Welcome to the course
Professor Richard Mitchell gives an overview of what will be covered on Begin Robotics, a free online course by the University of Reading.
This video will introduce you to the topics we’ll be covering over the next four weeks, and what you’ll need to do to get started. Transcripts are available for all videos and are located just underneath the video on each page. If you’re new to FutureLearn, why not familiarise yourself with the Using FutureLearn section.
Please be aware that this video and some others in the course, contains a sequence of flashing/flickering lights which might affect Learners who are susceptible to photosensitive epilepsy.
The team You may find that you come up against some challenges in the course. Following the FutureLearn profiles of our team will make it easier for you to find the advice they have given in response to similar queries. Follow our educators:
Your mentor, Jason Dookarun will be supporting the discussions found at the end of each Step between 28 June and 25th July. You can ‘follow’ him to see his responses to other Learners; you just need to view his profile and click the ‘Follow’ button. By following a profile, any comments made will appear in your activity feed, which you can filter by selecting ‘Following’.
Jason will aim to answer your questions where he can but we can’t promise that he’ll be able to respond to everyone.
Get extra benefits, upgrade your course If you’d like to, you now have the option to upgrade this course which includes:
Acknowledgements We’d like to include a special thanks here to Microchip for generously allowing us to use their film studio, located at their European Headquarters based in Wokingham in the UK, to record Richard’s introductory videos for each week of the course. Microchip also provide the microcontroller and analogue parts that we use within our ERIC robot, designed and built specifically for this course. Thanks also go to Paul Minchinton, for designing ERIC and for his work with Steve Gould for the ROVER robot. We also would like to mention Ally Barrow who implemented the Escher inspired figure.
Introduce yourself Tell us something about yourself and get to know some of your classmates in the comment area. Who are you? Why are you taking the course? What sparked your interest in robotics? Share your thoughts below and have a look at other comments. You can ‘Like’ and reply to other Learners’ comments. You can also filter comments to see those that are ‘Most liked’ and find your own by selecting ‘My comments’. If you’re mentioning the course on social media you can follow us on Twitter or Facebook and tag comments with #FLRobotics.
Don’t forget to Mark this Step as complete before moving onto the next Step.
The team You may find that you come up against some challenges in the course. Following the FutureLearn profiles of our team will make it easier for you to find the advice they have given in response to similar queries. Follow our educators:
| Richard Mitchell | Professor of Cybernetics |
| William Harwin | Professor of Interactive & Human Systems |
Get extra benefits, upgrade your course If you’d like to, you now have the option to upgrade this course which includes:
- Unlimited access to the course
- A Certificate of Achievement
Acknowledgements We’d like to include a special thanks here to Microchip for generously allowing us to use their film studio, located at their European Headquarters based in Wokingham in the UK, to record Richard’s introductory videos for each week of the course. Microchip also provide the microcontroller and analogue parts that we use within our ERIC robot, designed and built specifically for this course. Thanks also go to Paul Minchinton, for designing ERIC and for his work with Steve Gould for the ROVER robot. We also would like to mention Ally Barrow who implemented the Escher inspired figure.
Introduce yourself Tell us something about yourself and get to know some of your classmates in the comment area. Who are you? Why are you taking the course? What sparked your interest in robotics? Share your thoughts below and have a look at other comments. You can ‘Like’ and reply to other Learners’ comments. You can also filter comments to see those that are ‘Most liked’ and find your own by selecting ‘My comments’. If you’re mentioning the course on social media you can follow us on Twitter or Facebook and tag comments with #FLRobotics.
Don’t forget to Mark this Step as complete before moving onto the next Step.
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