New First Year Robotics Course in School of Computer Science
A new robotics course in the school of computer science is teaching first year students to build and program autonomous mobile robots. The lab-based nature of the course deviates from traditional lecture-style courses by allowing students to learn quickly during the two hands-on lab sessions per week. The feedback from students indicates that this new kind of teaching environment is a refreshing and exciting change from the longer classroom lectures to which they are accustomed. The course strengthens a student's first year programming and debugging skills through experimentation with motors, gears and various sensors. Students construct a variety of robotic designs, program them to accomplish simple tasks and then observe how they interact with other robots in the same environment. A second course is planned for the fall of 2013 which will focus on more complex programming tasks. For more information about Carleton University's Robotics program please visit: admissions.carleton.ca/programs/robotics
