Robotics Independent Study

Demos

Yuya's line following object mover (9MB).
John's color tracker take 1 (67MB).
John's color tracker take 2 (79MB).
Fabian and Thomas's sorter take 1 (318MB).
Fabian and Thomas's sorter take 2 (223MB).

Notes

These notes are labeled control systems because I started them a few years ago when I covered transform techniques in a class I taught at the University of Redlands. In any case the notes are available in [pdf][ps] and covers SciLab.

Forum

Scott has set up a web Forum for the class. It looks pretty nice and I will attempt to monitor it regularly. It should provide a good place for the groups to interact.

Robots and Software

The following links go to the websites of robotics and software groups that have products I intend to use. Many of these have free software you can download to work with at home.

We will need to do a lot of matrix calculations. The standard environment for that is MatLab but I have found a free lookalike called SciLab. SciLab is open source and available for most OS environments. I advise you download it, as it will help with the class.
Acroname is a robotics supplier, from which we are getting CMU cameras, gps, IR communications, UV detectors, telemetry modules, speech synthesizers, and piezo gyros.
Trekker robots are a versatile platform, from a local (Highland) vendor. We will use the line following, navigating, and fire detecting robots.
Lynxmotion produces a lot of nice robot products including the Lynx 6 Robotic Arm
Robix Rascal
CMU Camera free source code
One of the controllers we will work with is the OOPic, which has free source code. Look it over.

Basic Info

Since there is no hardware elective on the schedule for Spring, I will be running an independent study in robotics. It will count for your hardware elective. If you want more info come by my office. If you want to sign up, register for 595D and bring an independent study form by my office.

You will need to submit a one page summary of what is to be done, my suggestion for the paper is available in both [pdf] [ps].

The book will be “Introduction to Robotics:Analysis, Systems, Applications” by Saeed B. Niku and published by Pearson Education (a division of Prentice Hall). Since this is independent study was created after the book order deadline, it will not be available in the bookstore. You can order it at Amazon.com or your favorite internet retailer.