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，价格和能力都降低了一个数量级。引人注目的是，在高成本和高能力与低成本和低能力这两个极端之间缺乏选择。通过结合和扩展当前课程、软件和硬件的趋势，该项目使用现成的PC，并采用NSF支持的Python Robotics(PYRO)软件系统来创建研究水平的物理代理与公共计算资源的低成本集成，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。这门课程将私人投资机构研究子领域的单元编织成课程，服务于克莱蒙特学院和其他地方的各种学生，服务于查塔姆学院的女性和阿勒格尼县社区学院的学生。所开发的软件和课程资源将纳入其现有努力的主流，以便广泛分发。一个由来自布林莫尔学院、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，并将提供对结果的外部视角。他们的反馈将服务于并衡量该项目基本目标的进展：提高对本科生机器人实验室可能实现的能力、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.