Mobile Robots for Teaching Undergraduate Computer Science, directed by Donald M. Chiarulli and Martha E. Pollack of the Department of Computer Science,  will expand on an ongoing project to incorporate mobile robots into the undergraduate computer science curriculum.  The idea is to make innovative use of mobile robots as an alternative to desktop workstations as a computational platform used in teaching computer science.      Professor Chiarulli, who also teaches in the Computer Engineering Program, is a leading researcher in computer system architecture. Professor Pollack is the director of the Intelligent Systems Program and an internationally known researcher in the field of artificial intelligence.

Martha Pollack & Donald Chiarulli exhibits one of the mobile robots.

      In their proposal, they wanted to expand the capabilities of this interactive style of teaching computer programming to more students. “This is not a course on robotics,” Chiarulli said.  It is a course in which the students will learn intermediate programming skills by means of learning how to program the movements of a robot. This methodology requires the student to collaborate with others, and also to be actively involved in the learning process.

      Professor Pollack added that along with teaching programming in such a dynamic environment, there is also a chance to take this knowledge and apply it in national competitions.  In such competitions, students from other universities are given similar tasks for robots to perform, and the competing teams must program their robots to do these functions.  The project directors hope that a University of Pittsburgh team will emerge to enter the 2001 summer competition.

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