Instructor

Prof. L. Felipe Perrone
Office: Dana 321B
Phone: 570-577-1687
E-mail: perrone@bucknell.edu
Office hours: open door or by appointment
Web: http://www.eg.bucknell.edu/~perrone

If you look at any email communication received from your instructor, you will find his cell number in the signature block. As Uncle Ben said, “With great power, there comes great responsibility.” Feel free to call or message the instructor when you need to, but keep in mind that you may not receive instant responses and that there is likely to be no responses at all between 8pm and 8am. You can use at texting, WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, and Snapchat for messaging, but the preferred form of communication will be through Discord. (Note that we have a common server for all sections, which you are encouraged to use, but you can also send me private messages.)

When and Where

Location: Dana 319
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 9:00am-9:50am

Office Hours

You are welcome to drop by my office any time. If I am not otherwise engaged, I’ll be happy to talk to you. If you want to make sure that I am there and available at the time of your need, you can either check my online BMail calendar, call, message, or email to make an appointment. Remember that you have my cell number and that you are welcome to contact me when you need.

Course Objectives

This is a seminar style course that aims to develop the students’ broad understanding of areas within human-robot interaction (HRI). Our primary objectives are to develop the abilities to:

1. Survey the research literature in the field and identify material that helps one to answer a research question,
2. Extract working knowledge of a topic to carry out further investigation ,
3. Develop the skills to work with a robotic platform, and
4. Conceptualize and carry out experiments to answer research questions in HRI.

Learning Materials

The textbook that will drive this course is Human-Robot Interaction – An Introduction, by Bartneck, C., Belpaeme, T., Eyssel, F., Kanda, T., Keijsers, M., and Sabanovic, S. Cambridge University Press (2020). At this time, it is freely available at:

https://www.human-robot-interaction.org

A variety of articles and other written materials will be selected from digital libraries such as those from ACM and IEEE.

Course Grade Distribution

Course grades will be assigned only at the end of the semester. Throughout the semester, you can monitor the Moodle grade book to track your progress. 

• 20% Individually completed assignments
• 20% Class presentations
• 45% Team Project 
  • Literature summary (15%)
  • Experimental design (15%)
  • Presentation (15%)
• 15% Engagement 

Final letter grades will be assigned at the end of the semester according to the following scale:

A >= 93% [Superior achievement]

A- >= 90% [Outstanding]

B+ >= 87%, B >= 83%, B- >= 80% [High Pass, Above Average]

C+ >= 77%, C >= 73%, C- >= 70% [Average work, Satisfactory]

D >= 60% [Low Pass]

F < 60% [Unsatisfactory]

Class Presentations

Twice in the semester, each student will be responsible for running a class period together with a partner. When the instructor makes available the list of topics, students will identify partners and self-select into two time slots in the schedule. The expectation is that when students take charge of a class period, they will have built a student-centered learning experience for their colleagues. Partners will meet with the course instructor in advance to outline what they will do for their class periods, so that they are well supported for their personal success and to for delivering a solid learning experience for their colleagues.

Team Project

Working in small groups, students will collaborate on an HRI project of their choosing. The theme of the project will be determined by the team in consultation with the instructor to guarantee that it fits well within the scope and the learning objectives of the course. The project will evolve along three different stages. In the first stage, students will identify a research question of their interest and explore the literature to find material that will support them in working toward answering their research question. The product of this stage will be an annotated bibliography. In the second stage, students will work on designing an experiment to evaluate their research question. The product of this stage will be a written experimental description that presents a reasonable justification for the methods used and a plan showing the viability of the experiment. Finally, in the third stage, the team of students will present the outcome of their experiment to the class. The outcome of this stage will be the presentation, which the instructor will evaluate according to a rubric distributed in advance.

Engagement

How do you comport yourself in class meetings? How do you view your responsibilities in the learning process? Are you making efforts to learn from this opportunity or are you just trying to get by? Do you constrain yourself to the material that is given to you or do you make efforts to go beyond and learn the most you can? Do you complete assigned readings or do you ignore them? How are your interactions with your classmates in class meetings and in team work?

The questions above are a non-exhaustive list of inquiries that lead one to understand how engaged you are in a course. Google Classroom will have an item on the grade book that may fluctuate throughout the semester to reflect the instructor’s assessment of your level of engagement: you are starting out with a B. If you would like to improve this component at any point, your options will include activities beyond those assigned to you. The non-exhaustive list below gives you ideas on what you can do to improve your engagement (if you have other ideas, be sure to run them by the instructor). Each activity completed will account for one-third of a letter grade, so you would need three to raise your engagement to A level. All engagement activities require you to turn in on Google Classroom a 400-500 word summary with a hyperlink to the source:

• Participating in a session in RoboLab;
• Listening to a podcast episode; 
• Reading an article on a topic of your choice;
• Attending a talk on campus or a webinar; 
• Making a contribution to a specific class meeting (talk to the instructor in advance);
• Other ideas previously approved by the instructor.

Each engagement activity must be completed and submitted through Google Classroom by its posted deadline. Note that engagement activities are not optional or extra credit; their completion corresponds to a significant portion of the course grade.

Attendance

Attendance is mandatory and will be taken at the start of the class period. As stated in section “Grades” above, attendance impacts your final course grade. On the other hand, if you are experiencing health problems please understand that you should not come to class. (We all have a shared responsibility to each other to avoid the dissemination of transmissible diseases.) Be sure to notify the instructor if you must be absent for any reason. If you need a deadline extension, be sure to ask for it in advance.

Expected Academic Engagement

The following statement is reprinted as a reminder of the time you are expected to put into this course (as well as all of your courses at Bucknell):

Bucknell courses that receive a unit of academic credit have a minimum expectation of 12 hours per week of academic engagement. Student academic engagement includes both the hours of direct faculty instruction (or its equivalent) and the hours spent on out of class student work.

Academic Responsibility

The principles of Academic Responsibility will be taken very seriously. Proper credit must be given to any sources uses in papers and presentations whether the sources are on-line or in-print. Unsolicited reading or copying of other student or faculty files is as wrong as looking at or removing papers from a student or faculty member’s desk. It is the faculty’s role to report acts of academic misconduct the Board of Review on Academic Responsibility. Students are expected to read and abide by the principles explained in the Student Handbook.

If you have any question in regards to whether an action might be a violation of these rules of an assignment, be sure to consult the instructor right away. If you are struggling at any point, talk to the instructor to seek help or accommodations.  

Bucknell University Honor Code

As a student and citizen of the Bucknell University community: 

1. I will not lie, cheat, or steal in my academic endeavors.
2. I will forthrightly oppose each and every instance of academic dishonesty.
3. I will let my conscience guide my decision to communicate directly with any person or persons I believe to have been dishonest in academic work.
4. I will let my conscience guide my decision on reporting breaches of academic integrity to the appropriate faculty or deans.

Violations of the honor code will be treated seriously.

Mental Health

In this classroom and on Bucknell’s campus we support mental health efforts. Any student who is struggling and believes this may impact their performance in the course is encouraged to contact their instructor, academic advisor, Associate Academic Dean, or the Dean of Students for support. Please feel free to approach your instructor, if you are comfortable in doing so, which will enable them to provide resources and support. If immediate mental health assistance is needed, call the Counseling & Student Development Center at 570-577-1604 (available 24/7).

Student-Athletes

If you are a student-athlete, remember that you are a student first and an athlete second. This means that academic work is your first priority. As per University rules, you will not be penalized for being away to take part in athletic events. It is your responsibility, however, to manage your time wisely so that you can do well in this and in your other classes. Please make sure to notify the instructors well in advance of your travel schedule and plan ahead to meet the deadlines for your assignments.

Access Statement

Any student who needs an accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact the Office of Accessibility Resources (Carnegie Building) at oar@bucknell.edu, 570-577-1188, who will coordinate reasonable accommodations for students with documented disabilities. The college will make reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities. 

Religious Holidays

Accommodations for religious holidays are made on an individual and case-by-case basis unless otherwise notified. Any student who may need accommodation due to a religious holiday should request such accommodation by the end of the second week of the semester.