Explore robot anatomy, control and behaviour through a set of simulated tasks

Robots today are roving Mars, hoovering our floors, building cars and entertaining us in films. And, if you share Stephen Hawking’s world view, the super intelligent ones may one day bring about the end of the human race.

If you’d like to find out more, but don’t have Hawking’s brain or an advanced qualification in cybernetics, this course is for you. You won’t require a soldering iron, but you’ll explore the basics of robot design, control and behaviour through a series of simulations that will have you test driving an ERIC – our very own University of Reading mobile robot.

This course explores the basics of robotics. It doesn’t assume any prior knowledge and you don’t need to own your own robot to take part.

This course includes video content and other visual teaching methods. As such, blind and visually impaired students may need a helper.

Please be aware that this course contains video clips that include sequences of flickering/flashing lights which might affect learners who are susceptible to photosensitive epilepsy.

Scampi (pictured above) is a 28 gram walking robot created by Robotics student Rory Mangles and is mostly made of paperclips.

The exercise Steps in this course will work using Chrome, Safari, Opera and Firefox browsers. They will also work on Internet Explore 9, 10 and 11 - however, earlier versions of this browser will not support these Steps. You must have JavaScript enabled.