1

Overview

Welcome, Staff, Logistics, Course Policies/Philosophy, Contest Preview: The Game, The Kit

Orc API and maslab.jar, OrcPad, PegBot, Soldering Tutorial

Overview (PDF)

2

Mechanical

Sensors and Cables

Mechanical (PDF)

Sensors and Cables (PDF)

3

Software Engineering

On MIT Server and your robot (make, Ant, CVS), Design Principles, Threading in Java® (more mechanics than theory), Pitfalls

Vision

Quick Review: Colors (HSV, Maslab colors, this year), Blue line (motivation), Determining color (thresholds on HSV, hysteresis, region support), See the tutorial!

Feature Detection: Methods (Template matching, Region growing, Clustering), Maslab features (What they are, Why they're useful) How to locate them (corner detector, symbol decoder): Possible algorithm, Describe feature detection lab

Software Engineering (PDF)

Vision (PDF)

4

Mapping

Coordinate frames (image->robot->world), Image formation, ranging (image->robot, relative orientation), Odometry (robot->world, absolute orientation), Correspondence problem (we've solved it for you), Modeling uncertainty, Dealing with ambiguity, Possible algorithm

Mapping (PDF)

5

Control

Motors/PWM/H-bridge

Simple Feedback (low-level control): Example: Korea-era smart bomb, Bang-bang control, Proportional control

State Machine (high-level control): Abstract definition and examples, Used for control of robot (6.004-style maze example, Brooks-style subsumption architecture), In Java® with threading: Leverage info covered in previous lecture, Full example, make code available

Control (PDF)

6

Advanced Vision

Clustering, Hough Transform, Stereo and Optical Flow, Statistical Models, Dealing with Noise, Performance

Advanced Control

PID, Kalman, Whatever you want (maybe some high-level stuff?)

Activity: Mapping activity, purely software activity

Advanced Vision (PDF)

7

Design Review

8

Activity: Work on Checkpoint 2

9

Activity: Checkpoint 2: Score a Point

10

Activity: Mock Contest 1

11

Programming 2⁷ Robots: Distributed Algorithms for Robot Swarms and Engineering Creativity: Exercises for your Right Brain

12

Activity: Mock Contest 2

13

Learning in Robots

14

Activity: Impounding

15

Activity: Contest Day