#2.151

This year is the last hurrah! I can't believe three years passed by so quickly. I'm now officially a senior. 

This fall, I only need two more classes to graduate:1 Social Science class and 2.009, Product design class. Still, I signed up for a few more classes before I end my undergraduate career.

2.12: Introduction to Robotics: 

This year, the term project is called "Wearable Robotics." More specifically, it's creating an exoskeleton to give a mannequin the ability to walk. How freaking exciting. 

I really don't know why it's called "Introduction to Robotics" because quite honestly, the class is full of high level nasty math describing even the most basics of robotics.

The text reads "This book was originally written for graduate-level courses."

Day 1 was deriving the differential equation of motors. 

Day 2 was Jacobian matrices and kinematics of a 2 wheel drive.

Day 3 and beyond? statics, energy method, compliance, impedance control, etc etc. See how involved it is?

2.009 Product Engineering Process

Form a team of 20 and make a product. But wait! Before you get there, let's do a very big detour to teach you product engineering process.

It's one of MIT's most famous classes. Many of the previous team's projects turn into patents, actual products, and even companies. (http://web.mit.edu/2.009/www/index.html)

Super exciting. But there's a lot of work involved. Already, I think I spent > 16 hours in this class this week. I'm quite worried as to how much more I'll have to spend in the next few weeks.

2.S994/2.S997: Biomimetics, Biomechanics, Bio-Inspired Robots

Taught by SungBae Kim, creator of MIT's Cheetah Robot ( http://biomimetics.mit.edu:8100/wordpress/videos/). He's a super cool professor, and quite honestly after two lectures from him, I can tell it's going to be an awesome semester.

Already, I've learned so much from his class, and I'll learn so much more. It's the first class he's teaching, so I know that he's really willing to dedicate as much time into it as possible. Here's to Biology inspiring mechanical design!

The final project involves creating some bio-inspired robot. It'd be interesting as there is no specific guideline as to what the robot has to be.

2.151: Advanced System Dynamics and Linear Control

More applied math! I have found my ideal math and mechE intersection. It lies under this thing called controls. For the majority part of my robotics career, most of my controls knowledge has been pretty conventional: PID, poles, zeroes, bode plots, etc. 2.151 has the more modern approach dealing with state-spaces and linear algebra.

I'm super thrilled about this class since it specifically addresses modeling different types of systems and attempting to control them.

Like my other 3 classes, it has a final project, but it's more theoretical than anything.

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It's a lot of classes with multiple final projects. I understand what I'm putting myself through, but at the same time I'm super excited than ever. All the culminated knowledge from the past three years will be put to the test.