This class serves as an introduction to medical robotics for early high school level students taught over a 3 week period. The class was given in January 2016 and 2017 at Harpeth Hall in Nashville TN during that school's "winterim" three-week extra class period. 9th and 10th grade girls were instructed for 80 minutes every day for a total of 14 classes, including one trip to the ARMA lab at Vanderbilt University.

The goals of this education activity are:

1. To provide students with relevance to the mathematics and trigonometry concepts learned in class. This is achieved via an example of solving the position analysis equations for a planar parallel robot. 
2. To introduce students to medical robotics and to provide basic information about minimally invasive surgery and the role of robotics in assisting surgeons.
3. To introduce students with basic concepts about robotics and to do this via a classroom activity involving programming using Arduino.   

On this page, you can find links to the different kinds of materials used in instruction and preparation.

Technical Report:

• Click here to download a comprehensive report about this education activity.

Lecture Notes:

• Introduction to Robotics
• Introduction to Medical Robotics
• Arduino usage
• Electricity and Electronics
• Motors (including arduino lab work)
• Geometry/trigonometry review
• Parallel robot inverse kinematics
• Famous Mathematical Curves (choose a shape to draw)

Handouts:

• Evolution of Robotics
• Binary number overview handout
• Analog-to-digital conversion practice .

Arduino Code Overview

Robot Files:

• Parts, arduino code, orders, and Simulator 

Course Plan:

• day-by-day course overview

Videos:

• Calibration Instructions:

 

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