Day 1: Welcome!
Today
- Intro to CompRobo (slides)
- Broader Impacts of Robots in the World
For Next Time
- Mandatory Tasks:
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- Fill out the course entrance survey
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- Get your environment setup and test it by running the Neato simulator
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- Go through the following ROS2 tutorials (turtlesim and rqt, Understanding nodes, Understanding topics)
- Suggested Tasks:
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- Check out and consider joining the class Discord
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- Start thinking about your course goals (Due Sept 7th at 7PM)
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- Connect a Neato and run the Neato simulator. Explore the topics that are published and see what you are able to do with them given the tools you learned about in the ROS2 tutorials.
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- Start working on the RoboBehaviors and FSMs Project (Due Sept 22nd at 7PM)
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- Start thinking about what robot you might want to contemplate for the semester (Due Sept 29th at 7PM)
Kicking-Off the Semester: Intro to CompRobo
Let’s learn more about what this class is (and isn’t) and get excited for what’s ahead! You can follow along with these slides and check-out our Canvas page for more details!
Broader Impacts of Robots in the World
Robots have already transformed our society, and their impact seems likely to only increase over time. One thing we will do this semester is discuss the effects of robots on our world and our responsibilities as roboticists to understand their implications.
To kick-off these discussions, and to jumpstart your thinking on the first phase of the Broader Impacts project, please get into a group of 3-4 and work through the following exercises. We’ll have a share-out as a class at the end where your group can present a response to one of the exercises.
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Suppose you are working as an engineer on one of the robotics projects highlighted in the slides (it will probably help for you to have a specific one in mind). What are the key benefits of your robot? What potential issues might you consider? What engineering processes would you follow to ensure your design works as you intend it to? What is one burning question you currently feel unequipped to resolve (this might be an opportunity for us to learn together as a group).
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Suppose you are one of the decision-makers at a robotics company that had developed some incredible new technology (you can pick a specific piece of tech or think about this in a more general sense). How would you decide who to license your technology to? What factors would you consider? What safeguards (if any) might you need to put in place when licensing this technology? What is one burning question you currently feel unequipped to resolve (this might be an opportunity for us to learn together as a group).
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Suppose you are a policy-maker tasked with considering whether new laws, regulations, or guidelines on an emerging robot technology should be developed (you can pick a specific piece of tech or think about this in a more general sense). What would assist you in determining your policies and laws regarding robotics? Who would you want to talk to about the technology? Are there any blanket regulations or laws you would put in place around the use of robots and robotics technology?
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What do you think is the most beneficial application of robotics technology? Why?
A CompRobo Ethics Screening Tool
In this class, we will grapple with broader impacts in our discussions and projects. To ground ourselves, we’ll be using an ethics screening tool to guide our project development work. Let’s have a look at our screening tool for this semester to start to familiarize ourselves as we head into our projects!
With your same groups, please consider:
- Do any of these ethics screen issues resonate with an element of your discussion? Which ones?
- Do you encounter any issues in the ethics screen that didn’t come up in your discussion, but were related? Which ones?
- What questions do you have about the ethics screening tool?