Watch: New MSR Students Demonstrate First Major Projects

The crowd went silent as the golfer slowly approached the putting green, studying the distance between the golf ball and the hole. The golfer slowly lowered the putter toward the ground, took aim, and shot the ball directly into the hole.   

The audience clapped emphatically in celebration. 

While this scene could have taken place at any professional golf tournament, this celebration took place in a Northwestern Engineering laboratory, home to the school's Master of Science in Robotics (MSR) program. The golfer was not a person, but instead a Franka robot arm programmed by first-quarter MSR students in Embedded Systems in Robotics.   

The golf group used a computer vision model to identify and locate a ball, position the putter, do math, and hit the ball toward — and hopefully into — the hole.  

This scene was captured in a new MSR video highlighting the Embedded Systems in Robotics course.  

"These projects are end-to-end robotic systems, where the students have to design what the software is going to do and what the robot's going to do," MSR co-director Todd Murphey said in the video. "All of these things have to come together by the end of the term into something that really works." 

Other students in the class made robots that drew portraits, cooked toast, and played whac-a-mole. 

The project-based class introduces students to a wide range of software tools and concepts necessary to succeed as a robotics engineer. A key component of the course is learning the Robot Operating System (ROS) 2, a popular framework used throughout the robotics field.  

"It's all about making robots work in the real world," MSR co-director Matthew Elwin said in the video. "There's always a moment where the robot is moving, and you're wondering, is it going to do what it's supposed to do? When it does reach that moment, there's just so much excitement." 

The course becomes a training ground for students as they work on projects as a team and against deadlines. It also helps them develop foundational skills they will use throughout their time in the program — and beyond. 

"This is the best thing that I could have wanted out of a program," Ben Benyamin (MSR '24) said in the video. "I can pursue whatever project that I want, and I get full support. This is the dream."