CompSci 97s: Minds and Computers
(Fall 2006)
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Index
- Course Goals
- Course Description
- Time and Place
- Texts and Software
- Topics
- Staff
- Web, Newsgroup, and Blackboard
- Grading
- Cource Policies
Course Goals
This course introduces through projects designing control algorithms for LEGO Robots. After taking this course, students should be able to:- Design and implement the software and hardware architecture of a LEGO robot to perform tasks such as line following and simple map building
- Understand different models for controlling agents and understand their strengths and weaknesses for different environments
- Analyze and evaluate designs and implementations of intelligent computer programs
Course Description
This seminar will explore the idea of understanding the mind/brain as a computing machine and investigate the development of intelligent agents. Students will design, implement, and test the software and hardware architecture of a LEGO robot to perform basic tasks. Students will consider how computers can learn and how they can be used help people learn. We will also discuss issues in the philosophical foundations of Artificial Intelligence.
No prior programming or computer science experience is required.
Time and Place
3:05pm-3:55pm on Mondays and Wednesdays in D243 LSRC
On Friday from 2:50-4:05, students will work on robot projects, sometimes in the Robotics Teaching Lab; North Building 018.
Texts and Software
Texts are available in the Duke textbook store. There will be a number of readings and exercises assigned from the books, so they are required. You can also find them online.
Most software for the course will be provided via this website. You can use computer science department-owned laptops during class. If you would like to use your own laptop, you will need to purchase the ROBOLAB 2.9 from LEGO Education
Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology by Valentino Braitenberg (required) Core LEGO MINDSTORMS Programming by Brian Bagnall (recommended)
Staff
Instructor: Jeff Forbes
Web: http://www.cs.duke.edu/~forbes/
Email: forbes@cs.duke.edu
Office: D235 LSRC
Office hours: Monday, 4:05-5;35, Thursday 10:30-12, whenever my door is open, or by appointment
Topics covered
- AI
- Agent architectures
- Philosophical foundations
- Applications
- Natural language processing
- Speech recognition
- Machine vision
- Machine learning
- LEGO Basics
- Basic structures
- Building a car powered by rubber bands
- Beam and Gear Math
- Software Development
- Technical Literacy
- Definition
- Programming concepts
- Fundamental algorithms
- Dynamical systems
- Logical thinking
- Knowledge representation
- Java Programming
- LeJOS
- Data representation
- Conditional expressions
- Methods and decomposition
- Iteration
- Collections
- Object-oriented programming
Web, Newsgroup, and Blackboard
Most of the course materials, including the syllabus, lecture notes, reading assignments, homeworks, programming FAQs, etc., will be available through the course Web page (http://www.cs.duke.edu/courses/fall06/cps097s/).
The discussion forum is useful for posting questions that are likely to be of interest to the rest of the class. We very much encourage students in the class to post responses to questions. We will monitor the the discussion forum regularly, and post responses to questions that have not previously been asked or answered. Before posting a question, please do make sure that you have read all previous messages and that your question has not yet been discussed.
We will use the Blackboard course management system (https://courses.duke.edu/bin/common/course.pl?course_id=_46144_1) and for turning in some assignments.
Finally, please check your email regularly, as important course announcements will be sent via email.
Grading
Grading is done on an absolute, but adjustable scale. This means that there is no curve. Anyone earning 90% or more of the total number of points available will receive a grade in the A range; 80% or more guarantees a grade in the B range, 70% or more guarantees a grade in the C range, 60% or more guarantees a grade in the D range. This scale may slide down, but it will not go up.
There will be several types of assignments during the term, each contributing to your final grade by approximately the following percentages:
| Projects & assigments | 38% |
| Papers & responses | 20% |
| Final Project | 18% |
| Tests (2) | 24% |
Course Policies
- Collaboration Policy
- Individual extensions will be granted only for medical reasons (see
the Short-term
Illness Notification policy) or other
circumstances beyond your control that must be presented with an
official Dean's excuse. We do not grant extensions after an
assignment is due, you must request an extension before an assignment
is due.
- The secret to successfully surviving this course is to start early and work steadily; it is not possible to cram or skim in Computer Science classes. If you are having trouble, be sure to the professor as far before the due date as possible. Do not give up, ask for help.