
Introduction to Autonomous Robots - fitzwatermellow
https://github.com/correll/Introduction-to-Autonomous-Robots
======
blister
Shameless plug, but I'm working with a startup that teaches middle-school (and
up) autonomous robot programming within the context of Sumo Robot
competitions. We're active in 6 schools right now in Georgia and hope to
expand to the entire east coast this year.

What sets our program apart is that we've developed a super low-cost robotics
kit that lets us sell each student their own programmable robot for $100 each.
I just spent the last four months writing the 8-week curriculum and associated
text book.

Our website is at
[http://www.sumorobotleague.com/](http://www.sumorobotleague.com/) and we'd
love for you to sign up for our mailing list. We're trying to figure out
manufacturing right now so that we can crank out thousands of robots to keep
up with demand. If you're interested in robotics, I think our kit and program
is probably the easiest introduction that you'll find.

~~~
rubicon33
Would this be applicable for someone with lots of programming experience, but
zero automation / robotics experience?

I'm a hands on, self learner. I don't do well in a structured course, but
prefer to learn by tinkering and building (while referencing good resources).
I'd love to start with something like this, but wonder since it's marketed to
middle school kids, if it would be too trivial?

On the other hand, I have zero experience in this field, so maybe it would be
perfect...?

~~~
blister
Yeah, that was kind of the intention. Our kit was designed to be as easy as
possible. It just has two motors, a sonar sensor, three IR sensors (for line
detection) and a buzzer. The book that I wrote has to take an approach that
makes it accessible to kids with no programming experience, but if you're
familiar with C++, you'll be kicking ass in no time.

This is the exact sort of setup that I started with (professional engineer of
15 years). Two years ago when we started the program, we built it off of an
Arduino and some Pololu kits. It was a great kit, but ended up costing about
$150. After the success of our program in the schools, we spent the last year
developing a custom PCB that has everything all built in. It has an ATmega328
chip, motor controllers, and sensors all pre-soldered on one board. It's still
Arduino programming, but on our custom device. That got our manufacturing
costs down to less than $50/kit and lets us sell the whole package to schools
for about $100 per kid.

Now the hardest part, as I mentioned, is figuring out manufacturing at scale
so that we can crank out thousands of these little suckers.

Send me an email (in my profile) and I'll get you a free copy of the ebook.
I'd love some feedback from a programmer, if you're willing.

~~~
rubicon33
Right on. I'm definitely going to get one of these then. I'll shoot you an
email.

------
netgusto
The summary is dense, yet the chapters remain readable. The figures
disseminated across the pages make it really easier to grasp the concepts.

I don't know anything about robots, but shuffling thru the pages I found
similarities with the video game programming field.

Thank you for this !

~~~
jackhack
I'm surprised that a chapter titled "Intelligence and embodiment" (ch.1) would
not include even a reference to Rod Brooks (MIT Mobile Robot Lab).

Brooks' invention of "subsumption architecture" (augmented finite state
machines) and layered control systems in which higher level behaviors suppress
low-level behaviors has been demonstrated to lead to robust intelligent
behavior without centralized control, internal mapping, and emergent behavior.
In short, a biologically-inspired solution which had tremendous influence in
the field. To my mind, such an omission is a bit like writing a book on
computer graphics and not including a reference to Watt, Foley or vanDam. Not
saying it's wrong, just very surprising.

~~~
Animats
Brooks at MIT, and Latoumbe at Stanford, headed the two opposed camps during
the AI Winter. Brooks wanted purely reactive robots, and did some nice insect
robots. Latoumbe was into very rigid planning systems, where you approach
manipulation as path planning using maze solving algorithms in a N-dimensional
space with obstacles. Both turned out to be dead ends. Purely reactive systems
don't get beyond insect level, and high-dimensional planning requires total
information about the environment.

Then the statistical machine learning people took over and started to get real
results, especially in sensor data reduction.

~~~
eikenberry
Neither was a dead end. Each made real contributions to the field and have
real applications but, not surprisingly, turned out not to be the silver
bullet that could do all things. The statistical crowd was always there and
have been good at the same set of things, it just finally matured as a field
and was able to produce usable results.

They all go through the same motions as anything in this industry. They show
promise, everyone gets all worked up about the new thing, it produces some
results and gets integrated where it makes sense, gets boring and people start
looking for the next thing.

------
chinathrow
Can anyone locate the PDF?

~~~
pennaMan
[https://github.com/correll/Introduction-to-Autonomous-
Robots...](https://github.com/correll/Introduction-to-Autonomous-
Robots/releases/download/v1.7/book.pdf)

~~~
jensC
thanks ... could not find it either.

------
halotrope
This is rally cool. Have been looking to get to know about robots a little
more. Thank you for sharing this.

------
jobigoud
For the interested, this is "autonomous" as in locomotion. (Not financially
autonomous).

------
alexyes
Thanks for sharing

