A plea for roboticists

[Donut]

Reading this thread this year makes me realise again how far teams have come in 2006 for autonomous mode. Thinking of alliances scoring 50 points in autonomous would have been unheard of even a year ago.

Hopefully programming can continue to improve. I think FIRST made their point last year with it's importance.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Donut

Reading this thread this year makes me realise again how far teams have come in 2006 for autonomous mode. Thinking of alliances scoring 50 points in autonomous would have been unheard of even a year ago.

How many points was hanging on the bar worth in 2004? At least one robot could do it autonomously.

[Donut]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

How many points was hanging on the bar worth in 2004? At least one robot could do it autonomously.

Okay... that was worth 50 (I remember 190 could do it). Still, there weren't multiple alliances that did it, like at the Championships last year.

[LauraN]

I'm doing some "create your own mechanical engineering major in robotics" at MIT, and I've gotta say, I think it's pretty lame that getting a mechanical engineering degree at MIT barely requires that you know how to turn on a computer. Of all the undergrads here who must be seriously interested in robotics, I know of exactly one other who is getting a degree in MechE- they are all strictly EECS people.

I didn't know the first thing about computer science until I took an introductory class in it this semester, and I'm STILL intimidated by it. I remember wiring the control panel for my team's robot in high school and passing the project off to our programmer guy. I was utterly amazed when the thing actually worked. The programming was quite literally a black box for me- I had NO IDEA how it worked.

Part of that is because computer science is so abstract- I had no idea how to do it, I couldn't literally see it, and from what I heard it was supposed to be really hard- like only really smart, hardcore hackers could do it or something. Anyone who's been programming for years is probably laughing at me right now, but it's the honest truth. I think a lot of people feel that way- so teams with limited programming skills are unlikely to obtain more and even those that have skilled programmers are unlikely to give them a whole lot of support if the other members don't understand what kinds of pressure they're under.

I completely agree with you- programming is much more important in robotics than is reflected in FIRST, and that should change.

But quite honestly, I think there's a problem with computing in general- there's a pretty big speed bump between the utterly clueless and the novice programmer, and that's more than half the battle. This is a big concern of mine, so excuse me if this gets a bit preachy, but I think it's our responsibility as mentors, engineers, and technological innovators to make computing, programming, and computer science more accessible to the average person before we start expecting rookie teams of high school students to build entire robots from scratch and program them with autonomous state estimation and mapping algorithms.

[DonRotolo]

sigh.

For two years out 'autonomous mode' has consisted of 'tuen on this motor for X seconds, then that motor for X seconds, then do this.' In other words, pure dead reckoning.

We're going to try a new design approach this year, and in that approach there are 4 weeks for programming. Not sure if we can pull it off, but will try.

Don

[Gui Cavalcanti]

I've switched majors to a Robotics Concentration under the General Engineering degree at Olin. It's working fairly well, and I just wanted to let other interested college students know what the coursework looks like:

Core Engineering Requirements:
Solids and Structures
Dynamics
Mechanical Design
Software Design
Controls

Core Math Requirements:
Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos
Partial Differential Equations

Electives:
Robotics
Artificial Intelligence

Related General-Requirement Olin Courses:
Materials Science
Vector Calculus
Linear Algebra
General Mechanics & Calculus

I've also done a few independent studies in controlling brushless servomotors, building snake robots, and building a compliant biped. Feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions about designing your own robotics major - my approach is fairly mechanically heavy, and don't think that's a requirement by any means.

[Gdeaver]

My son is taking ME and I just can't see how one could take all the required courses and also take courses that would apply to robotics. At least in a 4 year program. In 4 years he will only have 2 elective slots that could be applied and that is with 18 credits per semester. Now if you extended the undergraduate program to 5 years then there would be time for robotics subjects or like others said get your ME in 4 and a graduate degree in automation for six years of study. Don't skimp on the core base in your base curriculum.