Introduction to Robotics | Hacker News Reader

Introduction to Robotics

robotacademy.net.au

152 pointsdanboarder32 comments

In what is increasingly a HN trope, the early comments on this link have predominantly been negative. Please don't let that fool you - QUT's Robotics group has been a driving force for Australia for several years now. It is a young group but led by a very experienced academic, Dr Peter Corke, and they are kicking goals.

As someone who holds a PhD from their biggest Australian competitor (Sydney Uni's Australian Centre for Field Robotics) I have nothing but respect for QUT's group.

And finally, Peter Corke (who gives most of these lectures) is a brilliant example of a great teacher. He is not only highly educated in the topics, but he's also highly educated in pedagogy itself and it shows in these lectures and his other freely available teaching material. If you want a general introduction to modern robotics from scratch, this is a great way in.

I think it is reasonable for something that is 1/5 general knowledge. Like, it's in the description __general__ knowledge, not specialized or deep-dive in any way.

I used to like playing with electric constructors when I was a kid and something like this is perfect for me to get back into the hobby.

It takes clicks to escape the intro material.

Then this: "We previously learnt how to derive a Jacobian which relates the velocity of a point, defined relative to one coordinate frame, to the velocity relative to a different coordinate frame. Now we extend that to the 3D case." https://robotacademy.net.au/masterclass/velocity-kinematics-...

I was trying to escape the intro material but legitimately couldn't work out how to navigate the site.

But yeah, robotics is really tough - I tried a course on Coursera once and found it too challenging despite my Physics major background.

I want to learn it though as it'd be a cool hobby to share when I have kids etc.

It seems reasonable to start with 1D for instruction then move to 3D to me.

What's the issue?

Biased thinking?

I would love if "Introduction to Robotics" courses were a bit more specific on what part of robotics they are referring to. It's a big multi-discipline field, and courses with "Introduction to Robotics" as title is as helpful as "Introduction to Cars".

Designing a robot, assembling a robot, buying already-made parts + sensor and program a robot, program a mobile robot vs robot arm is all quite different process & require different backgrounds.

Is it the mechanical part? Electrical Engineering part? Mechatronics? Material Science? Design? Control Theory? Motion Planning? Perception? Localization? Autonomous planning? Software? All of em?

As someone who worked in a robotics startup that designed/manufactured the robot and the software, I met a lot of Robotics experts and Engineers with a PhD in relevant area. (Haptics, Mechanics, Industrial Design, Motion planning, Embedded engineering, Computer Vision engineers, Control Engineers, Software Engineers, etc)

But there was rarely any overlapping knowledge past maybe how actuators worked and joints/wheels moved. I could not understand much of the haptics engineers work, but could use his designs through help with the embedded engineers PCB and integration.

Well, in this case the description is in the very first line of the page:

> "We introduce the topic of robotics, the recent history, why we need robots and the future of robots."

And based in the titles of the videos, it seems to be more about "history" of robotics than actual implementation - it's pretty clear.

More in depth topics are there as you progress to the next sections beyond this introduction, or go to the home page for the entire topic list here: https://robotacademy.net.au/

Thanks for that!

It's the University definition of "Intro to"

AKA Waste your time and money for a semester talking about the history and background of a topic a student should be able to pick up while actually learning it, and "motivating" a topic students are already motivated to learn.

I'm happy they're releasing this for free, because free is the right price for it.

He mentions in the first video that it will mostly be about industrial robot arms. But there's a whole lot of easy-first-lecture motivational material first.

Yes maybe I should've been clear that I meant in general. I did check the link and from the lesson titles it's clear that its very generic, and the additional links to resources available point me toward "Control + Perception".

Still, those with say, a more mechanical engineering background that are interested in the mechanic/design aspect robotics would still be more confused by a "Introduction to Robotics" title like this.

"Velocity kinematics in 3D" https://robotacademy.net.au/masterclass/velocity-kinematics-...

The introduction is clearly to get the students interested. There are courses with great depth there, good open education & open science!

We are currently running the first edition of our free massive online open course "Self-Driving Cars with Duckietown" on EdX:

https://www.edx.org/course/self-driving-cars-with-duckietown

It's a "grand tour" of vehicle autonomy with hands-on activities (in simulation and on real hardware) tailored to the autonomous vehicles application.

It brings together from kinematics modeling and PID control to machine learning, passing through computer vision, planning and Bayesian filtering. The objective is having a model self-driving car driving safely while avoiding pedestrians.. in your living room.

Might be of interest to some here.

(Disclaimer: I'm one of the instructors)

It loads for me, the link goes directly to the beginner course (thus the title), also here is a home page link for all their courses like "Velocity kinematics in 3D" etc:

The open online robotics education resource:

https://robotacademy.net.au/

This is non-technical in nature, and incredibly rudimentary.

Best suited to those with little to no idea what the term robotics even means.

Certainly not what I'd refer to as a 'Master Class'.

Yes, this is their intro for beginners. To find more advanced topics, go to their home page and look through the courses.

Unrelated but I taught a one week robotics class to some college students, and the local instructor I worked with did the same thing. He called it the "Robotics Master Class". It was an introduction!

I've got some of the lectures here:

https://reboot.love/t/new-lecture-series-posted-robotics-cla...

There's a subscription service called MasterClass[1] that offer master's degree level edutainment

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MasterClass

Yeah, on the first glance looks like the obligatory first chapter in a textbook one normally skips :)

Luckily there are more on-the-topic ones under the masterclass tabs, including kinematics, dynamics, vision etc.

Almost completely useless, this is like a history class. Checkout "Modern robotics" for something that is quantitatively rigorous

That is just the intro. See the list of modules including "Rigid body dynamics", Velocity kinematics in 3D" and many more here: https://robotacademy.net.au/

It seems like all the content is on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/roboticsqut/playlists

Is there a good resource for how to practically start doing robotics? Specifically how to do it safely?

I was putting together a 6 motor toy robotic arm and realized I didn't know enough.

That's exactly what I expected this to be when I clicked on it, I'm pretty disappointed.

I can suggest to give a look to Duckietown, it's a very well done platform for learning robotics. They released the massive obligation open course that for free!

Seems like they need an Introduction to Caching

This link never worked for me.

I've been trying it every few mins for a while now. Figured it being on the front page must be good. But never loaded once. And no comments.

Hmm, it's loading fine for me. Try again? Go to their home page "open online robotics education resource" for more advanced robotics topics as well, I think it is well structured material from what I have seen so far.

All I’ve been getting is 503 for a while.

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