Preface
Robotics is a vibrant field which grows in importance from year to year. It is also a
subject that students enjoy at all levels from kindergarten to graduate school. The
aim of learning robotics varies with the age group. For young kids, robots are an
educational toy; for students in middle- and high-schools, robotics can increase the
motivation of students to study STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathe-
matics); at the introductory university level, students can learn how the physics,
mathematics, and computer science that they study can be applied to practical
engineering projects; finally, upper level undergraduate and graduate students
prepare for careers in robotics.
This book is aimed at the middle of the age range: students in secondary schools
and in their first years of university. We focus on robotics algorithms and their
mathematical and physical principles. We go beyond trial-and-error play, but we
don’t expect the student to be able to design and build robots and robotic algorithms
that perform tasks in the real world. The presentation of the algorithms without
advanced mathematics and engineering is necessarily simplified, but we believe that
the concepts and algorithms of robotics can be learned and appreciated at this level,
and can serve as a bridge to the study of robotics at the advanced undergraduate and
graduate levels.
The required background is a knowledge of programming, mathematics, and
physics at the level of secondary schools or the first year of university. From
mathematics: algebra, trigonometry, calculus, matrices, and probability.
Appendix B provides tutorials for some of the more advanced mathematics. From
physics: time, velocity, acceleration, force, and friction.
Hardly a day goes by without the appearance of a new robot intended for
educational purposes. Whatever the form and function of a robot, the scientific and
engineering principles and algorithms remain the same. For this reason, the book is
not based on any specific robot. In Chap. 1 we define a generic robot: a small
autonomous mobile robot with differential drive and sensors capable of detecting
the direction and distance to an object, as well as ground sensors that ca n detect
markings on a table or floor. This definition is sufficiently general so that students
should be able to implement most of algorithms on any educational robot.
