On Introductory Robotics

I realized tonight that I have begun to assemble resources and materials for the coming school-year without giving much of an overview of what it is I will be actually teaching so here is part 1: Robotics - Introductory Level

In introductory robotics, students are exposed to a wide variety of topics in robotics, mechatronics and engineering. A typical semester includes the following modules and credits.

ELT 1010 - ELECTRICAL ASSEMBLY 1

In this unit students are introduced to the fundamentals of electricity and safe work practices. They will learn to solder electronics components and will review the fundamental concepts involved with working on electronic circuits such as resistance, capacitance, inductance and electromagnetism.

DES 1050 - CAD 1

Using AutoDesk’s AutoCAD software as well as AutoDesk Inventor, students will learn the fundamentals of Computer Assisted Design and Drawing. They will apply these skills in a variety of design-oriented assignments that will lead them to producing portfolio-ready drawings. The skills they learn in this unit will then be applied to rapid prototyping with the lab’s 3D printer.

ELT 1910  - ELT PROJECT CREDIT A

Students will have the chance to learn a variety of system control methods and documentation for those systems as they explore the FESTO Didactic electropneumatic learning system. This system allows students to learn a variety of concepts in both manual and automatics electrical and pneumatic controls frequently used across the manufacturing sector.

CSE 1110 - STRUCTURED PROGRAMMING 1

(CSE 1240- ROBOTICS PROGRAMMING 1 for students already enrolled in Computer Science)

The Arduino programmable microcontroller is an up and coming technology that allows students to experiment with programming while seeing the results of their programming control their electronics from the Electrical Assembly unit. The system uses a variety of hardwares including the Arduino Uno and Redbot Mainboard as well as CODE.ORG to teach the basics of coding.

ELT 1130 and ELT 1140 - ROBOTICS 1 and ROBOTICS APPLICATIONS 1

Each robotics semester concludes with an overarching project that brings all of the technical and design elements that students have learned through the year. This challenge could involve an autonomous robot challenge such as RobotSumo or a remote control challenge that includes a more significant design component. This year it will likely be in the form of an autonomous challenge and a direct control challenge(either tethered or IR)

So there you have it, my upcoming semester in a nutshell. I will be updating this blog with notes and planning from all of these credits as the summer goes on.

In case anyone is wondering, anything I have created and posted here is free game for your classroom under a Creative Commons licence. Have at any of it and make sure to comment on any improvements that you make to it.

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