In the next couple of sections I will cover a typical robotics introduction course.  In many cases, these introduction courses are really upper year or sometimes even grad school courses.  The issue with robotics (or the way it is taught) is that quite a bit of math and calculus is needed, so these courses usually aren’t introduced until later on.  Which as you may have guessed, I think is a mistake.  How can you make the choice to specialize in robotics when you’ve never been exposed to it?  I will cover the concepts of the course here, omitting the math of course.

A typical robotics course will cover industrial robots – typically, robot manipulators with fixed bases that perform tasks in a manufacturing or industrial setting.  These robots move material, weld, paint, etc.  Other robots that we have discussed in Robotic Applications such as the legged robots and healthcare robots that move around the hospital are not included in this.  Robotic manipulators is a good place to start; they are a huge percentage of all robots made, and they are challenging to make and perfect.  There are many engineering considerations and complications that do not apply to other robots, as we will see.