Teaching robotics from a computer science perspective

Abstract

Most introductory robotics textbooks have been written from the mechanical engineering perspective. These texts spend hundreds of pages studying gears, motors, sensors, and other related topics. While a computer scientist needs to know something about these topics, he or she certainly is not concerned with them to the degree that the texts cover. Meanwhile, the texts leave out many of the topics that are the most interesting to computer scientists. This paper presents some ideas, resources, and references for those who may want to teach a Junior/Senior level Introduction to Robotics course from a computer science perspective without a textbook.