Aims: Development of the basic competence needed to design a robot both from the technological and design points of view. Improve the basic competence to setup a project, to interact in a multi-disciplinary group, to present and share resuts.
The course is addressed to both Information Engineering and Design Schools students, who will work in groups of 4-5 people including both Engineers and Designers.
This year the course theme is “Robotic companion”: the students will have to design and implement autonomous mobile robots, able to interact with people as robotic companion with a characteristic mood and expression. 
The course has a special timing that includes few periods of common work in the Laboratorio Prototipi e Modelli  (http://www.labmodelli.polimi.it/) of the Design Department as weel as some activity to be done autonomously:

    1.    2 full days in February (23 and 24): in these full days (8 hours) theory and practice about theoretical bases of Robotics, human-robot interaction, robot making (including mechanics, sensors, Arduino) will be exploited. Each aspect will be presented and then tested on real robots that will be built in interdisciplinary groups.
    2.    3 full days in March (2,5, and 6): At this moment, groups will have acquired basics needed to design and start to implement prototypes. three days of intensive work in the lab will be used to implement the first ideas.
    3.    In the following weeks, groups will be free to work in the Laboratorio Prototipi e Modelli, AIRLab (http://airlab.ws.dei.polimi.it) and PhyCo Lab (www.phycolab.polimi.it/), where teachers and other people are available to support groups in the development of their first, fully working prototype, which will be evaluated some weeks after.
    4.    1 full day in May: First design of the robots will be presented by each group, together with the results of the first experimentations, and discussed with the tutors.
    5.    1 full day in beginning of June: Robots are presented, delivered, and left to the evaluators for the final evaluation with end users.

The final evaluation of the course will consider both the functional,  aesthetic, and technological results, as well as the behavior of the robot in the final test.
No specific competence is needed, except the one expected from students starting a Design or Information Engineering (Computer Engineering, Automation, Electronics, Telecommunication) master track.

Due to a limited number of available positions, students are required to select the course as soon as possible, and to follow carefully the instructions provided on the course site about the parallel compilation of a form (upon the evaluation of which the student will be accepted in the course), and about the need to pass the specific abilitation test for the access to the  Laboratorio Prototipi e Modelli.

Notice that, despite our best efforts to reduce overlaps, some of the lesson days will be in the exam period.

For further information:
www.phycolab.polimi.it/robotics-design-3ed
PhyCo Lab: phycolab@gmail.com
AIRLab: airlab@dei.polimi.it

The product of the course will be a robot that will be evaluated both from the technological, functional and aesthetic points of view.