BE 107, Spring 2015: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 22:32, 5 March 2015

BE 107: Exploring Biological Principles Through Bio-Inspired Design

Instructors

Michael Dickinson (BBE), flyman@caltech.edu
Richard Murray (CDS/BE), murray@cds.caltech.edu
Chris Kempes (CMS/GPS), ckempes@gmail.com
Floris van Breugel (BE), floris@caltech.edu
Lectures: TuTh, 10:30-12, location TBD
Office hours: by appointment

Teaching Assistants

David Flicker (ME)
Melissa Tanner (ME)
Lab session: Wed, 7-10 pm, location TBD
Open lab hours: Mon, 1-4 pm, location TBD

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.

@@ Line 107: / Line 107: @@
 === Collaboration Policy ===
-Collaboration on homework assignments is encouraged. You may  consult outside reference materials, other students, the TA, or the instructor.  Use of solutions from previous years in the course or from other external sources is not allowed.  All solutions that are handed should reﬂect your understanding of the subject matter at the time of writing.
+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.
-You can use MATLAB, Mathematica or a similar programs, but you must show the steps that would be required to obtain your answers by hand (to make sure you understand the techniques).
+Final projects collaborative.
-No collaboration is allowed on the ﬁnal exam.  You will also not be allowed to use computers, but the problems should be such that extensive computation is not required.
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