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Robotics and Engineering

Welcome to the online Robotics Alliance Project VEX Course. This course has rolling admission and enables students to complete it during the course of a school session. By completing this course, you will be eligible to receive 3 units of high school credit. This is provided through the Santa Clara County Office, Regional Occupational Program* (ROP). Students outside of this district will need to contact their individual school administration regarding the application of this credit to their academic transcript. All students will earn a Pass/Fail grade. At the successful completion of the course and the exams, you or your high school will receive a letter of completion from ROP. Homeschool students welcome.

Course Description:
Students will build a small robot based on a controller similar to the one used in FIRST Robotics competitions. Fast Intro to C programming. Concepts on working with a micro controller, map inputs to outputs, read sensor input. Discussion of DC PM motor torque-speed current characteristics, encoders, current protection and open/closed loop control. Discussion of common mechanical design issues such as tradeoffs between tolerance, backlash, stiffness, weight, precision, and speed vs torque.

Archived Class Sessions: June 21- July 29, 2005
Introductions	Lectures	Student Speakers	NASA Speakers	Labs
Length: 00:03:49 Aired: 06/21/05 Steve Headley Length: 00:05:41 Aired: 06/21/05 Al Bayer Length: 00:03:28 Aired: 06/21/05 Michelle Goldschmid Length: 00:01:50 Aired: 06/21/05 Kerry Scharfglass	Steve Headley Length: 00:48:06 Aired: 06/21/05 Industrial machine Technology Steve Headley Length: 00:48:06 Aired: 06/23/05 Manufacturing Metrics and Calculations Steve Headley Length: 00:48:41 Aired: 06/28/05 Blueprint reading and Symbology Steve Headley Length: 00:38:37 Aired: 06/30/05 Manufacturing processes Steve Headley Length: 00:48:43 Aired: 07/05/05 Industrial programming theory	Kerry Scharfglass Length: 00:04:20 Aired: 06/21/05 Centi-bots Michel Patron Length: 00:11:56 Aired: 06/23/05 Robotics, history & background Kerry Scharfglass Length: 00:05:14 Aired: 06/23/05 Drivetrains (Part I) Kerry Scharfglass Length: 00:04:20 Aired: 06/23/05 Drivetrains (Part II) Kerry Scharfglass Length: 00:04:56 Aired: 07/05/05 Remotely operated vehicles (ROV)	Eric Park Length: 00:20:19 Aired: 06/21/05 Mars rovers Dr. Silvano Colombano Length: 00:21:06 Aired: 06/23/05 New concepts for robotic space exploration systems Damon Flansburg Length: 00:17:52 Aired: 06/28/05 Innovation and design Terry Grant Length: 00:38:57 Aired: 06/30/05 Programming your Robot in C Terry Grant Length: 00:12:34 Aired: 07/05/05 Botball	Al Bayer Length: 00:30:52 Aired: 06/21/05 Goals of lab Intro. to VEX kit Al Bayer Length: 01:44:36 Aired: 06/23/05 VEX Inventory Drag bot Al Bayer Length: 01:32:13 Aired: 06/28/05 Square bot Kerry Scharfglass Length: 01:10:44 Aired: 06/30/05 Equilibrium bot Al Bayer Length: 01:30:47 Aired: 07/05/05 Rocker bot
Midterm exam
	David Giandomenico Length: 01:08:53 Aired: 07/12/05 Robot winch design Steve Headley Length: 00:46:04 Aired: 07/14/05 Motion control systems Steve Headley Length: 00:51:53 Aired: 07/19/05 Fluid power Steve Headley Length: 00:46:56 Aired: 07/21/05 Programmable logic units Steve Headley Length: 00:57:11 Aired: 07/26/05 Industrial Electronics and Electricity	The Funky Monkeys FIRST, Team 845 Length: 00:11:08 Aired: 07/14/05 Robot control systems (FIRST) EJ Sabathia Length: 00:12:11 Aired: 07/14/05 Autodesk Inventor demonstration Kerry Scharfglass Length: 00:5:49 Aired: 07/19/05 Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV)	Salvatore Desiano Length: 00:41:25 Aired: 07/12/05 NASA and robotics Lucien Junkin Length: 00:34:43 Aired: 07/19/05 Space and robotics Dr. Jennifer Rochlis Length: 00:31:16 Aired: 07/21/05 Scout project Nicolaus Radford Lucien Junkin Length: 00:42:43 Aired: 07/26/05 Robonaut	Al Bayer Length: 01:09:34 Aired: 07/12/05 Trike bot Al Bayer Length: 00:58:19 Aired: 07/14/05 Chopper bot John Zhu Length: 01:24:31 Aired: 07/19/05 Maxx-bot Kerry Scharfglass Length: 01:48:42 Aired: 07/21/05 Steer bot Al Bayer Length: 01:13:11 Aired: 07/26/05 Truck bot
Final exam

NOTE: This course consists of approximately 30 hours of video

The course is divided into five main video sections, to be viewed at your own pace. Each session includes a concepts lecture, guest lecture from engineers at NASA, and a laboratory section during which you will build different models of VEX robots.

*Students that are within the California, Palo Alto Unified School District, Fremont Union High School District, and the Mountain View-Los Gatos District will automatically receive 3 units of credit for this course.

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Curator: Drew Price
NASA Official: Mark Leon
Last Updated: July 4, 2009
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