Why am I a professor?
It's the lightbulb moments I have witnessed and experienced, when the material transforms from a set of rules to clarity and confidence.
I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand - Confucius
This quote exemplifies my goal as an educator: to put students in the driver's seat of practicing engineering as early and often as possible.
Introduction to Robotics
Applied robotics draws from many different fields and allows automation of products as diverse as cars, vacuum cleaners, and factories. This course is a challenging introduction to basic concepts used broadly in robotics; it is valuable for students who wish to work in the area.
Topics include simulation, kinematics, control, sensing, and system integration. The mathematical basis of each area is emphasized, and concepts are motivated using common robotics applications and programming exercises. Students participate in two projects over the course of the semester, in which they will implement algorithms that apply each of the topics discussed in class to real robotics problems.
Robot Arm Light Art
Student Collaborators: Richard Kim, Aritra Archee, Harrison York
Frosty Bot
Student Collaborators: Nohemi Sepulveda, Morgan McCloud, Annabelle Chu, Jinze Lyu
Introduction to Medical Robotics and Surgical Technologies
This course is a broad introduction to medical robotics and surgical technologies. This course covers technical instruction in core areas of surgical technology and requires the completion of 3 mini-projects where trainees address real-world problems in surgery. It is designed to provide trainees with the required academic foundation to navigate the field of surgical technology and transition to more in-depth impactful, research during their second year.
Stroke Simmulator Prototype
Student Collaborators: Jared Bailey, Pranav Krannan, Ruoyao Wang, Hailey Kim
Case Studies of Ethics in Robotics and Automation
As engineers, we are responsible for the outcomes of our systems and technologies. As robotic and autonomous systems are implemented at larger scales, understanding the context, relevance, and implementation of these systems is critical. Knowing how we interact and use systems can help us avoid ethical pitfalls and develop effective, safe, and equitable technologies.
This course connects key ethics principles of trust, bias/equity, surveillance/privacy and safety with real life case studies that consider technical options/opportunities, policy effects, and regulatory efficacy. Additionally, this course helps students identify and envision action of their values in their future engineering practice. The goal of this course is for students to develop a deeper understanding of how ethics applies to the decisions they will make as engineers developing robotic tools and autonomous systems. Additionally, this course sheds light on how companies and regulators work in different contexts in the US to effectively manage the emergence of autonomy in our hospitals, highways, and many other areas of our lives.