Guides for getting started
I am a:
Teddy OrtPh. D. Student, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Manfred DiazPh. D. Student, University of Montreal
Matthew WalterProfessor, Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago (TTIC)
Getting started for Duckietown instructors
Vision
The Duckietown platform contains everything you need to teach an undergraduate or graduate level class on AI and robotics; from the off-the-shelf hardware plans, open source software, to the weekly lecture materials.
The materials can be used in two ways:
- Class materials – you use the platform and associated education materials to teach a class on robot autonomy.
- As an experimental platform – where the hardware and software are used as the laboratory component of another class.
Development of the “class-in-a-box”
What the “class-in-a-box” will include:
- Slides, lecture videos (for inspiration or flipped classroom), Python notebooks.
- Lecture notes;
- Exercises;
- Robot-centered activities and demos;
- An instructor’s guide;
About the community
If you bring Duckietown to your institution, your students will be joining a fun, global community, which includes worldwide collaboration and competition!
Next steps
- Take a look at all the resources that we have available to make building your class as smooth as possible
- You can order hardware kits.
Research using Duckietown
Vision
We designed Duckietown to be a modular, inexpensive research platform for studying autonomy in complex systems. Think of it as an “experimental simulator”.
Value proposition
We provide a baseline implementation for you to be able to rapidly and easily test your algorithms on real physical hardware.
- Convenience: You can only change the part that interests you and use the rest of the baselines to have a fully functional system.
- Reproducibility: Your research has a high impact since it uses a standard platform that others can easily replicate. For maximum impact, compete in an AI Driving Olympics (AI-DO).
Tools for research
- Imitation learning template
- Reinforcement learning template
- Database of Duckiebot driving logs
- Duckiebot driving simulator
- Modularized code (ROS baseline template)
- Low cost, standardized robots and smart city environment
- An international embodied AI competition: the Artificial Intelligence Driving Olympics (AI-DO)
Current users
Please tell us about your research with Duckietown so that we can include it in the list.
Next steps
- Check out the documentation in the Duckiebook
- Start testing or training your algorithms with our templates, logs, simulator
- Get the hardware
Learn autonomy with Duckietown
You are a makademic if you want to learn and build on your own, outside of an educational institution, and also want a deep understanding of how things are working.
We provide a unique hands-on learning experience suitable for Makademics, and an international community to bounce off ideas with.
All the materials are available at minimal cost. We can help you get a kit.
Next Steps
- If you are a university student, the best case is to find an instructor at your institution who will teach the course.
- Take a look at all the learning resources we have as well as our Duckiebook
- Here’s the quick start and webinars
- Get the hardware
- Need help? File a github issue or join the slack community
