Cognitive Robotics: Lectures

Week 1
Mon 1/12	Lecture: Course intro; Chiara overview; C++ for Java programmers Videos: XOR demo, Two-Armed Bandit demo, Regis demo, Chiara walking Read: C++ review
Wed 1/14	Read tutorial sections: Introduction, Documentation, Behaviors, Events Lecture: Tekkotsu behaviors and events
Fri 1/16	Read: tutorial section on Robot safety Lab 1: Teleoperation with ControllerGUI; compiling Tekkotsu behaviors
Week 2
Mon 1/19	Martin Luther King Day: no class.
Wed 1/21	Read: tutorial sections on State nodes, Shorthand notation Lecture: State machine formalism
Fri 1/23	Read: tutorial chapter on The Storyboard Tool Lab 2: State machines and the Storyboard tool
Week 3
Mon 1/26	Lecture: Tekkotsu vision pipeline; color image segmentation Read: overview of the Vision Pipeline Read: tutorial section on color image segmentation and EasyTrain Homework 2: Color segmentation with EasyTrain (due by Friday, 1/30/09)
Wed 1/28	Read: S. Ullman (1984) Visual routines. Cognition 18:97-157. Lecture: Ullman's visual routines; Sketches in Tekkotsu
Fri 1/30	Read: tutorial sections on VisualRoutinesBehavior, Sketch primitives, Tekkotsu simulator Lab 3/Homework 3: Tekkotsu simulator; programming with Sketches
Week 4
Mon 2/02	Read: MIT Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science articles on Mental Representation and Imagery (both mention Paivio's dual coding theory) Read: tutorial section on Shape primitives Lecture: Shape representations
Wed 2/04	Read: How qualitative spatial reasoning can improve strategy game AIs, by Forbus, Mahoney, and Dill. Lecture: Shape predicates; Tekkotsu's local map builder
Fri 2/06	Lab 4: Map building and visual search Homework 4: Parsing the tic-tac-toe board
Week 5
Mon 2/09	Lecture: Architectures for robot control
Wed 2/11	Read: tutorial chapter on Postures and Motion Sequences Lecture: Postures and motion sequences Videos: standlie.mp4, pan_head.mp4, headwag.mp4, fallover.mp4
Fri 2/13	Lab 5/Homework 5: Motion Sequences
Week 6
Mon 2/16	Lecture: World maps and localization
Wed 2/18	Read: tutorial chapter on Walking Lecture: Navigating with the Pilot
Fri 2/20	Lab 6: Knock down a soda can
Week 7
Mon 2/23	Lecture: Object recognition Supplemental: Fred Birchmore's soda can detector
Wed 2/25	Leture: Gestalt perception
Fri 2/27	Lab 7: Gestalt perception exercise
Week 8
Mon 3/02	Read: B. Kuipers (2005) Drinking from the firehose of experience. Lecture: Consciousness and groundedness Video demo: the flash lag effect
Wed 3/04	Midterm exam
Fri 3/06	mid-semester break
Week 9
Mon 3/09	Spring Break
Wed 3/11	Spring Break
Fri 3/13	Spring Break
Week 10
Mon 3/16	Read: tutorial section on Motion commands Read: documentation for MotionManager, MotionCommand, MMAccessor, LedEngine Lecture: Motion commands and real-time programming
Wed 3/18	Read: tutorial chapter on Forward kinematics Optional: A gentle introduction to homogenous transformations and robot kinematics, by Jennifer Kay. Lecture: Body representation and the kinematics engine
Fri 3/20	Lab 8: Kinematics lab
Week 11
Mon 3/23	Lecture: Affordances Video: AIBO tool use Optional: Affordances and Design, by Don Norman
Wed 3/25	Lecture: Human-robot interaction Video: Cythia Breazeal on Nova More Kismet videos
Fri 3/27	Lab 9: LookingGlass tool
Week 12
Mon 3/30	Lecture: Manipulation and path planning
Wed 4/01	Lecture: Manipulation with friction Handout: PID Control Simulation - Excel Spreadsheet
Fri 4/03	Lab 10: Manipulation exercise
Week 13
Mon 4/06	Lecture: Robot learning
Wed 4/08	Special lab meeting: project prototyping experiments
Fri 4/10	project clinic
Week 14
Mon 4/13	project clinic
Wed 4/15	project clinic
Fri 4/17	Spring Carnival
Week 15
Mon 4/20	project clinic
Wed 4/22	project clinic
Fri 4/24	project clinic
Week 16
Mon 4/27	Project presentations/critiques
Wed 4/29	Project presentations/critiques
Fri 5/1	Public demo of class projects
Finals Week
Mon, 5/4	Final exam 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm; Wean Hall 5302
Mon 5/11	Final projects due