Proposal

Name:

Robots for Capstone Engineering Design Courses

FiscalYear:

2016

Audience:

Engineering and Computer Science, College of

Submitter:

Zhuang, Hanqi

Budget Manager:

Asseff, Lynn G.

Project Manager:

Weinthal, C.

Proposal Approvers

Dept. Chair:

Erdol, Nurgun

Local IT:

N/A

Dean:

Ilyas, Mohammad

Facilities:

N/A

OIT:

Bagdonas, Joseph A.

Proposal Funding

Year 1:

$ 16,500.00

Year 2:

$ 0.00

Year 3:

$ 0.00

Total:

$ 16,500.00

Proposal Funding versus Average

Questionnaire

Narrative
The department of computer and electrical engineering and computer science is expanding its senior design course sequence (engineering design 1 and 2) drastically, to include computer science students in the coming academic year. This tech fee proposal seeks funds to purchase two NAO humanoid robots. By adding these robots to the classroom will help computer science students to sharpen their design and coding skills greatly, which will in turn make them more employable upon their graduation. The additional two NAO robots will be used together with the two existing ones obtained using an NSF grant on the same topic. With four humanoid robots, senior design students from computer and electrical engineering and computer science students can work in groups to design projects, say, for improving the quality of daily living of seniors and people with disability. NAO robots are humanoid robots equipped with sensors for vision, voice, touch, and more. These robots can perform variety of tasks that support seniors both physically and emotionally. For instance, these robots can be programed to seek objects, pick up them and handle over to someone upon request. They can talk, sing, and dance. The rich library of functions, the open architecture with supporting groups in the internet and the user-friendly software development make these robots ideal platforms for both engineering and computer science students to work on challenging senior design projects. We expect that our department will have more than 250 students each year being enrolled in the senior design course sequence in our department. The robots have at least a 5-year life span. Therefore these can potentially benefit more than 1000 senior design students in the department.
Facilities
No.
Hardware Requirements
We have two NAO robots. We request to purchase two additional ones so we will have a sufficient number of robots to serve the expanded senior design course sequence (engineering design 1 and 2) in our department. The 2 robots costs $16,000.
Software Requirements
The company will provide basic software tools. We will also need to purchase a 5-user software license for advanced software project development, which costs $500. 
Personnel Costs
No.
Other Costs
No.
Timeline

The project period is from May 1, 2017 to April 2022.  The requested hardware and software will serve all senior design students in the Department of Computer and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. We expect to have these robots available for summer 2017. These robots have a life span of approximately 5 years.  

Sustainability
We plan to write NSF educational proposals based on the experience gained from the senior design courses. We also hope that once our projects are demonstrated in the annual Tech Runway project showcase, companies will be interested in the projects and donate funds for us to purchase these robots

Resource Matching
We have two NAO robots now in the lab. These robots are purchased with funds from a National Science Foundation grant.
Implementing Organization
Department of Computer and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, College of Engineering and Computer Science.

Proposal Budget

Fiscal Year 1 Fiscal Year 2 Fiscal Year 3 Total
Hardware One-Time $ 16,000.00 $ 0.00 $ 0.00 $ 16,000.00
Hardware Recurring $ 0.00 $ 0.00 $ 0.00 $ 0.00
Software One-time $ 500.00 $ 0.00 $ 0.00 $ 500.00
Software Recurring $ 0.00 $ 0.00 $ 0.00 $ 0.00
Personnel One-time $ 0.00 $ 0.00 $ 0.00 $ 0.00
Personnel Recurring $ 0.00 $ 0.00 $ 0.00 $ 0.00
Other One-time $ 0.00 $ 0.00 $ 0.00 $ 0.00
Other Recurring $ 0.00 $ 0.00 $ 0.00 $ 0.00
Totals $ 16,500.00 $ 0.00 $ 0.00 $ 16,500.00

Supporting Documentation

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