Moderator: Ronald Klausewitz
Role of participants: Each meeting will begin with a short explanation by the moderator followed by the day’s activity. Participants will be expected to do some work at home for each class (assigned reading from handouts or web links). Participants will work with a partner to program a robot to make simple decisions based on input. The last class will provide an opportunity for sharing, with each team demonstrating their robot’s abilities on an assignment.
Number of participants (including the moderator): 15
Time: Wednesdays, 9:30–11:30 am [Note: earlier time]
Place: Smith College, Dewey Hall, Common Room, Northampton
Parking: You will be issued a Smith campus parking permit
This workshop will introduce the concepts of robotics. Hands-on work with a partner will be to program a robot to perform a simple task based on input. No previous experience with programming, electronics, or computers beyond ordinary use (e-mail word processing) will be expected.
Each participant pair will need their own laptop or notebook computer with some free disk space. There are no other equipment requirements. The robots (Activity Bot by Parallax Corp. (www.parallax.com) are owned by Smith College and are programmed using the C++ language. No previous exposure to this or any other programming language will be expected.
“Robotics is the next Internet. It’s the next big thing to impact our lives from medicine to space exploration.” – Robert Wood, National Geographic Emerging Explorer
Format: Workshop
Resources: Handouts or web references will be provided.
The moderator: The moderator has spent 40 years in computer education and administration. Google “Dr.Klausewitz”.