A Robot-based Laboratory for Teaching Artificial Intelligence

基于机器人的人工智能教学实验室

• 批准号: 9651472
• 负责人: Lisa Meeden
• 金额: $ 2.89万
• 依托单位: Swarthmore College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1996
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1996-06-15 至 1998-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9651472&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Robot; based; Laboratory; Teaching; Artificial

There is a growing consensus among computer science faculty that it is quite difficult to teach the introductory course on Artificial Intelligence (AI) well. This is because AI lacks a unified methodology, overlaps with many other disciplines, and involves a wide range of skills from very applied to quite formal. This project addresses these problems by (1) offering a unifying theme that draws together the disparate topics of AI; (2) focusing the course syllabus on the role AI plays in the core computer science curriculum; and (3) motivating the students to learn by using concrete, hands-on laboratory exercises. The main theme is to conceive of each topic in AI (such as search, planning, learning, vision) as a robotics task and then to have the students build their own robots and program them to accomplish the tasks. By constructing a physical entity in conjunction with the code to control it, the students have a unique opportunity to tackle many central issues of computer science directly including the interaction between hardware and software, space complexity in terms of the memory limitations of the robot's controller, and time complexity in terms of the speed of the robot's action decisions. More importantly, the robot theme provides a strong incentive toward learning because students want to see their inventions succeed. The goal of this project is to equip two identical robotics laboratories for teaching AI. Each laboratory contains a collection of robot building stations as well as one sophisticated off-the-shelf robot to demonstrate more advanced topics to the students. The deliverable for this project is a laboratory manual that is closely integrated with a semester-long AI course syllabus. The manual is being developed collaboratively and tested separately at the participating institutions. The overall effectiveness of this project will be determined by student feedback and performance. The project results can be disseminated through a variety of channels: a SIGART column on AI Education, special conference tracks on AI Education, summer training workshops for AI educators, and World Wide Web repositories on AI. This project offers a remedy for the difficulties facing AI educators by offering a cohesive framework for the presentation of the material that emphasizes AI's relationship with computer science and motivates the students to learn.

计算机科学教师越来越一致地认为，讲好人工智能（AI）入门课程是相当困难的。这是因为人工智能缺乏统一的方法论，与许多其他学科有重叠，并且涉及从非常实用到非常正式的广泛技能。该项目通过以下方式解决这些问题：(1) 提供一个统一的主题，将人工智能的不同主题汇集在一起​​； (2) 将课程大纲重点关注人工智能在核心计算机科学课程中所扮演的角色； (3) 通过具体的、动手的实验室练习来激励学生学习。主题是将人工智能中的每个主题（例如搜索、规划、学习、视觉）设想为机器人任务，然后让学生构建自己的机器人并对其进行编程以完成任务。通过构建物理实体以及控制它的代码，学生们有一个独特的机会直接解决计算机科学的许多核心问题，包括硬件和软件之间的交互、机器人控制器的内存限制方面的空间复杂性，以及机器人动作决策速度方面的时间复杂性。更重要的是，机器人主题提供了强烈的学习动机，因为学生希望看到他们的发明取得成功。 该项目的目标是装备两个相同的机器人实验室来教授人工智能。每个实验室都包含一系列机器人构建站以及一个复杂的现成机器人，用于向学生演示更高级的主题。该项目的交付成果是一本与整个学期的人工智能课程大纲紧密结合的实验室手册。该手册正在合作开发，并在参与机构单独测试。该项目的整体有效性将取决于学生的反馈和表现。该项目成果可以通过多种渠道传播：关于人工智能教育的 SIGART 专栏、关于人工智能教育的特别会议轨道、针对人工智能教育工作者的夏季培训研讨会以及关于人工智能的万维网存储库。该项目通过提供一个有凝聚力的材料呈现框架来解决人工智能教育工作者面临的困难，强调人工智能与计算机科学的关系并激励学生学习。