Introduction to Robotics

[Schwolop]

In what is increasingly a HN trope, the early comments on this link have predominantly been negative. Please don't let that fool you - QUT's Robotics group has been a driving force for Australia for several years now. It is a young group but led by a very experienced academic, Dr Peter Corke, and they are kicking goals.

As someone who holds a PhD from their biggest Australian competitor (Sydney Uni's Australian Centre for Field Robotics) I have nothing but respect for QUT's group.

And finally, Peter Corke (who gives most of these lectures) is a brilliant example of a great teacher. He is not only highly educated in the topics, but he's also highly educated in pedagogy itself and it shows in these lectures and his other freely available teaching material. If you want a general introduction to modern robotics from scratch, this is a great way in.

[nomorewords]

I think it is reasonable for something that is 1/5 general knowledge. Like, it's in the description __general__ knowledge, not specialized or deep-dive in any way.

I used to like playing with electric constructors when I was a kid and something like this is perfect for me to get back into the hobby.

[NalNezumi]

I would love if "Introduction to Robotics" courses were a bit more specific on what part of robotics they are referring to. It's a big multi-discipline field, and courses with "Introduction to Robotics" as title is as helpful as "Introduction to Cars".

Designing a robot, assembling a robot, buying already-made parts + sensor and program a robot, program a mobile robot vs robot arm is all quite different process & require different backgrounds.

Is it the mechanical part? Electrical Engineering part? Mechatronics? Material Science? Design? Control Theory? Motion Planning? Perception? Localization? Autonomous planning? Software? All of em?

As someone who worked in a robotics startup that designed/manufactured the robot and the software, I met a lot of Robotics experts and Engineers with a PhD in relevant area. (Haptics, Mechanics, Industrial Design, Motion planning, Embedded engineering, Computer Vision engineers, Control Engineers, Software Engineers, etc)

But there was rarely any overlapping knowledge past maybe how actuators worked and joints/wheels moved. I could not understand much of the haptics engineers work, but could use his designs through help with the embedded engineers PCB and integration.

[kuu]

Well, in this case the description is in the very first line of the page:

> "We introduce the topic of robotics, the recent history, why we need robots and the future of robots."

And based in the titles of the videos, it seems to be more about "history" of robotics than actual implementation - it's pretty clear.

[exporectomy]

He mentions in the first video that it will mostly be about industrial robot arms. But there's a whole lot of easy-first-lecture motivational material first.

[JacopoTani]

We are currently running the first edition of our free massive online open course "Self-Driving Cars with Duckietown" on EdX:

https://www.edx.org/course/self-driving-cars-with-duckietown

It's a "grand tour" of vehicle autonomy with hands-on activities (in simulation and on real hardware) tailored to the autonomous vehicles application.

It brings together from kinematics modeling and PID control to machine learning, passing through computer vision, planning and Bayesian filtering. The objective is having a model self-driving car driving safely while avoiding pedestrians.. in your living room.

Might be of interest to some here.

(Disclaimer: I'm one of the instructors)

[danboarder]

It loads for me, the link goes directly to the beginner course (thus the title), also here is a home page link for all their courses like "Velocity kinematics in 3D" etc:

The open online robotics education resource:

https://robotacademy.net.au/

[edsemail123]

This is non-technical in nature, and incredibly rudimentary.

Best suited to those with little to no idea what the term robotics even means.

Certainly not what I'd refer to as a 'Master Class'.

[TaylorAlexander]

Unrelated but I taught a one week robotics class to some college students, and the local instructor I worked with did the same thing. He called it the "Robotics Master Class". It was an introduction!

I've got some of the lectures here:

https://reboot.love/t/new-lecture-series-posted-robotics-cla...

[danboarder]

Yes, this is their intro for beginners. To find more advanced topics, go to their home page and look through the courses.

[numpad0]

There's a subscription service called MasterClass[1] that offer master's degree level edutainment

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MasterClass

[oytis]

Yeah, on the first glance looks like the obligatory first chapter in a textbook one normally skips :)

Luckily there are more on-the-topic ones under the masterclass tabs, including kinematics, dynamics, vision etc.

[bitcoinGod88]

Almost completely useless, this is like a history class. Checkout "Modern robotics" for something that is quantitatively rigorous

[danboarder]

That is just the intro. See the list of modules including "Rigid body dynamics", Velocity kinematics in 3D" and many more here: https://robotacademy.net.au/

[ModernMech]

It seems like all the content is on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/roboticsqut/playlists

[acover]

Is there a good resource for how to practically start doing robotics? Specifically how to do it safely?

I was putting together a 6 motor toy robotic arm and realized I didn't know enough.

[some_random]

That's exactly what I expected this to be when I clicked on it, I'm pretty disappointed.

[giuseppeC]

I can suggest to give a look to Duckietown, it's a very well done platform for learning robotics. They released the massive obligation open course that for free!

[dheera]

Seems like they need an Introduction to Caching

[georgeecollins]

This link never worked for me.

[ddlutz]

I've been trying it every few mins for a while now. Figured it being on the front page must be good. But never loaded once. And no comments.

[yawz]

All I’ve been getting is 503 for a while.