Course Requirements Spreadsheet
The Robotics Certificate was approved by the Rose-Hulman Curriculum Committee on November 20, 2008.
We recently held a robot competition in our new Intro to Robotics Programming course. Student robots tried to be the first to bump the instructor's robot, by detecting its infrared signal. The winners were Karl Heidtbrink and Ian Stevenson. See the writeups:
Michael Stigler, owner of the Robotics company, Silicis Technologies, offers words of advice for any student aspiring to work in robotics, in So You Want to Be a Roboteer?The robotics industry has been compared to the personal computer industry in the 1970's: ready to explode! [1] Robots can do repetitive, tedious work without complaining: vacuum our floors, mow our lawns, clean our gutters, assemble our cars, and fill thousands of vials with chemicals for drug testing.
Students are coming to college with more experience and interest than ever before, thanks to FIRST Robotics, BotBall, First Lego League, and other competitions. They are ready to learn more about programming, electronics, controls, artificial intelligence, robot vision, and kinematics.
Robotics is a multidisciplinary field, blending mechanics, electronics, controls, and software, and requiring engineers to have deep enough knowledge where they can contribute within their specialty, but broad enough knowledge to understand other engineers. They must also be able to work in multidisciplinary teams.
[1] Bill Gates. “A robot in every home”, Scientific American, December 16, 2006
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At Rose-Hulman, we do not offer a major in robotics. Rather, students major in mechanical, electrical, computer, or software engineering, or computer science to gain depth in their field.
They then choose one of seven tracks to gain experience in another robotics field. Finally, they work on a multidisciplinary senior project, with students from the other majors.
Tracks currently available:
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This spreadsheet contains a side-by-side comparison of the courses for each of the seven tracks. It also shows that each of the five majors can obtain any track within their major without overloading.
The tables next to each of the track names above show sample 4-year schedules for students in each of the seven tracks.
If you decide to pursue the Robotics Certificate, you should fill out this the appropriate Declaration of Intent form and bring it to the appropriate advisor:
| Major | Advisor | Location | Intent Form |
| CSSE | Matthew Boutell | Moench F224 | CSSE form |
| ECE | Carlotta Berry | Moench E2xx | ECE form |
| ME | David Fisher | Moench E101 | ME form |
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Carlotta Berry, Asst. Prof. of Electrical and Computer Engineering. PhD Vanderbilt University (2003, Electrical and Computer Engineering). Dr Berry’s research focuses on human-robot interfaces for mobile robots. She created and has taught Introduction to Mobile Robotics, a laboratory-based special topics course that uses a Traxster robot to introduce junior and senior-level students to the field of mobile robotics including theory, behaviors and control. |
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Matthew Boutell, Asst. Prof. of Computer Science and Software Engineering. Ph.D. University of Rochester (2005, Computer Science). Dr. Boutell will teach Robotics programming, having taught programming for 7 years. He is also interested in robot vision, having worked for four years at Eastman Kodak Company on understanding the contents of consumer photographs. |
 | Steven Chenoweth, Assoc. Prof. of Computer Science and Software Engineering. Ph.D. Wright State University (1990, Computer Science and Engineering). Dr. Chenoweth’s research focus is Artificial Intelligence (heuristic search), one of the core robotics-related computing areas. His background includes a career in Software Engineering at NCR Corporation and Bell Laboratories. He has taught graduate and undergraduate courses at all levels from Introduction to Software Development to senior design projects including Teamwork and Robotics. |
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David Fisher, Asst. Prof. of Mechanical Engineering. PhD Stanford University (2005, Mechanical Engineering). While at Stanford, Dr. Fisher worked in the Biomechanics Division and focused on markerless motion capture. While at Rose-Hulman, Dr. Fisher spends most of his time teaching Mechatronics, a course focusing on using a microcontroller to control physical input and output devices. |