On this page you will find information related to the ROS topics (no pun intended) you should familiarize yourself with with a rough week-to-week schedule.

This year we will be using ROS Noetic on Ubuntu 20.04.

This is a mostly autodidactic part of the class, and we will help you stay on track with small ROS assignments.

First off, some resources.

• The ROS Wiki is a great place to find a lot of information. It has step-by-step tutorials that can get you 90% of the way.
• “A Gentle Introduction to ROS” is an online PDF book that delivers on its promise.  It does use C++ in its examples, though. So if you are planning to use python, that might be annoying. Still, it is a great resource for the concepts.
• The text book “Programming Robots with ROS” is the best and most comprehensive ROS textbook out these days. Not free, though. Also, uses an older version of ROS and Ubuntu.
• If you need a Python refresher, we found the course on codeacademy to be quite good.

When you self-pace yourself through the ROS concepts and programming techniques, we recommend the following schedule:

• Week 1:  
  • installing *, configuring, workspaces, creating packages, building packages
  • nodes, topics and messages, services and params
  • rqt and launch files
• Week 2: 
  • rosed
  • custom msgs, writing subscribers and publishers + test
  • custom srvs, writing services/ clients + test
• Week 3:
  • debugging: rosbag , roswtf
  • actions (focus on Beginner Tutorials, read Intermediate as needed when you code)
  • tf2 (focus on Sections 2.-3., you might need to review 5. when you work on your assignment)
• Week 4 (Intermediate):
  • urdf, rviz (tutorials)
  • gazebo
• Week 5 (Advanced):
  • roscontrol, navigation, moveit!
  • sensors

* not required if you use the pre-installed course VM