BE 107, Spring 2015: Difference between revisions
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=== Collaboration Policy === | === Collaboration Policy === | ||
Collaboration on | Collaboration on lab work is encouraged. All lab writeups that are handed should reflect your understanding of the lab work and results at the time of writing. | ||
Final projects collaborative. | |||
[[Category:Courses]] | [[Category:Courses]] |
Revision as of 22:32, 5 March 2015
BE 107: Exploring Biological Principles Through Bio-Inspired Design | |
Instructors
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Teaching Assistants
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Course Description
Students will formulate and implement an engineering project desired to explore a biological principle or property that is exhibited in nature. Students will work in small teams in which they build a hardware platform that is motivated by a biological example in which a given approach or architecture is used to implement a given behavior. Alternatively, the team will construct new experimental instruments in order to test for the presence of an engineering principle in a biological system. Example topics include bio-inspired control of motion (from bacteria to insects), processing of sensory information (molecules to neurons), and robustness/fault-tolerance. Each project will involve proposing a specific mechanism to be explored, designing an engineering system that can be used to demonstrate and evaluate the mechanism, and building a computer-controlled, electro-mechanical system in the lab that implements or characterizes the proposed mechanism, behavior or architecture.
Lecture Schedule
Date | Topic | Reading | Homework |
Week 1
- Tue lecture (31 Mar): Motivation (bio and engineering; 60m) + class logistics (30m) - Michael and Richard
- Michael: 15 min class motivation and then 30 min on cool biology
- Richard: 30 min on cool engineering, then 15 min on class logistics
- Wed lab session #1, 7-10 pm
- Thu lecture (2 Apr): Programming concepts - Richard?
- HW out on Tue, due following Tue
- Lab hours on Mon, 1-4 pm
Week 2 (RMM out of town on Wed-Fri)
- Tue lecture (7 Apr): Mechanical design and fabrication - Floris? (or Joel B?)
- Wed lab session #2, 7-10 pm: Solid works, laser cutter
- Thu lecture (9 Apr): Biomechanics - Michael (or Chris)
- HW out on Tue, due following Tue
- Lab hours on Mon, 1-4 pm
Week 3 (RMM out of town on Mon-Thu)
- Tue lecture (14 Apr): Electrical design, sensing and actuation - TAs?
- Wed lab session, 7-10 pm
- Thu lecture (16 Apr): Animal sensors/actuators - Michael
- HW out on Tue, due following Tue
- Lab hours on Mon, 1-4 pm
Week 4 (MHD out of town all week, RMM might be out of town on Thu)
- Tue lecture (21 Apr): Control systems - Richard
- Wed lab session, 7-10 pm
- Thu lecture (23 Apr): Feedback principles in biology - Floris, with input from Michael
- HW out on Tue, due following Tue
- Lab hours on Mon, 1-4 pm
Week 5
- Tue lecture (28 Apr): Image processing - Pietro? (or Floris)
- Wed lab session, 7-10 pm: Arduino
- Thu lecture (30 Apr): Animal vision systems - Michael
- HW out on Tue, due following Tue
- Lab hours on Mon, 1-4 pm
Week 6
- Tue lecture (5 May): estimation - Richard
- Include things that might mirror what nature does (eg, DGC)
- Kalman filtering; use in avoiding higher order derivatives
- Wed lab session, 7-10 pm: tracking
- Thu lecture (7 May): animal behavior - Michael
- HW out on Tue, due following Tue
- Lab hours on Mon, 1-4 pm
Week 7
- Tue lecture (12 May): Systems design - Richard
- Lab hours on Wed, 7-10 pm
- Thu lecture (14 May): Evolution - Chris
- Lab hours on Mon, 1-4 pm
Week 8
- Tue lecture (19 May): Robotics/autonomy - Richard
- Could also be a talk on bioinspired control algorithms - Floris
- Lab hours on Wed, 7-10 pm
- Thu lecture (21 May): Experiment design - Michael (or Chris, but likely to be out of town)
- This could be swapped with animal navigation lecture
- Lab hours on Mon, 1-4 pm
Week 9
- Tue lecture (26 May): Frontiers I: engineering - Richard
- Lab hours on Wed, 7-10 pm
- Thu lecture (28 May): Frontiers II: biology - Michael
- Lab hours on Mon, 1-4 pm
Grading
The final grade will be based on homework and a final exam:
- Lab reports (40%) - There will be 6 one-week labs, with a lab writeup (wiki page, with data) due no later than Tuesday at 10:30 am (start of class). Late writeups will not be accepted without prior permission from the instructors.
- Final project (40%) - The last three weeks of the course will be used to implement a project the demonstrates the principles and tools that are covered in the course. Students will work in groups of 2-3, with a single grade assigned to the group.
- Class/lab participation (20%) - Students will be assigned by the lecturers and TAs based on their participation in class discussions and lab sessions.
Collaboration Policy
Collaboration on lab work is encouraged. All lab writeups that are handed should reflect your understanding of the lab work and results at the time of writing.
Final projects collaborative.