From Toys to Tools: Broadening the Reach of the Next-Generation Robotics Laboratory

计算机科学（31）历史上，与物理世界的计算交互——智能感知、驱动和具体化推理——需要昂贵的设备和陡峭的学习曲线。最近，可用于智能系统课程的本科资源迅速扩大，价格和能力都下降了一个数量级。令人吃惊的是，在高成本、高能力和低成本、低能力这两个极端之间缺乏选择。通过结合和扩展课程、软件和硬件的当前趋势，该项目使用现成的pc机，并采用nsf支持的Python Robotics （Pyro）软件系统，创建一个低成本的研究型物理代理与公共计算资源的集成，将本科智能系统课程的重点从玩具问题和平台转向开放探究的机会。该课程将pi研究子领域的单元编织成课程，为克莱蒙特学院及其他学院的各种学生提供服务，为查塔姆学院的女性和阿勒格尼县社区学院的学生提供服务。开发的软件和课程资源将纳入其现有工作的主流，以便广泛分发。来自布林茅尔学院、特拉华大学和南伊利诺伊大学的人工智能/机器人研究人员组成的评估小组将帮助调整现有的评估工具，并将为结果提供外部视角。他们的反馈将服务并衡量项目基本目标的进展：提高对大学生机器人实验室的能力、灵活性和成本效益的期望。

Computer Science (31)Historically, computational interaction with the physical world -- intelligent sensing, actuation, and embodied reasoning -- has required expensive equipment with steep learning curves. Recently, undergraduate resources available for intelligent systems courses have expanded rapidly at prices -- and capabilities -- an order of magnitude lower. What is striking is the lack of options between the extremes of high cost and capability and low cost and capability. By combining and extending current trends in curricula, software, and hardware, this project uses off-the-shelf PCs and the adapts the NSF-supported Python Robotics (Pyro) software system to create a low-cost integration of research-caliber physical agents with common computing resources, refocusing undergraduate intelligent systems courses away from toy problems and platforms toward opportunities for open inquiry. This curriculum weaves units from the PIs' research subfields into courses serving a variety of students across the Claremont Colleges and beyond, to the women of Chatham College and the students of the Community College of Allegheny County. The software and curricular resources developed will be mainstreamed into their existing efforts for widespread distribution. An evaluation team of AI/robotics researchers from Bryn Mawr College, the University of Delaware, and Southern Illinois University will help adapt existing assessment instruments and will provide an external perspective on the results. Their feedback will both serve and measure progress toward the project's fundamental goal: raising the expectations of the power, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness possible in an undergraduate robotics laboratory.