How to Use This Book#

You should be reading this section if you are considering teaching with Duckietown, and your class starts no sooner than in a few months.

The best time to read this book is:

  • after gaining familiarity with the Duckietown platform, but

  • before starting your first class.

To gain familiarity with Duckietown consider the following steps:

1. The student experience#

We are all learners, and the starting point is getting a taste of the student experience.

You can do so, for free, by evaluating Duckietown in simulation, e.g., by signing up for the “Self-Driving Cars with Duckietown” massive open online course (MOOC).

Glance at the curriculum and go through the first few modules at least. You can consider this step complete once you:

2. The hands-on experience#

Duckietown shines when you get real robots involved. We strongly contend that one cannot learn robotics properly without a robot. Simulations are doomed to succeed.

To proceed:

  • get and build a Duckiebot (or Duckiedrone), and a small Duckietown;

  • become familiar with the Duckietown Shell (dts) and the robot Dashboard GUI, paying particular attention to the software architecture and diagnostic tools provided.

You can consider this step complete once you have a Duckiebot working nominally, able to autonomously drive around a city loop by running the lane-following demo.

Note

We offer demo kits discount codes for teachers. Do not hesitate to reach out and ask for one at class-in-a-box@duckietown.com.

Plan your class#

Once you have tried Duckietown in simulation, learned about learning experiences and submission evaluations, built, calibrated, operated and drove a Duckiebot autonomously; you should be ready to make more informed decisions in planning for your class.

In the next sections, we provide an overview of the resources available for teaching with Duckietown, and some tips and tricks to running a successful class gathered through combined decades of teaching experience.