Legged robots

[Updated Oct 12 2024]

The article presentations are an important part of the course since they allow us to go deeper in some of the topics introduced in the lectures. Please make sure to view the presentations by other students as some of the exam questions will cover the student presentations' material.

Instructions

• Duration: 8 minutes (strict limit) + 4 min of questions.
• New: this year in addition to the live presentation in front of the class, we ask that you please provide a 8 min pre-recorded video of the presentation the day before your live presentation.  We suggest you use zoom with the "record on this computer" option. These videos will be shared on Moodle.
  
• All students in the group should participate to the presentation.
• Start by making a short summary of the main idea/contribution of the article
  
• Make an executive summary of key aspects e.g. which types of robots (biped, quadruped, ...), which type of control (e.g. position, impedance, or torque control), which type of design method (hand-tuned,  based on a mathematical proof, optimization, reinforcement learning, evolutionary algorithms, ...), which type of gait (walking, running, trot, multi gaits), which types of main sensors are used, ... etc.
  
• Present the article in some detail, with figures, equations, results, videos, etc.
• Look at who is citing the article, this can be found in Google scholar or on Scopus. Check if the approach has influenced other labs (e.g. been reused on other robots). Also look if the approach has been criticized for some reason.
  
• Conclude with an analysis of pros and cons (e.g. as a bullet list).
• Last slide: add 2 possible exam questions about the article + short answers (or pointers to slides where to find the answer).
  
• Upload the recorded video (mp4) and the presentation on Moodle (pdf), the night before your presentation day.
  

Hints:

• Please check your timing carefully, rehearse a few times.
  
• Include graphs, and make sure they are readable (large format)
• Try to include videos (e.g. when provided as supplementary material on the journal web site, or by searching the authors' websites).
  
• Do not hesitate to start by showing a video (e.g. to show what has been achieved, and then say "now we will explain how this has been achieved...")