Course info

Lecturer: Peter Brook, peter.brook@op.ac.nz, Principal Lecturer, H100

          Course Dates

Term 3 (7 weeks)	18 July – 23 September
Mid semester break	26 September  – 7 October
Term 2 (9 weeks)	10 October– 21 November

Learning Outcomes

At the successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

1.       Discuss comprehensively the range of application areas for robotics, automation and ubiquitous computing.

2.       Understand core electronic and mechanical principles of robotics/automated systems design.

3.       Analyse and select appropriate software development platforms for robotics/automated systems implementation.

4.       Design a simple robotics/automated solution to a specified problem following sound principles of interaction design.

5.       Use an appropriate software development platform to implement simple interactive robotics/automated systems.

Indicative Content

·         Discussion of historical development of automated systems

·         Survey of application areas

·         Robotics simulator work

·         Hardware of robotics/automated/ubiquitous systems

·         Development software – options and issues

·         Interaction design – human factors and machine design principles

·         Project work – Design and construction of interactive robotics/automated systems

Assessment

Assessment Activity	Weighting	Learning Outcomes
Blog, essay, presentations, industry cases	15%	1,4
Exams/quizzes	15%	2,3,4
Project Work	70%	2,3,4,5

Assessment Events

Students are obliged to keep a blog  where responses are made to tasks set in class.  A mark out of 15 will be allocated to this part of the course.  

The blog will include a review of good robotics sites, 

industry examples and a short history of robotics. 

There will be one test at the end of the course. 

This is worth 15 marks too and will take place in the week starting November 8.

There will be four projects required:

                A software investigation                               10 marks              due 13 Aug

                A motor project                                                10 marks              due 20 Aug

                A  minor project                                               15 marks              due 24 Sept

                A major robot project                                    30 marks              due 15 Nov

All the above projects will be negotiated in advance with the lecturer.

The assessment methodology will include 

* peer assessment, 

* self assessment and 

* traditional assessment.