Designing Intelligent Robots

I can remember during high school going to this summer program at Smith College. Surrounded by a bunch of professors and students that attended Smith, I and a bunch of other high school students introduced ourselves. While at the program the best part about being their is that i was able to experience college level courses. One course I really loved was called Designing Intelligent Robots.

Led by Doreen Weinberger, Ph.D., Professor, Physics Department, Smith College. This course is a hands-on introduction to robot design and introductory programming. I was placed on a team of three and from there we received a kit containing a microprocessor controller, a set of motors and sensors, and various Lego building parts and tools. I learned how to connect the components and program the controller to make a robot that can move autonomously and intelligently in its environment. For instance, with appropriate programming the robot can avoid obstacles, seek out light, make decisions for changing its behavior based on sensory input, or respond to messages communicated by other robots. I performed a wide range of activities: building simple robots to accomplish specific tasks, programming in a PC lab, creating my own final robot project, and testing and re-designing to optimize their robot performance. I also experienced using HTML and made my own web pages, which served as a record of their progress in the course.

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