An International Study Of Robotics Courses In The Computer Science/Engineering Curriculum

Robots are great motivation tools for teaching different concepts in engineering as well as computer science. Many courses involve simple robot construction and its programming. Theses robots usually contain a microcontroller, a few sensors, motors, and a body. These courses are excellent vehicles for teaching engineering concepts and they tend to be dominated by hardware concepts. This paper will discuss whether such a course is adequate for computer engineering area of specialization in a computer science department. In our computer science department, there are four areas of specialization. These four areas of specializations are computer science, software engineering, networking, and computer engineering. In this curriculum, the students matriculate into the CNS department after successfully completing the requirements of 30 hours of core courses common to all computer science students. The students continue taking core courses until the first semester of their junior year, when they begin choosing their electives from different specialization areas. This paper will address the question of what type of robotics course is adequate for computer engineering area of specialization in a computer science department by doing a national and an international survey of computer science and computer engineering curriculums. The intention is to see if robotics courses are offered and what the contents of those courses are. Also see if there are differences in the course content of a computer science robotics course versus a computer engineering robotics course.