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This course provides students with hands-on practical experience in the rapidly evolving field of Robotics, spanning topics such as electronics, sensors, Computer Aided Design, fabrication and programming. Each student will build their own microcontroller-based robot from a combination of off-the-shelf components and components that they must design and fabricate themselves. Working both individually and in teams, students will tailor their robots to autonomously address increasingly complex real-world challenges such as those present in disaster response and rescue situations.
Students will:
- Explore the properties of electricity, circuits and electronic components through practical activities.
- Program Arduino-based microcontrollers to perform physical tasks via actuators such as servos and DC motors.
- Program logic that uses sensors to detect and then respond intelligently to changes in the surrounding environment.
- Use software to design physical structures and mechanisms tailored to a specific task such as lifting an object or holding a component in place.
- Manufacture the components they design using computer aided fabrication techniques such as 3D printing, laser cutting and CNC routing.
- Apply the design cycle to break down complex open-ended challenges such as disaster response into solvable steps.
- Maintain a portfolio of their work.
Grades will be determined by a series of portfolio pieces, produced both in groups and individually, as well as feedback throughout the different stages of production. The final grade will be based on the finished portfolio.