WWW autonomous robotics: enabling wide area access to a computer engineering practicum

ABSTRACT

In recent years, courses in the design and programming of mobile autonomous robots have become popular at a number of institutions. These activities offer participants experience in a number of practical areas, including computer programming, project management, and technical writing. Further, they provide those experiences in an entertaining manner that may motivate students to pursue additional education in computer science and engineering. By their nature, however, these classes are resource intensive, often limiting access to a few, fortunate students. This paper describes efforts to date in providing a World Wide Web (WWW) based course in autonomous robotics. We will begin with a discussion of how the unique benefits of autonomous robotics courses are enhanced by offering them via the web. We will then discuss our WWW course and some special challenges we encountered during its development. We will conclude with a discussion of future plans and a set of open questions we intend to address.

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