Course Description
This is an introductionto the ESE major placing dual emphasis on the experience of modeling and design issues arising from engineering a complex physical system along with a coordinated introduction to programming for engineers. We will use the example of a legged robotic system as the motivating complex physical system to be engineered. There are two components of this class: a recitation focused on the craft of programming and a laboratory experience that uses the empirical world to illustrate the context in which programming craft subserves disciplinary goals. Service learning (teaching targeted concepts to local high school classes in prepared settings) opportunities will be available.
EduBot Platform
EduBot is a small scale low cost hexapedal robotic research platform whose design is strongly informed by our previous and on-going successful work on legged robotic platforms such as RHex and RiSE. Its modular distributed design employs a high speed real-time communication infrastructure (RiSEBus) providing a common hardware interface for actuators and sensors. This modularity is a key feature allowing easy maintanence and upgrades. The central controller lives on an off-the-shelf CPU card in PC/104 form factor. We use a time-proven software library (RHexLib) for development of control software. EduBot, a modular open platform, will be the primary experimentation tool for a pilot undergradute engineering course (ESE112). It also will soon serve as a common robotic platform for robotic research. For commercial availability of the EduBot platform, please visit
Sandbox Innovations web site.
ESE112 Robot Dance Lab
ESE112 was the first class to use EduBot as a teaching tool, and the final lab assignments is to program EduBot to dance to a song. See the Media page for videos the dances from the most recent ESE112 Dance Recital.