Comp150-07: Intelligent Robotics
Project 2

Proposal due: Friday April 3, by 11:59pm, by email
Checkpoint: Tuesday April 14, in class
Demo: Wednesday April 22, at 12 noon (open block) at CEEO
Final report due: Tuesday, May 5, by 11:59pm, by email

Project 2 is the most important part of the course at 31% of the final grade. You create your own challenge for this project, write a short proposal on which I will give you feedback, then design and implement an intelligent robot. You will spend 2 (optionally 3) labs on Tuesdays April 7, 14 (and optionally 21st) working on your project at the CEEO, where you can get feedback from Denise and me. Collaboration between teams is ok and encouraged. In addition, project work is your homework for the rest of the course.

Here are the specifications for your robot:

You will be demonstrating your robots not only to our class but also to the Mechanical Engineering ME184: Advanced Robotics class, whose project theme is sustainability. Therefore, optionally you can make your robot's task related to the sustainability theme. This is not a requirement.

"Something useful" is defined for the purposes of this project as "in furtherance of your robot's task". That means: you can't just use them for decoration or style, they must be there to serve a functional purpose.

Proposal

Hand in a one-page professional-looking proposal that explains:
  1. Problem or task: What will your robot do?
  2. Motivation: Why is it interesting to make such a robot? Why will its behavior be considered intelligent?
  3. Approach: How will you go about designing such a robot? What aspect(s) of the course will you draw on? What assumptions will you make?
  4. Timeline: How will you use the available 2.5 weeks? Include a series of tests and checkpoints.
Make sure your project is doable in the available time.

Proposal grade: 5% of course, graded on idea, clarity, presentation, and timeline.

Checkpoint: Tuesday April 14, in class

You will give a very short (10 minutes max.) informal presentation on your progress so far to the rest of the class. The presentation should take the form of showing your robot, explaining its purpose and functionality, its design, the problems and failure modes you have run into, and how you will prevent them by demo day. No powerpoint slides, although you are welcome to sketch on the whiteboard.

At this point, you should have most of basic functionality working and have a very solid idea of how to proceed.

Checkpoint grade: 6% of course, graded on teamwork, process, timeline following, and overall progress. No robot = checkpoint failed.

Demo day: Wednesday April 22, 12 noon

The exact format of the demo is to be determined. Demo grade: 10% of the course, based on your robot's performance exclusively.

Final report, due Tuesday May 5, by 11:59pm, by email

This is the absolute last possible due date and there will be no extensions on it. In fact, you should aim to be done with your final report way before this, so you can focus on preparing and taking exams in your other courses.

The final report should take the form of an engineering conference paper and say the following:

Be concise but say everything you want to say. A good report length, including graphics and references but not code, is between 5 and 8 pages long. Do not hand in code.

If you use ideas, models, text, graphics, or code developed by others (other teams, published papers, textbooks, etc.), you should cite your sources, as academic integrity [1] demands.

Final report grade: 10% of the course, based on design, reported test results, clarity of writing, and presentation.

Good luck and have fun!

References:

[1] Tufts University Office of the Dean of Student Affairs. Academic Integrity. Online document: http://uss.tufts.edu/dosa/deansoffice/judicial/academicintegrity.asp


Paulina Varshavskaya, paulina at cs.tufts.edu