A Robot-based Laboratory for Teaching Artificial Intelligence

计算机科学教师之间越来越多的共识是，很难教好人工智能（AI）的入门课程。这是因为人工智能缺乏统一的方法论，与许多其他学科重叠，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结合在一起;（2）将课程大纲集中在人工智能在核心计算机科学课程中的作用上;（3）激励学生通过使用具体的动手实验室练习来学习。主要的主题是将人工智能中的每个主题（如搜索，规划，学习，视觉）都设想为机器人任务，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。通过构建一个物理实体与代码来控制它，学生们有一个独特的机会来解决计算机科学的许多核心问题，包括硬件和软件之间的相互作用，空间复杂性方面的机器人的控制器的内存限制，以及时间复杂性方面的机器人的动作决策的速度。更重要的是，机器人主题提供了强大的学习动力，因为学生希望看到他们的发明成功。 该项目的目标是装备两个相同的机器人实验室，用于教授AI。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，以向学生演示更先进的主题。该项目的交付成果是一本实验室手册，与一个学期的人工智能课程大纲紧密结合。该手册目前正在参与机构合作编写和单独测试。这个项目的整体效果将取决于学生的反馈和表现。项目成果可以通过多种渠道传播：SIGART AI教育专栏、AI教育专题会议、AI教育工作者暑期培训研讨会以及AI万维网知识库。该项目为AI教育工作者面临的困难提供了一个补救措施，为材料的呈现提供了一个有凝聚力的框架，强调AI与计算机科学的关系，并激励学生学习。

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.