robots, state of the art robotic applications, robotics in K-12 education, renewable energy, misuse of intelligent software and hardware, and various public issues utilizing agent/robotic systems as a solution.

Objectives

The course introduces students to the practice of agent-based and robotic systems while covering both the well-established and the cutting-edge areas of the discipline. The course also invites students to design and develop several robotic system applications and to assess the correctness of their implementations. This requires students to work both with hardware and with software throughout the course. Moreover, the course asks students to reflect on several public problems at local, national and international level that are or can be solved using robotic technologies and to study social systems behind them. In addition to improving their teamwork skills, students will enhance their ability to write and speak about agent-based and robotic systems in a clear and concise fashion. Through civic engagement activities, students also strengthen their skill of clearly communicating technical details to the general public.

Outcomes

  1. Identify components of the robot and associate each part with its task in a complete robotic system.
  2. Design, implement, and test robotic applications for a wheeled, arm, and aerial robots.
  3. Demonstrate the use of a robot operating system (ROS) in simulation and in wheeled robots.
  4. Demonstrate actuating, sensing, locomotion, navigation, manipulation, and learning capabilities of robotic systems.
  5. Describe the ethical and social impact of robotics on public problems and participate in civic engagement activities with robots, while additionally reflecting on the nuances of public problems.

Distribution Learning Outcomes

  • Civic Learning (CL): Students who successfully complete this requirement will demonstrate an understanding of economic, political, legal, cultural, natural, historical, or social forces that affect public problems or civic issues.

    Program learning outcomes 2 and 5 satisfy CL learning outcome.

  • Quantitative Reasoning (QR): Students who successfully complete this requirement will demonstrate an understanding of how to interpret numeric data and/or their graphical or symbolic representations.

    Program learning outcomes 2, 3, and 4 satisfy QR learning outcome.