The goal of this course is to introduce students to the variety of mechanical, electronic and control issues raised by the design and construction of autonomous mobile robots. The course will be organized as follows: Students will be divided into groups of three. Each group will receive a complete robot kit consisting of a controller board, miscellaneous sensors and motors, and a variety of LEGO parts. During the first half of the semester, students will perform a series of focused exercises that will incrementally introduce them to design issues related to mechanics, sensors, motors and control of an autonomous mobile robot. The second half of the semester will be devoted to the design and construction of a complete robot that will participate (in two-robot teams) in a public Egg Hunt competition to be held at the end of the semester.
Each student is responsible for the replacement cost of anything that is lost or broken in his/her group's robot kit. You should be scrupulous about keeping track of your inventory. Typically, however, every kit is missing the odd LEGO or two by semester's end; this kind of lossage/breakage can be forgiven. Loss or breakage of "expensive" items, however (including, but not limited to, bound IC manuals, LEGO project cards, motors, sensors, power supplies, and the microcontroller board), must be paid for by additional fees as necessary for repair or replacement. Replacement costs can run as high as $300.00 for the microcontroller board.
The instructors reserve the right to assess additional fines for damage caused by carelessness or negligence, even if such damage is successfully repaired.
During the entire semester, each student (undergraduate and graduate) must keep a detailed design notebook containing an individual record of his/her work in this class. The design notebook is intended to be a journal-like record of the student's progress through the course. The following are specific requirements which must be met by all design notebooks:
Notebooks must be neat. Handwriting and sketches do not have to be publication quality, but they must be legible. Pencil is preferable to ink because it's easier to correct pencil mistakes. Typewritten documents are especially appreciated if they can be produced without sacrificing content.
One substantive, dated entry must be made per regular class session describing the progress made during that session. Additional entries should be made as necessary (e.g., to document any work done during extra lab sessions).
Design ideas should be recorded as they occur to you.
Detailed written descriptions must be made of all mechanical designs, with labelled sketches and photographs as necessary.
Results of testing and subsequent revisions of designs must be included.
A written overview of all algorithms (e.g., written summaries, pseudocode, or flowcharts) and complete, fully-commented listings for all code must be included.
Any sensor calibration data which are taken must be recorded.
The final Egg Hunt robot must be fully documented (including team strategy, mechanical design, and control algorithms).
The performance of the final robot during the actual Egg Hunt must be recorded, and its performance critically evaluated relative to its intended (designed) function.
You should periodically evaluate and comment upon group dynamics issues.
Design notebook content must be each student's own work. Sharing of unlabelled photos and commented code listings is permissible between members of a group; however, sharing of final labelled photos, drawings, flowcharts, and block diagrams is prohibited. Moreover, you cannot reconstruct missing design notebook entries (i.e., due to absence from class or neglect) by close copying or paraphrasing of material from other students. Plagiarism will be punished to the maximum extent possible under University rules.
A significant portion of your course grade depends upon the quality of your design notebook. Sketchy, infrequently-utilized, sloppy, poorly-written design notebooks will have an adverse effect upon your final grade. You may ask the instructors for an informal spot-check of your design notebook at any time, if you'd like feedback about content and format. There is one mandatory Spot-Check Day partway through the first half of the semester. For Spot-Check Day, you will actually grade your own notebook and perform a peer evaluation of all members in your group. The instructors will compare your evaluations to their own and give you feedback upon your progress. Your design notebook must be caught up at this point, or your midterm grade will be penalized. The notebooks will be collected twice during the semester for detailed examination and evaluation by the instructors: for midterm and for the final exam. You must also submit peer evaluations at these times. See the Syllabus for the various due dates.
It is impossible to construct an A-quality design notebook by writing 10 classes' worth of entries at one sitting, the day before it's due. The instructors can easily recognize such attempts, and will grade them accordingly. The design notebook is not intended to be a post hoc document.
Non-webpage, electronic format design notebooks are permissible. After recent experiments involving student volunteers from past semesters, we are confident that it is possible for students to create electronic design notebooks of acceptable (even excellent) quality without undue effort. Early attempts at electronic design notebooks were of poor content quality, but this could have been due to problems with the content creation tools then available. Current students are much more familiar with desktop computing, and many have their own laptop computers, digital cameras, image scanners, and graphics software, all of which may be used to create electronic design notebooks. Here are the rules and some guidelines:
Content of electronic design notebooks will be graded exactly as it has been for traditional all-handwritten design notebooks, according to the detailed requirements listed above.
Students may use any means or tools available to them to create design notebook content in digital graphic form. This includes, but is not limited to, word processors, computer CAD or drawing programs, digital photography, and image scanning. Students may use personal laptop computers, PDAs, digital assistants, or other electronic devices which they own or to which they have lawful access, in order to create design notebook content. These personal devices may be brought to and used during class.
Sharing of electronically-created content (other than raw photographs and code listings) is prohibited. Example: if 2 students within the same group have electronic design notebooks, one cannot make all the program flowcharts and the other cannot make all the labelled mechanical design figures and then just share them. Your design notebook is to be an independent creation. This has been a grey area in previous semesters. The instructors are the final arbitors of what constitutes improper sharing of electronic content. When in doubt, ask the instructors.
Final content should still be printed on 8.5 x 11 inch paper and bound in a 3-ring binder. At this time, interactive webpage formats are specifically prohibited.
Design notebooks need not be 100% electronic. For instance, daily class entry text (e.g., what you did, design explanations, performance analyses, musings on progress or group dynamics issues) could be typewritten, and bound/taped into a "traditional" notebook with hand-made drawings and flowcharts, hand-annotated code listings or photographs (i.e., content which might be easier to generate by hand), etc. If you want to take a stab at making these electronically, feel free to do so.
Graduate students in the course (i.e., those enrolled at the 475 level) have the following coursework requirements, in addition to those of undergraduate students:
advanced problems for each of the 7 class assignments;
typewritten lab reports for each of the 7 class assignments;
required outside reading of selected research papers;
a formal (10 pages or more) typewritten design report documenting the final Egg Hunt robot, with a scholarly Introduction and Discussion citing some relevant outside reading (not limited to those papers already required).
The lab reports are due at the start of next class period. Late lab reports are penalized one letter grade per calendar day of lateness. The final design report is due at the beginning of the Final Exam Period.
The scheduled Final Exam Period (see Syllabus for date and time) is primarily used for robot disassembly and inventory. Typically, undergraduate design notebooks are due. Graduate student final research reports and design notebooks are due. Each group is also required to give a brief (10-minute) oral presentation describing the final robot (before it's disassembled!), with each student in the group presenting one aspect of the design. This postmortem (which is videotaped by the instructors for posterity) is also a chance for students to give valuable feedback to the staff, for the further refinement and improvement of the course. Every semester, the course has been tweaked based upon the feedback from the students of the semester before; you will be heard!
Failure to attend the Final Exam and to disassemble robots, inventory all parts, and return the kits to the condition they were in at the time they were handed out, will lower a student's grade (whatever it would have been otherwise) by one full letter grade. Please remember of this policy when making your end-of-semester travel arrangements!
While extensive extra lab time is available, it is important that students make the most of the regular class sessions. Prompt, regular attendance is mandatory, and is an important part of the class participation component of your final course grade. Instructors will take attendance at every regular class session. Class begins at 8:30 A.M., with a 5-minute "grace period". Any student arriving after 8:35 A.M. will be considered late.
For most classes (see below for exceptions), lateness or absence can be excused, however, if there is a valid reason. Illness, job or graduate school interviews out of town, death in the family, inclement weather or accidents for commuters, etc., are valid reasons. Oversleeping, a term paper due, an exam to cram for, etc., are not valid reasons. If you know you're going to be late or miss a class, please let the instructors know (E-mail, phone call, a message brought by a fellow student). Also, let your groupmates know, so that they may make the best use of their class time. An excused absence which results in a significant part of the class period being missed must be made up by attendance at an extra session.
There are a few critical class periods, however, in which the class activities are so unique (and so important to your individual, group, and team performance) that there is no way to make them up. For the following class periods, no excuses for lateness or absence will be accepted which are not the most dire of circumstances (serious illness, accident, death, family crisis):
Spot-Check Day Final Robot Design I and II Final Robot Testing I, II, and III Egg Hunt Competition
Unexcused absences from these classes will result in a one letter grade penalty (per instance) to Personal Contribution component of your second-half grade. Check the Syllabus for the dates of these classes. Do not schedule other activities (such as job interviews) on these dates.
Except for the special case of making up class time missed due to an excused absence, extra lab sessions are simply that--extra. They are not required of any student. They are intended to supplement the regular class sessions, not merely shift them to a time perhaps more convenient for you. Extra sessions are scheduled by the staff when requested by the students, and as staff members are available. Attendance at all extra sessions will be taken by the staff, but the attendance data will be used for internal tracking purposes. Attendance per se at extra sessions has no effect upon your course grade. If you waste time during class, however, it doesn't matter how productive you are during extra sessions: your class participation grade will still suffer.
Realistically, however, you should expect to have to attend at least some extra sessions, especially in the second half of the semester around Egg Hunt time, in order to complete your work successfully.
A rubric matrix-based grading system (detailed in a separate Rubric Matrix Grading Policy document) is used to determine course grades. A brief description follows:
Undergraduate Students (375)
Midterm attendance, class participation, design notebook, and robot quality 35% Final attendance, class participation, design notebook, and robot quality 65% Graduate Students (475)
Midterm attendance, class participation, design notebook, and robot quality 20% Lab reports 3-7 15% Final attendance, class participation, design notebook, and robot quality 45% Final design report 20%
Individual components are assigned letter grades A-F and valued according to a 4.0 system (i.e., A=4.0, B=3.0, C=2.0, D=1.0, and F=0.0). After applying the above weights, a final grade ranging 0.0-4.0 is computed. Course letter grade cutoffs are:
A 3.5 B 2.5 C 1.5 D 0.5 F below 0.5
The University requires that undergraduate students be given midterm grades. Thus, at the last class before the midterm break, undergraduate (375) design notebooks will be collected, examined, and midterm grades computed. These midterm grades are "informational" in the sense that they are the grades which would be given were the semester to end at that point, and will not appear on any transcript or other official record of your studies at CWRU. However, the midterm grade counts as 35% of the final course grade. Second-half improvement is rewarded by the unequal midterm/final weighting. Be aware, however, that second-half slacking is penalized.
The University does not require formal midterm grades for graduate students. However, "informational" midterm grades will also be computed for graduate students (475), based upon lab reports and current design notebook.
One component of the class participation grade is a peer evaluation. Each group is required to meet outside of class to discuss and assign a Personal Contribution grade to each member of the group. This is a mechanism to allow any inequities in group dynamics to be addressed fairly by the students themselves. Note that the instructors also assign a separate Group Dynamics grade (i.e., one grade per group, each member of the group gets that grade). See the Rubric Matrix Grading Policy for details.
One item which is not considered in the computation of any course grades is the outcome of the Egg Hunt competition. The winners of the Egg Hunt are not guaranteed As, nor are the losers guaranteed Cs or Fs. There is no direct connection between how well your team does in the Egg Hunt and how good your course grade is. This disconnection is by design: we want to keep the competition friendly, but also promote a cooperative atmosphere among colleagues. Tying grades to contest performance would tend to make the lab an unpleasant environment for learning.
We do expect that all students will make progress throughout the semester. You are expected to learn from your mistakes and not repeat them. You are expected to seek assistance from the instructors and from your fellow students if you're stuck spinning your wheels. We establish the following minimal performance expectations:
Midterm a fully-autonomous, obstacle-avoiding robot Final a fully-autonomous robot which performs some useful function in support of its team in the Egg Hunt competition
The robots don't have to be perfect, and they don't have to work every time, but they need to work as designed at least some of the time. Failure to meet these minimal performance goals will penalize the Group Dynamics component of your midterm or final grade. The instructors will be the sole judges of acceptable performance.
To help you progress more painlessly, and to allow you some time to discover how to meet our expectations, we have established a short "grace period" at the beginning of the semester, during which coursework is evaluated, but the grades don't count.
For design notebooks (both 375 and 475), the "grace period" ends with a Spot-Check Day (see Syllabus for the date). On this day, the instructors look over your notebooks during class and give you informal feedback on them. In addition, we ask you to have (outside of class) graded what you've done so far yourself, using our rubric matrix criteria. We compare your evaluation to ours. Finally, your group must provide a peer review assessment of each group member. After Spot-Check Day, all design notebook entries count for grading at midterm and final. Thus, you can learn and experiment without penalty for a while (since design notebooks are likely a new concept for most of you). Failure to be caught up and prepared for the Spot-Check Day will lower the Personal Contribution component of your midterm grade by one letter.
For graduate (475) lab reports, those for Assignments 1 and 2 are the "grace period". The instructors will read your reports and make informational comments, so that you can learn exactly what we are looking for. Beginning with Assignment 3, the lab reports will count for the midterm grade. These lab reports are valued equally.
We recognize that some of you might be unhappy that some of your coursework doesn't count toward the final grade, especially those of you who do excellent work right from the start of the semester. Our observation over many semesters has been, however, that many more students can benefit from this "grace period" than will be harmed by it. A poor starting notebook can't really be fixed without plagiarizing the missing material from a groupmate's notebook. Since so much of Autonomous Robotics is about process, we feel that it is important to not unduly penalize those who might be temporarily disoriented by the novel design of the course.
Autonomous Robotics is a very demanding course, but also a very rewarding course. We have very high expectations for all the students. We do not expect that you come into the course knowing everything necessary, nor that you leave knowing everything that is necessary. However, we expect that every student will try to learn new things with enthusiasm and honest effort. We expect that students will arrive on time and not leave early, except for genuine emergencies. We expect that the design notebooks will be well-utilized and complete. Finally, we expect that you will all have fun.
Within the structure of the course, you have great freedom to be creative in ways that perhaps you never imagined possible. This freedom can be intimidating, because not only is it freedom to succeed, but freedom to fail. Don't be afraid of failure in this course. Grades are largely independent of how well the robots work, so if you want to try something, go ahead!
By default, individual robots are the sole property of the individual groups responsible for them. Appropriate consent must be obtained from the owners before any changes are made to code or mechanical design. Within a group, this means that the three group members must agree upon the changes to be made (or at least authorize someone to make changes, whatever they may be, as necessary). Within an Egg Hunt team, this means that the robot of one group cannot be touched by members of the other group without the first group's expressed and explicit consent. If one group is floundering (from the other group's perspective), they have the right to flounder, even to fail spectacularly at the Egg Hunt; the other group cannot directly interfere without consent. Failure to obtain necessary consent for modifications (within a group or team) will lower a student's midterm or final grade (whatever it would have been otherwise) by one full letter grade.
Intentionally damaging, disabling, tampering with, or in any other way interfering with the robots, kits, or software of other groups during the course of the semester will lead to immediate expulsion from the course, a grade of F, and other disciplinary action at the University level. We expect never to have to invoke this policy.