In University of Reading of England, a free, 4-week online robotics course is offered for beginners to robotics.

Begin Robotics is targeted, primarily, at 14 – 18 year olds who are interested in robots and/or the possibility of studying robotics at University. It doesn’t assume any prior knowledge and is open to anyone, around the world however, so will no doubt attract a much broader audience. Begin Robotics will also form part of FutureLearn’s offering to support the BBC’s ‘Make it Digital’ campaign, in the UK this year.

Learners will meet a range of ‘Reading’ robots including: ERIC (the mobile robot built specifically for this course), ROVER,  BAXTER, Haptic Master (based within our Psychology Department ), a  fingertip haptic device,  a haptic drum kit and robots designed, programmed and created by our students including Scampi, the mobile, paperclip robot and a soft, robotic rehabilitation device designed to help patients during their recovery after a stroke.

More than 6000 learners have signed up for Begin Robotics so far and the university expects the number to increase to between 8000-10,000 by the end of the course (learners can continue to sign up and get started on Week 1 whilst the course is running).

The current course is underway, which started June 15 , but the University plans to re-run the course again in the autumn this year and then 2-3 times a year,  for the next two years (attracting similar kinds of enrolments for each run).

For more information, please visit:

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/begin-robotics

Source: www.reading.ac.uk