This project builds a robotics laboratory and provides integrated experiences in the undergraduate computer science curriculum through new courses and modified course experiences. It adapts aspects of existing exemplary projects at MIT and Swarthmore College as appropriate to meet the local needs. The undergraduate robotics laboratory enables undergraduate computer science majors to study, design and implement control algorithms for autonomous robots as well as to explore techniques for object recognition and manipulation. It also permits robotics to be introduced to lower division majors through a lab using a robotics simulator and to majors in artificial intelligence through a lab that enables an integrated planning and natural language processing system to control a robot. The lab supports a survey course on human and artificial intelligence designed for non-majors, a course that will form part of a three-course sequence on cognitive science. Most students overestimate the capabilities and intelligence of robots and computers. By permitting them to study control algorithms for low-level behaviors, they gain an understanding of what robots and computers can and cannot do and an appreciation of the contribution computer science has made to the study of human intelligence.
