University of Nevada doing IoT with Duckietown
Here’s an extract from Nevada Today’s article “Integrating big data into robotics with Duckietown”, written by Kaeli Britt.
For the third year, the University of Nevada, Reno’s Computer Science & Engineering (CSE) department conducted a Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program focused on “Integrating Big Data into Robotics.”
Through the six-week program, participants were able to gain hands-on robotics experience that can be applied in classrooms later, in a fun, nontraditional way.
Duckietown, an engineering and robotics/artificial intelligence (AI) project, focuses on accessible and engaging styles of learning. The project started at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2016 as a graduate class, where they created a video “Duckumentary” highlighting the background and purpose of the research project but also its adaptability for varying age groups.
This year’s University project was taught by Ph. D. candidate and instructor Amirhesam Yazdi as well as CSE associate professor and principal investigator Lei Yang.
Participants were able to learn how to assemble the robots, build and design the track, and program the robots and the track.
“Duckietown is a freely available robotics platform and curricula for all levels of education. It is tangible, accessible, and fun. It has mobile robots and roads, constructed from exercise mats and tape,” Yang said. “The mobile robots are built from off-the-shelf parts and using open-source software and the curricula, such as lectures and exercises are provided on the Duckietown website. These unique features set Duckietown apart from other engineering, robotics and/or AI projects.”
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