General Information

Instructor: Deepak Kumar, 248 Park Hall, 526-7485
E-Mail: dkumar@cs.brynmawr.edu
WWW: http://cs.brynmawr.edu/~dkumar

Lecture Hours: Tuesdays & Thursdays, 2:30 p.m. to 4:00.m.
Room: Park 338
Robot Building Lab: TBA in Room Park 230

Laboratories:

• The Robotics & Artificial Intelligence Lab (Park 230)
• PC Lab Room 232 (Science Building)

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Texts & Software

• Artificial Intelligence: A New Synthesis, by Nils Nilsson, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 1998.
• Building Small Robots, Lab Manual by Deepak Kumar, Bryn Mawr College, 2002.
• Course Wiki

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Important Dates

Septermber 3: First lecture
October 8: Exam 1
November 14: Exam 2
December 10: Last lecture
December 12: Exam 3

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Assignments

1. Due Monday September 9 by 4:00 p.m.: Write a short (no more than 1 printed page) reaction to Week 1's readings, class discussion, and the movie. Post it under your name on the course wiki (weekly written work).
2. Due Monday September 16 by 4:00 p.m.: Write a short (no more than 1 printed page) reaction to Week 2's readings and class discussion. Post it under your name on the course wiki (weekly written work).
3. Due Monday September 23 (by 4:00 p.m.): Write a short (no more than 1 page) reaction to Week 3's readings, class discussion, and the lab. Post it under your name on the course wiki (weekly written work).
4. Due Monday September 30 (by 4:00 p.m.): Write a short (no more than 1 page) reaction to Week 4's readings, class discussion, and the lab. Post it under your name on the course wiki (weekly written work).
5. Due Monday October 7 (by 4:00 p.m.): Write a short (no more than 1 page) reaction to Week 5's readings, class discussion, and the lab. Post it under your name on the course wiki (weekly written work).
6. Due Monday October 21 (by 4:00 p.m.): Write a short (no more than 1 page) reaction to Week 6's readings, class discussion, and the lab. Post it under your name on the course wiki (weekly written work).
7. Due Monday October 28 (by 10:00 p.m.): Write a short (no more than 1 page) reaction to Week 6's readings, class discussion, and the lab. Post it under your name on the course wiki (weekly written work).
8. Due Monday November 4, (by 4:00 p.m.): Write a short (no more than 1 page) reaction to Week 9's readings, class discussion, and the lab. Post it under your name on the course wiki (weekly written work).
9. Programming Project (Due on Thursday, November 21): Implement a program to play the game of Konane. Details: click here
10. Final Project: Make sure you submit your proposal/idea for the final project by tuesday, November 5.
11. Due Monday November 11, (by 4:00 p.m.): Write a short (no more than 1 page) reaction to Week 10's readings, class discussion, and the lab. Post it under your name on the course wiki (weekly written work).
12. Due Monday November 18, (by 4:00 p.m.): Write a short (no more than 1 page) reaction to Week 11's readings, class discussion, and the lab. Post it under your name on the course wiki (weekly written work).
13. Due Monday November 25, (by 4:00 p.m.): Write a short (no more than 1 page) reaction to Week 12's readings, class discussion, and the lab. Post it under your name on the course wiki (weekly written work).
14. Due Tuesday December 3, (by 9:00 a.m.): Write a short (no more than 1 page) reaction to Week 13's readings, class discussion, and the lab. Post it under your name on the course wiki (weekly written work).
15. Due Monday December 9, (by 4:00 p.m.): Write a short (no more than 1 page) reaction to Week 14's readings, class discussion, and the lab. Also your reactions on the whole semester. Post it under your name on the course wiki (weekly written work).

Responses

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week4 | Week 5 | Week6 | Week8 | Week9 | Week10 | Week11 | Week12 | Week 13 | Week14+Course

Robot Laboratory Handouts

Lab1, Lab2, Lab3, Lab4, Lab5, Lab6

Robot Laboratory Groups (Home Pages)

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Lectures

• Week 1 (September 3, 5)
  September 3: First Meeting. What is Artificial Intelligence? Course Overview.
  September 5: Today, we will watch the movie, The Thinking Machine, Carousel Films (1961).
  Read: Chapter 1 from Nilsson.
  Also read Artificial Intelligence by Stuart Shapiro. You will get this handout in class today.
  Additionally, pay a visit to AAAI's (American Association for Artificial Intelligence) Overview of AI web pages. There is a lot of stuff here to read in one sitting. Try and read at least a couple of the entries. As you walk the "computing" hallway (where Deepak's office is... along with other computer science labs), stop and read the posters on the debate, "Can machines think?".
  

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• Week 2 (September 10, 12)
  September 10: Discussion: Overview of agents. Stimulus-Response agents. Boolean Logic, Production Systems, GridWorld.
  Lab Assignment: See Lab 1. Charge your Handy Board. Read the IC Manual and initialize the board.
  Note: The thursday classes will meet from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. to accomodate the robot b uilding lab. Also, all future class meetings will be in the Robot Lab (Room 230).
  September 12: Stimulus-Response Agents. Boolean Algebra, Production Systems, Subsumption Architectures.
  Due Monday September 16 by 4:00 p.m.: Write a short (no more than 1 printed page) reaction to Week 2's readings and class discussion. Post it under your name on the course wiki (weekly written work).
  

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• Week 3 (September 17, 19)
  September 17: Threshold Logic Units. Neural Networks: an introduction. Perceptrons.
  Video Demo (in lecture): Using perceptron learning to respond to light.
  Visit an interactive online lesson on Perceptrons.
  Lab Assignment: See Lab 2.
  September 19: Adaline. Delta-Rule. Gradient Descent Learning.
  Read: Chapter 3 from Nilsson.
  Assignment: Due Monday September 23 (by 4:00 p.m.): Write a short (no more than 1 page) reaction to Week 3's readings, class discussion, and the lab. Post it under your name on the course wiki (weekly written work).

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• Week 4 (September 24, 26)
  September 24: Backpropagation networks. Generalized delta-rule.
  Demo: NetTalk.
  September 26: Adding momentum to Backprop. Elman Nets. Evolutionary Algorithms: Genetic algorithms, genetic programming. Evolving neural nets using GA's.
  Video: ACB News Nightline: Machines Like Us
  Assignment: Due Monday September 30 (by 4:00 p.m.): Write a short (no more than 1 page) reaction to Week 4's readings, class discussion, and the lab. Post it under your name on the course wiki (weekly written work).
  Lab Assignment: See Lab 3.

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• Week 5 (October 1, 3)
  October 1: Examples of Genetic Algorithms. Evolving neural nets using GA's.
  Demo: Evorob software. Evolving a neural net to do obstacle avoidance on a robot.
  October 3: Genetic Algorithms. Introduction to search spaces (Missionaries & Cannibals). Iconic memory.
  Due Monday October 7 (by 4:00 p.m.): Write a short (no more than 1 page) reaction to Week 5's readings, class discussion, and the lab. Post it under your name on the course wiki (weekly written work).
  Lab Assignment: See Lab4.
  

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• Week 6 (October 8, 10)
  October 8: Exam 1 is today.
  October 10: Maze solver demos. Exam 1 review. Subsumption Architectures.
  Due Monday October 21 (by 4:00 p.m.): Write a short (no more than 1 page) reaction to Week 6's readings, class discussion, and the lab. Post it under your name on the course wiki (weekly written work).
  Lab Assignment: See Lab5.
  

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• Week 7 (October 15, 17)
  No classes, Fall Break!!

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• Week 8 (October 22, 24)
  October 22: Agents that plan: Search spaces, blind search: depth-first, breadth-first, iterative deepening searches.
  Read: Chapters 7 & 8 from Nilsson.
  Lab: See Lab6
  October 24: Heuristic & Optimal Searches: Hill Climbing, Best-First, Branch & Bound (Uniform Cost), A*.
  Read: Chapter 9 from Nilsson.
  Due Monday October 28 (by 10:00 p.m.): Write a short (no more than 1 page) reaction to Week 8's readings, class discussion, and the lab. Post it under your name on the course wiki (weekly written work).
  Special Lunch: Meet Kimberly Blessing, Computer Science class of 1997, currently working at AOL. She will be talking about technology careers. Also she will provide food/lunch. In room 232 (or 230 as a backup) from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
  

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• Week 9 (October 29, 31)
  October 29: Adversarial Search. The Minimax Procedure.
  Read: Chapter 12 from Nilsson.
  October 31: Final demos of robot in a maze/coral seeking light. Writing Game Playing programs. Doing pruning in the MINIMAX algorithm.
  Programming Project (Due on Thursday, November 21): Implement a program to play the game of Konane. Details: click here
  Final Project: Make sure you submit your proposal/idea for the final project by tuesday, November 4.
  Due Monday November 4, (by 4:00 p.m.): Write a short (no more than 1 page) reaction to Week 9's readings, class discussion, and the lab. Post it under your name on the course wiki (weekly written work).
  

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• Week 10 (November 5, 7)
  November 5: Alpha-Beta Pruning. Playing a game of Konane: Discovering Konane heuristics and intricacies of game playing programs.
  Read: Chapter 12 from Nilsson.
  November 7: Agents that reason. Introduction to Logic. What is a logic? Propositional Calculus.
  Read: Chapter 13 fron Nilsson.
  Due Monday November 11, (by 4:00 p.m.): Write a short (no more than 1 page) reaction to Week 10's readings, class discussion, and the lab. Post it under your name on the course wiki (weekly written work).
  Reminder: All final project descriptions should be posted on the Final Project Wiki as soon as possible.
  

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• Week 11 (November 12, 14)
  November 12: Resolution in Propositional Calculus. Converting wffs into clause form.
  Read: Chapter 14 from Nilsson.
  November 14: Exam 2 is today.
  Due Monday November 18, (by 4:00 p.m.): Write a short (no more than 1 page) reaction to Week 11's readings, class discussion, and the lab. Post it under your name on the course wiki (weekly written work).
  

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• Week 12 (November 19, 21)
  November 19: Discussion. Status of Konane programs. Forst-Order Predicate Calculus. Knowledge Representation.
  November 21: Review of Exam 2. Reasoning in FOPC: Resolution. Tell-Ask systems. Forward and backward chaining.
  Due Monday November 25, (by 4:00 p.m.): Write a short (no more than 1 page) reaction to Week 12's readings, class discussion, and the lab. Post it under your name on the course wiki (weekly written work).
  

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• Week 13 (November 26, 28)
  November 26: Konane Tournament.
  November 28: No class. Happy Thanksgiving!!
  Due Monday December 3, (by 4:00 p.m.): Write a short (no more than 1 page) reaction to Week 13's readings, class discussion, and the lab. Post it under your name on the course wiki (weekly written work).
  

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• Week 14 (December 3, 5)
  December 3: Language and Communication: The structure of english; Syntax and semantics; architecture of a natural language system; parsing; RTN's.
  December 5: Snow day. Today we got 8 inches of snow. The Blue Bus service was stopped and class had to be cancelled. :-(
  
• Due Monday December 9, (by 4:00 p.m.): Write a short (no more than 1 page) reaction to Week 14's readings, class discussion, and the lab. Also your reactions on the whole semester. Post it under your name on the course wiki (weekly written work).
  

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• Week 15 (December 10, 12)
  December 10: Wrap up!
  December 12: Exam 3 is today. Final project Demos/presentations are today!
  

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Grading

All graded work will receive a grade, 4.0, 3.7, 3.3, 3.0, 2.7, 2.3, 2.0, 1.7, 1.3, 1.0, or 0.0. At the end of the semester, final grades will be calculated as a weighted average of all grades according to the following weights:

Exam 1: 15%
Exam 2: 15%
Exam 3: 15%
Labs: 45%
Written Work: 10%
Total: 100%

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Links

An Overview of AI (from AAAI's web pages)

Created by dkumar@cs.brynmawr.edu on August28, 2002.