Teaching and Outreach

Our lab takes part in many student activities: we teach courses at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, we advise the Harvard-MIT RoboCup Team, and we enjoy taking part in outreach for middle and high-school students throughout Cambridge.

STEM Outreach
Robot Soccer Competition and RFC Cambridge Club

Courses:

Wyss Article on Outreach

Outreach

Favorite quote from a middle schooler: "Thank you for showing us the cricket robot. I am going to build my own and maybe I could show you!"

Our lab uses inspiration from nature to design computing and robotic systems. We enjoy presenting our work to K-12 students and getting them excited about science and engineering. We have several non-technical presentations and robot demonstrations that can travel to a school or event, and we can also host short lab tours in our lab. Although we are a small lab, we try to do a few outreach events every semester and we are especially interested in reaching minorities that are underrepresented in engineering. If you are interested in having students visit the lab, or us bringing a workshop to you, contact Radhika by email.

Spring Events

Cambridge Science Festival: Bioinspired Robotics! Sat May 7, 12-4pm
Science Carnival at Cambridge Public Library, 499 Broadway: Lots of cool science to see. Stop by our booth to check out cool work from both the Harvard Microrobotics Lab and the Self-organizing Systems Research Group. Wondering what all that actually means? Come find out! From robotic bees that easily fit on your fingertip to groups of robots that work together like ants or termites, we have a fascinating array of robots for you to see. Bring the whole family! website
Cambridge Science Festival: Bots That Mimic Bugs! Sun May 1, 12:30-2:30
At Walker Memorial Building, MIT, 142 Memorial Drive: Come see a family-friendly presentation about biologically-inspired robotics, including cool pictures and videos of flying, crawling and squishy robots in action! Stick around after the talk and we'll break up into smaller groups for several hands-on activities - get a chance to drive, play and even build some of the robots yourself. website
Robot Block Party: Boston Museum of Science, Saturday April 16th, 10am-4pm
Join us and many other robotics companies and labs at this event celebrating National Robotics Week at the Boston Museum of Science. This event was a big success last year and we look forward to it again this year. More details can be found at the museum's website.
Insect Planet: Harvard Museum of Natural History, Saturday March 5th, 9am-5pm
Come see and drive our insect-inspired robots in this family-oriented event at the Harvard Museum of Natural History. (wyss article)

Other events we have taken part in:

Women and Technology Program at MIT (Summer Program for High-School Girls); LeadAmerica Robotics Engineering Program; Citizen's School Apprenticeship Program; Grace Hopper Conference on Computing for Women; Harvard REU (Research Experience for Undergrads) and RET (Research Experience for Teachers) Programs.

Robot Soccer Competition and RFC Cambridge

To advance research in artificial intelligence and robotics, the International Robocup Competition was started in 1994. The grand challenge is to create an Autonomous Robot Team that can defeat the WorldCup human team in 2050. To tackle this multi-faceted problem, there are several leagues that focus on different aspects of the problem. The small-size league focuses on robust robot design (teams design and build their own robots) and multi-robot cooperation in highly dynamic and adversarial environments. What makes RoboCup most exciting is that once the game starts, the robots must make decisions themselves - the humans who programmed the teams do not control them.

RFC Cambridge is a joint Harvard-MIT team composed primarily of undergraduates, from many disciplines (mechanical, electrical, and computer science), who all share in their joy of designing and programming robots. Since 2006, the RFC group has participated every year in the Small-Size League with robots and AI software that has been designed by its members. Our group members have been featured in lots of places, e.g. Cartoon Network and most recently the front page of the Boston Globe.

RFC and HCES (Harvard College Engineering Society) are continuing their team effort in the small-size league -- our most recent 2010 team managed to tie Gatech and beat UBC. Send us email if you are interested and come see our soccer field in the third floor lounge of the Maxwell-Dworkin building!

Front Page Article, Boston Globe (March 2010): The article discusses many interesting challenges in autonomous robotics, with quotes from RFC members Svilen Kanev and Alexei Colin. The website also has some nice movies of the robots shooting goals.
Cartoon Network Movie Segment (from 2006) on Robocup, featuring many members from the very first RFC Cambridge competition team.