This paper argues that training of future Roboticists and Robotics Engineers in Computer Science departments, requires the extensive direct work with real robots, and that this educational mission will be negatively impacted when access to robotics learning laboratories is curtailed. This is exactly the problem that Robotics Labs encountered in early 2020, at the start of the Covid pandemic. The paper then turns to the description of a remote/virtual robotics teaching laboratory and examines in detail what that would mean, what the benefits would be, and how it may be used. Part of this vision was implemented at our institution during 2020 and has been in constant use since then. The specific architecture and implementation, as far as it has been built, is described. The exciting insight in the conclusion is that the work that was encouraged and triggered by a pandemic seems to have very positive longer-term benefits of increasing access to robotics education, increasing the ability of any one institution to scale their robotics education greatly, and potentially do this while reducing costs.
翻译:本文认为,在计算机科学部门培训未来的机器人学家和机器人工程师需要与真正的机器人开展广泛的直接工作,而当机器人学习实验室的使用减少时,这一教育任务将受到负面影响。这正是机器人实验室在2020年初Covid大流行开始时遇到的问题。本文接着谈到远程/虚拟机器人教学实验室的描述,并详细探讨这将意味着什么、什么好处和如何使用。这一愿景的一部分于2020年在本机构实施,此后一直在不断使用。描述了具体的结构和实施,直至其建成为止。结论中令人振奋的洞察力是,由大流行病鼓励和引发的工作似乎具有非常积极的长期效益,即增加获得机器人教育的机会,提高任何一个机构大幅扩大机器人教育规模的能力,并有可能同时降低成本。