2007 AAAI Spring Symposium

    

Robots and Robot Venues:
Resources for AI Education

Welcome to the home page for the Spring 2007 AAAI symposium on robots in AI and CS education.

Thanks to everyone at the symposium! This page will remain active as an archive of the symposium's proceedings, (first-draft) papers, and talks. The final papers are available from the AAAI's proceedings of the symposium. Send an email to dodds at cs.hmc.edu if you'd like any material on this page to be updated or changed.

Sponsors

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Surveyor Corporation, Road Narrows Robotics, and K-Team for this AAAI Spring Symposium.

        

The one-hour robot competition and exhibition

Some of the participants in Wednesday's hands-on session tried our "whirwind tour" robot contest. The scores are measured in robot diameters. The top few places from this friendly event were
  1. The tranterpreter team from U. Kent who implemented Occam-Pi on the Surveyor - 39 diameters
    They were Christian Jacobsen, Matt Jadud, and Jon Simpson.
    This team won a KoreBot Linux board and a copy of Webots, courtesy of Road Narrows Robotics

  2. The CMU team of Ayorkor Mills-Tettey and Justin Carlson - 28 diameters

  3. "Team Matlab," led by Jenelle Piepmeier as well as Eric Aaron and Tim Fossum - 20 diameters
Honorable mentions go to the Myro team for the most human-interactive entry and Tom Lauwers's Qwerkbot, which actually traveled 48 diameters (but Tom knew the platform in advance!)

The raw movies from these and the other runs are linked below under the Wednesday schedule.

AIBO replacement?

Through the symposium, the question "What is going to replace the AIBO?" was never fully - or even partially - answered. As at least a partial response, Jeff Croxell found this possible alternative, the "Joinmax" quadruped from Robotshop

Links and Information

AAAI Spring Symposium Page    (registration and travel information)
The 2006 AI Magazine 27(1) and 2004 AAAI spring symposium page

Symposium Schedule and Sessions

Monday, March 26, 2007
9:00 Welcome and Introduction
symposium cochairs
Robots in the AI Curriculum: Examples and Issues
chair: Doug Blank
9:15-10:30
(~15 minute talks)
An Undergraduate Course in Robotics and Machine Intelligence   slides
Benjoe Juliano and Renee Renner

Undergraduate Capstone Projects on Multi-Robot Systems   slides
Chris Kitts

Advanced robotics projects for undergraduate students   IPRE slides   talk slides
Doug Blank, Deepak Kumar, Jim Marshall, and Lisa Meeden

Using AIBOs in a CS 1 course   slides
John Chilton and Maria Gini

Robotics across the curriculum
Betsy Sklar, Simon Parsons, and M Q Azhar
10:30-11:00
(coffee!)
break
11:00-12:30
(talk/break-out)
Real Robots Don't Drive Straight   slides
Fred Martin

Break-out discussion:
10 things NOT to do when incorporating robots into an assignment, course, or curriculum
-- and how to avoid them!

Here are the notes and a summary from the breakout session.
12:30-2:00 Lunch
Emerging robotic platforms for education
chair: Zach Dodds
2:00-3:30
(~15 minute talks)
A Pragmatic Global Vision System for Educational Robotics   slides
John Anderson and Jacky Baltes

Demonstrating the Capabilities of MindStorms NXT for the AI Curriculum   slides
Frank Klassner and Myles McNally

Educational Haptics
David Grow, Lawton N. Verner, and Allison Okamura

Roomba Pac-Man: Teaching Autonomous Robotics through Embodied Gaming
Chad Jenkins and Brendan Dickinson

Leveraging the Nanogram League RoboCup Competition in the Undergraduate Classroom
Jenelle Piepmeier and Samara Firebaugh

TeRK: A Flexible Tool for Science and Technology Education   slides   TeRK
Illah Nourbakhsh, Emily Hamner, Tom Lauwers, Carl DiSalvo, and Debra Bernstein
3:30-4:00
(coffee!)
break
4:00-4:30
(3 minute teasers)
Robotics Education using Embedded Systems and Simulations   slides
Thomas Braunl

Getting Down and Dirty: Incorporating Homogeneous Transformations
and Robot Kinematics into a Computer Science Robotics Class
  slides
Jennie Kay

RoadNarrows Presents General Purpose Brain-Packs, Controller Boards, and Robots for Education and Research   slides
Kim Wheeler

Low-cost On-board Linux, Vision, Wi-Fi, and more for the Roomba Robotics Base
Tod E. Kurt

Integrating Low-Cost Robot Devices into Pyro
Tim Fossum and James Snow

Map-Making with a Four-Legged Mobile Robot   slides
Kurt Krebsbach and Benjamin Willard

Introducing the Blackfin Handyboard   slides
Fred Martin and Andrew Chanler

Envisioning the Roomba as AI Resource: A Classroom and Laboratory Evaluation   slides
Ben Tribelhorn and Zach Dodds

A Robotics Introduction to Computer Science   slides
Deb Burhans

Concurrency, Robotics, and RoboDeb   slides
Christian Jacobsen, Matt Jadud, and Jon Simpson.
4:30-5:30 Demonstrations, exhibitions, and/or posters by the authors in this session and today's talks.
5:30-6:00 break
6:00-7:00 AAAI reception for all nine spring symposia
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Leveraging Robot Competitions and Exhibitions
chair: Jeff Croxell and Ross Mead
9:00-10:30
(~15 minute talks)
Beyond Botball   slides
David P. Miller, Charles Winton, and Jerry Weinberg

Extra-curricular Robotics: Entry-level Soccer for Undergraduates
Susan Imberman, Aleksandr Barkan, Elizabeth Sklar

Designing Robot Competitions That Promote AI Solutions: Lessons Learned Competing and Designing   slides
Jeffrey R. Croxell, Ross Mead, and Jerry Weinberg

Finding the "Right" Robot Competition: Targeting Non-Engineering Undergraduates   slides
Susan Fox

Mini Grand Challenge Contest for Robot Education   slides
Bob Avanzato
10:30-11:00
(coffee!)
break
11:00-12:15 Aerial Robotics Competition: Lessons in Autonomy
Paul Oh, Keith Sevcik, and William Green

Panel discussion:
What features (do/would) make robot competitions & exhibitions compelling, accessible, and curricularly relevant?

12:15-12:30
 
Sponsors' Session:

    The Surveyor SRV-1, Howard Gordon, the Surveyor Corporation
    Road Narrows Robotics, Kim Wheeler, Chief Executive Officer
12:30-2:00
(Mmmm)
Lunch, sponsored by Road Narrows Robotics and the Surveyor Corporation.
Building community via robotics: within CS, across disciplines, and broader outreach
chair: Holly Yanco
2:00-3:30
(~15 minute talks)
Materials for enabling hands-on robotics and STEM education
Maja J Mataric, Nathan Koenig, and David Feil-Seifer

Robotics Education in Emerging Technology Regions   slides
M. Bernardine Dias, Brett Browning, G. Ayorkor Mills-Tettey, and Nathan Amanquah

Educating Teacher Students and Pupils Through Robotics Courses and Olympiads: A Tiered Approach
Igor Verner and Evgeny Korchnoi
Robotics Olympiads: A New Means to Facilitate Conceptualization of Knowledge Acquired in Robot Projects
Igor Verner, David J. Ahlgren, and David P. Miller

Integrating Service Learning with Undergraduate Robotics Research   slides
Renee Renner and Benjoe Juliano

Robotics in Early Undergraduate Education
David L. Duke, Justin Carlson, and Chuck Thorpe

Artbotics: Combining Art and Robotics to Broaden Participation in Computing
Holly A. Yanco, Hyun Ju Kim, Fred G. Martin, and Linda Silka
3:30-4:00
(coffee!)
break
4:00-4:30
(3 minute teasers)
Eclectic robotics for a mixed audience
Jeanine Meyer and Rona Gurkewitz

Robots in Education: Student Perspectives from the Classroom and from the Field    slides
Colleen van Lent, Adder Argueta, Russel Casella, Nate Jahns

Enhance Students' Hands-On Experience With Robotics   slides
Daisy Tang

Remote Shared Access To A Classroom Robotics Lab   slides
William Harris and David Arnow

Teleworkbench: A Remotely-Accessible Robotic Laboratory for Education   slides   movie link (18mb)
Andry Tanoto and Ulf Witkowski

Robotics Tools in Neuroscience Education   slides
Jill Rogers, Anthony Lewis, and Liudmila Yafremava

Robots can Wear Multiple Hats in the Computer Science Curriculum at Liberal Arts Colleges   slides
Christine Shannon

Robots in an Interdisciplinary Course in the Liberal Arts   slides
Ellen Walker and Lee Braver

Student Feedback on Robotics in CS1   slides
Susan P. Imberman, Roberta Klibaner, and Sarah Zelikovitz

Using Robotic Competitions in Undergraduate Philosophy Courses: Studying the Mind Through Simple Robotics   slides
John P. Sullins III

4:30-5:30 Demonstrations, exhibitions, and/or posters by the authors in this session and today's talks.
5:30-6:00 break
6:00-7:30 Plenary session for all nine symposia. Our speaker: David Miller
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Hands-on session: The "one-hour" robot competition/exhibition
chair: symposium cochairs
9:00 Introduction and "Rules"
9:15-11:00
(go!)
Teams of ~3 participants work on their robots...
11:00-12:00 Teams run their robots, explaining as they go... .

Some raw footage (mpeg movies) from the exhibition/competition...
(Yes, my camerawork needs just that -- work!)
(My favorites are the "davidMillerGrab" and "daisySusanFindRed")

12:00-12:30 Final summary and wrap-up
symposium cochairs



In case it's of use, we will keep previous information available here.
Information in the schedule above supersedes these... .

Call for papers    somber pdf version    two-sided pdf version    two-sided ppt version

This 2007 AAAI spring symposium will bring together hardware, software, and
curriculum designers for autonomous educational robotics, along with
interested educators and robot contest and exhibition organizers.

This group of ~50 will investigate and articulate how educators, especially
undergraduate educators, can leverage autonomous robots and robot-themed
venues as educational experiences.

We encourage you to submit emerging projects, curricular trials,
research-to-classroom bridges, robot exhibition & competition experiences,
and other work using robots for undergraduate AI and CS.

Submissions should be between 2-6 pages in length. Accepted submissions will need
to adhere to AAAI style, but initial submissions need not.

Email your submission (pdf, word, or other common format) to dodds@cs.hmc.edu.
Feel free to direct questions or concerns to any of the organizers.


Details:

Tentative Schedule

Additional Information and Links

This work was supported in part by funds from NSF DUE CCLI award #0536173.