Robotics Class 2011

This is the class page for the 2011 Robotics Class going on over the summer at http://hacdc.org.

WORK IN PROGRESS

Course cost:

The 2011 Robotics Class will require a $25 donation per class. Do not bring cash to class, instead bring a printed (or electronic) copy of a Paypal eCheck payment clear notice that proves you have donated to HacDC for the interval leading up to the next class. If you are a member, bring your monthly Paypal payment cleared email. Donations can be made through the normal HacDC donation method. You will not be admitted to the class without proof of an up to date donation. Also, do not donate up front with a $150 donation because I may be unable to teach all six planned classes due to schedule conflicts or work load (at my day job). I am hoping to be able to teach six classes, however.

Course prerequisites:

Basic knowledge of python programming

Basic linux knowledge (operating from the unix command line). Ubuntu 10.04 LTS will be used for this class.

Laptop with VirtualBox installed, capable of running a 30GB disk image that requires 1 GB of RAM.

Course syllabus:

Class 1 (June 4, 2011 10:30am - 12:30pm) Introduction to ROS and the robot we will be using for the class. Assignment will involve interpreting robot sensor state and developing a robot "mood metric".

Class 2 (June 18, 2011 10:30am - 12:30pm) Introduction to computer vision and face detection using vision_opencv. Assignment will involve processing image data and using the OpenCV toolkit to do face detection (the routine is already provided in OpenCV).

Class 3 (July 2, 2011 10:30am - 12:30pm) Introduction to moving the robot base. The assignment will continue the face detection of the previous class, we will move the robot to track a face, both rotating the base to keep a constant face position, and moving the base forward and backward to keep a constant face scale.

Class 4 (July 16, 2011 10:30am - 12:30pm) Using the smach executive to write robot state machines. Assignment will involve writing a "greeting action state machine".

Class 5 (August 6, 2011 10:30am - 12:30pm) Introduction to stereo vision and point clouds. Visualizing 3D point cloud data using rviz. Using tf to transform point clouds into the robot base frame. Assignment will involve trying to find the floor in the point cloud.

Class 6 (August 20, 2011 10:30am - 12:30pm) Undecided

Course Links:

The iRobot Open Interface Document will be useful for the class: iRobot Create Manuals