Goals

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 ask 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

At the completion of this course, a student must be comfortable with fundamental concepts and practical techniques in robotic systems and be aware of current public issues involving this area. When given a new relevant problem, students should be able to select proper robotic agent-based tools and techniques and implement a complete application that uses them to solve the stated problem. Students must also be able to develop a toolkit of robotic concepts that they can use in the context of the solutions to real-world problems. Furthermore, students must be capable of identifying a public problem applicable to the field of study, and find and apply an appropriate solution using robotic and agent-based systems. Finally, students must be able to critically reflect on the civic engagement interactions and influences of any societal forces on the problem their civic action is addressing.