Welcome to Robotics Practice Session!

The purpose of this practice session is to provide you a quick and hopefully fun introduction to robotics. Normally we would meet in a classroom and work with real robots, with all associated glories and pains. But given the circumstances we are not going to have a standard practice session. Instead, we will play around with simulated robots. So you don’t need to participate any particular practice session on a fixed time, all you need is a computer and you are good to go. Just follow the provided exercises (listed as Exercise 1-5) and solve the mandatory tasks (listed as Task 1-3). So again, it’s up to you when you find time to go through this material, just submit the solutions to the tasks before the deadline.

Try to solve the tasks individually, we are here to learn. If you already are somewhat experienced in this field, then working this through individually should not be a problem. But if you are new to programming then trying to understand the material matters the most. But of course, if you get stuck then definitely ask for help from the supervisors (via MS Teams) or your friends.

The Good and the Bad About Learning Robotics Through a Simulation

The good
  • You have a robot always at hand
  • Sim is a great tool for learning the basic concepts in robotics
  • You can share code and reproduce issues
  • You can verify your work on a simulation before going for the real thing that might be time-consuming to set up
  • You don’t need to worry about breaking the robot
The bad
  • A sim doesn’t give you the full experience of setting up the system, thus when switching to a real robot, things might differ a lot
  • Simulated environment is often idealistic and might not take minor things into account, such as imperfect floor or wheels that cause the robot to slip

Practice 2 - Optional

This practice session is optional. It’s for those who found the first practice session too simple and want more.