I was wondering if anybody here actually has some sort of degree in robotics. I used to make competition robots but I really like the design process...but I don't know where to aim for at a school...any advice?

What are your degrees? Do you have teaching experience?

Try the Science and Engineering department of most colleges and universities. If you are credentialed try the science department in high schools and middle schools.

Most depends on your qualifications as an educator. If you like the design process you would be better off looking for a job with a toy company or a major research institution. There your resume will mean everything.

quote:

Originally posted by robodan:
I was wondering if anybody here actually has some sort of degree in robotics. I used to make competition robots but I really like the design process...but I don't know where to aim for at a school...any advice?

I may have misunderstood you in my previous post. If you are looking for courses to take I recommend searching Google with terms like "curriculum robotics schools". I found schools of every level that teach courses and some even have degrees. If you are college or post college then try searching "college robotics degree". I found a large number of options there.

quote:

Originally posted by robodan:
I used to make competition robots but I really like the design process.

Was this Bot-Wars competiton or self-running robots like the trek to Las Vegas?

Also, your age would really help this discussion.

I'm looking for college courses to take...and it was a bot wars...and the thing is that I looked st college board.com and found a very limited amount of courses in the united states.

You may find this helpful.
I am sometimes asked the question of how one goes about becoming a robotics engineer. Robotics is perhaps the most inter-disciplinary of engineering endeavors. A mechanical engineer may design the robot's structure, its joint mechanisms, bearings, heat transfer characteristics, etc. Electrical engineers design the robot's control electronics, power amplifiers, signal conditioning, etc. Electro-mechanical engineers may work on the robot's sensors. Computer engineers will design the robot's computing hardware. Robot kinematics is great application of applied mathematics. An undergraduate college degree in any of these fields is an excellent way to get started as a robotics engineer.

So you want to be a robotics engineer? Software engineering is probably the Achilles heel of robotics. The mechanical, electrical and computer robotics engineers have built awesome machines, but they still are extremely difficult to put into production. This is because they are so difficult to teach. An engineer has to program the robot's every motion down to the tiniest minutia. In my opinion, the biggest contributions yet to be made in robotics will come from the software engineers. Companies are hiring robotics engineers to develop automated vacuum cleaners and robot dogs. On the industrial side, robot sales topped $1.4 billion last year, up 60 percent from 1998.

Perhaps you would be interested in how I became a robotics engineer? It started with trying to build a robotic hand as a teenager in my parent's garage. This was after I first learned how servo systems worked. I barely got the servo part working, but it was a start. Later I went to college to get an undergraduate degree as an electrical engineer. After that I worked as an electrical engineer for several years. I did not really work on robots or robotics, but I did design several automatic control systems that were very interesting. One of them controlled a motor with an armature as big as a phone booth! Then I went back to school, this time as a mechanical engineer, and completed the undergraduate mechanical engineering curriculum. After that it was a Master's degree in biomedical engineering and the PhD where I focused on robotics.

If you are interested in becoming a robotics engineer and would like to chat by email, please feel free to contact me. I'll answer if I can. It really depends on how heavy the workload is at my day job. Most emails ask about how one goes about becoming a robotics engineer or how I became a robotics engineer. The three paragraphs above contain my best answers to those questions. My online forensic engineer CV gives a little more information on my background.

rich@learnaboutrobots.com

The info in my last post is taken from http://www.learnaboutrobots.com/roboticsEngineer.htm . This is an excellent site to glean some general robotics info and assistance. Dr. Hooper tries to be as helpful as possible.

As Dr. Hooper suggests, the most challenging field for robotics engineers is software engineering. And in that arena nothing is so challenging as (A)rtificial (I)ntelligence. Rich Hooper also pointed out that the typical robotics programmer had to program the minutest detail of what a robot needs to do. This is tedious, time-consuming, and costly. Furthermore, it has to be repeated or tweaked every time a modification is made to the robot.

The alternative is AI. Hardware and electronics engineers constrain axes, directions, extents, and speed of movements. Software programmers specify when and under what conditions these movements are to be made. If those contingencies are specifically programmed they must account for every possibility and circumstance. Failure to do so creates "bugs". Under AI the programming needs to be done but once, creating an appropriate learning algorithm. When a new situation arises the robot or subsystem is put in learning mode and taught how to react. Once debugged the software needs little attention.

I will post more in Software, Other, on this forum.

http://www.realskillsrealjobs.com/

I have been checking out this school. Looks cool. What do you think?

quote:

Originally posted by R0b0tGrrl:
http://www.realskillsrealjobs.com/

I have been checking out this school. Looks cool. What do you think?

This school provides a variety of mechanical and electronics courses that could be applied to robotics but concentrates on real jobs in the electromechanics field. Appears to be a rather new curriculum.

If your primary interest is creating robots you may want to look elsewhere. A mature curriculum can be found at Loughborough University, for example.

With a name like RobotGrrl, I hope you will come back to the forum often and post your projects, robots you have, and your experiences.