This was an introduction meeting.
These are the slides we showed:
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Read about Duckietown's history and watch the Duckumentary.
Start learning about Git and Github.
Montreal, Chicago? What's happening?
These are the slides we presented:
a - Autonomous Vehicles: Keynote, PDF.
c - Autonomous Mobility on Demand: Keynote, PDF.
d - Plan for the next months: Keynote, PDF.
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Q: MyStudies is not updated; I am still on the waiting list. What should I do?
A: Nothing. Don't worry, if you have received the onboarding email, you are in the class, even if you still appear in the waiting list. We will figure this out with the department.
Q: What version of Linux do I need to install?
A: 16.04.* (16.04.03 is the latest at time of this writing)
Q: Do I need to install OpenCV, ROS, etc.?
A: Not necessary. We will provide instructions for those steps.
Q: My laptop is not ready. I'm having problems installing Linux on a partition.
A: Don't worry, take a Duckie, and, take a breath. We have time to fix every issue. Start by asking for help in the #help-laptops channel in Slack. We will address the outstanding issues in the next classes.
Q: How much space do I need on my Linux partition?
A: At least 50 GB; 200 GB are recommended for easy processing of data (logs) later in the course. If you have less space (say ~100GB), it might be wise to acquire an external hard drive to use as storage.
Q: Are there going to be Linux training sessions?
A: Maybe. We didn't plan for it, but it seems that there is a need. Subject to figuring out the logistics, we might organize an extra "lab" session or produce a support video.
At some late hour of the night, we sent out the onboarding instructions.
Please complete the onboarding questionnaire by Tuesday, September 26, 15:00.
Today we distribute the Duckieboxes and we name the robots. In other words, we perform the Duckiebox ceremony.
- getting to know each other;
- naming the robots;
- distribute the Duckieboxes.
Note: If you cannot make it to this class for the Duckiebox distribution, please inform the TA, to schedule a different time.
Before arriving to class, you must think of a name for your robot.
Here are the constraints:
- The name must work as a hostname. It needs to start with a letter, contains only letters and numbers, and no spaces or punctuation.
- It should be short, easy to type. (You'll type it a lot.)
- It cannot be your own name.
- It cannot be a generic name like "robot", "duckiebot", "car". It cannot contain brand names.
As members of the same community, it is important to get to know a little about each other, so to know who to rely on in times of need.
During the Duckiebox distribution ceremony, you will be asked to walk up to the board, write your name on it, and introduce yourself. Keep it very brief (30 seconds), and tell us:
- what is your professional background and expertise / favorite subject;
- what is the name of your robot;
- why did you choose to name your robot in that way.
You will then receive a Duckiebox from our senior staff, a simple gesture but of sempiternal glory, for which you have now become a member of the Duckietown community. This important moment will be remembered through a photograph. (If in the future you become a famous roboticist, we want to claim it's all our merit.)
Finally, you will bring the Duckiebox to our junior staff, who will apply labels with your name and the name of the robot. They will also give you labels with your robot name for future application on your Duckiebot.
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- Duckiebot parts: PowerPoint presentation, PDF.
We created the channel #ethz-chitchat for questions and other random things, so that we can leave this channel #ethz-announcements only for announcements.
We sent the final list to the Department; so hopefully in a couple of days the situation on MyStudies is regularized.
The "lab" time on Friday consists in an empty room for you to use as you wish, for example to assembe the robots together. In particular, it's on the same floor of the Duckietown room and the IDSC lab.
The instructions for assembling the Duckiebots are here. Note that you don't have to do the parts that we did for you: buying the parts, soldering the boards, and reproducing the image.
Expected progress: We are happy if we see everybody reaching up to by Monday October 9. You are encouraged to start very early; it's likely that you will not receive much help on Sunday October 8...