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6.141 / 16.401 - RSS Basic Information Instructors Daniela Rus (course coordinator) Office: 32-374 Phone: 258-7567 Office Hours: by appointment E-mail: rus@csail.mit.edu Una-May O'Reilly (lab tzarina) Office: 32-379 Phone: 253-6437 Office Hours: by appointment E-mail: unamay@csail.mit.edu John Leonard Office: 32-335 Phone: 253-5305 Office Hours: by appointment E-mail: jleonard@csail.mit.edu Nick Roy Office: 32-335 Phone: 253-2780 Office Hours: by appointment E-mail: nickroy@csail.mit.edu Seth Teller Office: 32-333 Phone: 258-7885 Office Hours: by appointment E-mail: teller@csail.mit.edu Teaching Assistants Sam Prentice Office: 32-33x Phone: Office Hours: by appointment E-mail: prentice@mit.edu Marsette "Marty" Vona Office: 32-376 Phone: 253-6532 Office Hours: by appointment E-mail: vona@mit.edu Lab Assistants Ash Dyer Office: 32-33x Phone: Office Hours: by appointment E-mail: ash.dyer@mit.edu Ricky Nguyen Office: 32-33x Phone: Office Hours: by appointment E-mail: rickdn@mit.edu Course Help Outside Lab Hours E-mail: rss-help@csail.mit.edu Course Meeting times: Lectures: Mon and Wed 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm in Room 32-144 Labs: Tue and Thu 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm in 33-004 (Gelb Lab) - phone 617 324 0491 These times do not conflict with most 6.01X, 6.03X, 6.04X course offerings. EECS Departmental Classification ***NEW***RSS I is now an Undergrad Institute Lab.***NEW*** RSS I is also an EECS Department Lab. (NOTE: earlier versions of this web page erroneously stated that RSS I was an AIA EC. We apologize for the error.) Students may use RSS II either for departmental lab credit or they may request it be recognized as an AUP (even though it is 6 credits more than a standard AUP). Finally, RSS II may be used as an elective subject in the Artificial Intelligence and Applications (AIA) Engineering Concentration (EC). Engineering Design Points (EDPs): Part I: 8, Part II: 12 Units: 12, 2-4-6 (Lectures: 2; Labs: 4; Out-of-class: 6) Prerequisite This course has no formal prerequisites other than a facility with computers and programming, some exposure to algorithms and formal methods, and a desire to build robots. Permission of the instructor is required. A course in mechanical design and construction is helpful but not necessary. Robotics: Science and Systems I is a prerequisite for Robotics: Science and Systems II. We encourage Mechanical Engineering students to enroll but advise them that they will have to petition to use these credits to fulfill ME degree requirements. The course has limited enrollment. Text Textbook: Introduction to Autonomous Mobile Robots (Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Agents) by Roland Siegwart, Illah R. Nourbakhsh (Available at MIT Press in Kendall Square for $40 ($50 less 20% student discount)) In addition there will be reading distributed in the form of course notes and papers. You have to read all the materials you will receive in the course. Here are some other relevant books: Robot Motion Planning, Latombe, Kluwer Academic Publishers. Mobile Robots, Inspiration to Implementation, Jones & Flynn, A. K. Peters. Artificial Intelligence, A Modern Approach Russel & Norvig, Prentice Hall. Behavior-Based Robotics, Arkin, MIT Press, 1998. Robotic Explorations, Martin, Prentice Hall Computational Principles of Mobile Robotics, Dudek and Jekin Course Objective This project course is a hands-on introduction to robotics. You will be introduced to the basic concepts in robotics, focusing on the mechanics and electronics principles behind building robots and on the classic algorithms, architectures, and theories behind controlling and programming robots. Topics include: motion planning, geometric reasoning, kinematics and dynamics, state estimation, tracking, map building, manipulation, human-robot interaction, fault diagnosis and embedded system development. You will build a robot in teams using a robot building kit. This robot will be used to implement the algorithms discussed in class in the context of the course challenge task. Lecture and lab attendance is mandatory. The challenge solutions will be demoed during the last laboratory. You will build your robots in teams. Each group will design and implement the hardware and software for their robot. All robots will have to be able to execute the same challenge task. Course Requirements The course material will be covered in lectures. In addition, each group will have regular weekly meetings in the Robotics Laboratory. Students are required to attend all classes and weekly lab meetings. They are required to solve each week's lab exercise. In addition, students will be required to do the following work: Read all the assigned papers and chapters before each class. Participate actively in the discussion. Participate in weekly labs and provide detailed lab reports with answers to all the lab problems. The lab reports will be organized as Web logs. Each group will maintain such a log. Send the URL for your lab to the course coordinator. Participate in a debate topic. Prepare a report that details the hardware, software, and algorithms used by their robot. Participate in one Robot Team. This includes active participation in the design, construction, and programming of the robots, and in participation in the robot competition. You will also have to turn in a project report that details your design, implementation, and performance evaluations. Laboratories We will use the Gelb Lab space in 33-004 for this course. The course staff will request your student ID information to register you for access to this lab space. Debates The field of Robotics has certain philosophical aspects to it. We will learn about this by means of class debates, which will occur at the end of the term. A list of debate topics will be posted; you will be asked to sign up for a topic and for the pro or con position for that topic. You will have to prepare an argument for the idea you signed up for. You will deliver this orally in groups in front of the class. Grading Lab Participation: 40% Robot Project (hardware): 10% Robot Project (software): 10% Final Writeup: 5% Challenge Performance: 10% Debate Participation: 15% Class Participation: 10% The performance on the challenge task will be measured in points to determine the challenge winner. The winning team will receive a prize. Your grade will not depend on the relative ranking in the course challenge. Honor Code All work submitted for credit must be your own. Any written sources you must also be acknowledged in your project reports. Any software given to you (by us or by other sources on the Web) must also be acknowledged. Disabilities We encourage students with disabilities, including "invisible" disabilities such as chronic diseases and learning disabilities, to discuss with us any appropriate accommodations that we might make on their behalf. Back to: 6.141 Home Page