7 ms·

Sebastian Thrun wants to teach you how to program a self-driving robotic car

59 points by eguizzo 15y ago

MaxGabriel 15y ago
A clarification, the homework is NOT due later today. The FAQ said homework was given on Monday and due on Wednesday, but it meant next Wednesday[1]. The homework hasn't been released yet[2]. [1]http://www.udacity-forums.com/cs373/questions/276/homework-deadlines http://www.udacity-forums.com/cs373/questions/276/homework-d... [2] http://www.udacity-forums.com/cs373/questions/129/has-the-homework-been-posted-yet http://www.udacity-forums.com/cs373/questions/129/has-the-ho...
mtrn 15y ago
The strong statement from the mentioned robot.cc: >I am against education that is only available to the top 1% of all students. I am against tens of thousands of dollars of tuition expenses. I am against the imbalance that the present system brings to the world. I want to empower the 99%. I want to democratize education. Education should be free. Accessible for all, everywhere, and any time. When this becomes a bit bigger and mainstream, a lot of people will be interested in that space and will be ready (and happy) to pay for it, I guess. And this need not necessarily be the students: revenue could come from course sponsors (like course champions at OCW, http://ocw.mit.edu/donate/ocw-course-champions-program http://ocw.mit.edu/donate/ocw-course-champions-program) or institutions who build own offers around and based on certain courses.
- jakubw 15y ago
  In an interview, David Evans, who teaches the search engine class, said Udacity's business model will be recruiters paying for access to the top students.
  - mhurron 15y ago
    Can you find that interview? I've been wondering how Udacity and Coursera planned to stay in business.
    - jakubw 15y ago
      Here it is: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/frontier-digital-education-15539244 http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/frontier-digital-education-1...
mistercow 15y ago
I have a lot of respect for Thrun, but the online AI class was such an unmitigated disaster. I feel like he and Norvig really needed to work with someone experienced with organizing and producing that kind of project rather than just trying to wing it themselves. Maybe it was just a rough first attempt, but I would be extremely reluctant to take part in another one of his online teaching efforts, or to recommend them to others interested in learning.
- MaxGabriel 15y ago
  What went wrong? I ask because I completed the first unit of Robotics AI on Udacity yesterday, and I had a big fat grin on my face for having so much fun programming. Aside from a few minor bugs (which were responded to promptly on the forums), no technical issues whatsoever.
  - mistercow 15y ago
    Well, first off, there was the fact that the "whiteboard" consisted of them writing on notebook paper. Had this been the only shortcoming, it would have been fine, but seriously, there are so many better ways to present something on a computer screen than writing in a notebook under a camera. But what really got under my skin and ultimately caused me to give up on the program were the errors in the videos, and how they were dealt with – namely, by putting some correction text underneath the video on the website. This was annoying and frustrating to try to learn with even for simple errors. But it was ridiculous when the error was a single character change within three lines packed with newly introduced notation. The minimal correct way to handle this would have been simply to overlay a YouTube annotation over the incorrect text. Those would have shown up in full screen mode, and they wouldn't have required students to simultaneously mentally amend what they were watching while juggling new concepts in their heads. I was also not thrilled when newly introduced terminology got thrown around imprecisely in some of the videos, leaving the viewer wondering what these terms actually mean, and what the teacher was actually trying to say. I have no doubt that Thrun and Norvig are great computer scientists. But a great scientist and a good teacher are not often found in the same person. For that person to also be a good video director would have to be a miracle.
robobenjie 15y ago
Does anyone know how to pronounce the name? I see ooh-duh-CITY, but I presume that they were trying for you-DAH-city or maybe OOH-dah-city...? (like University + Audacity). Regardless they picked a hard one to figure out.
- electrichead 15y ago
  I think it is probably you-DAH-city
  - DanBC 15y ago
    I love ASCII-IPA. But I'm hopeless at remembering the pronunciation. It'd be great to have a simple thing for pronunciation; maybe a plug-in that lets me highlight and right click ascii ipa or even unicode ipa. (http://alt-usage-english.org/ipa/ascii_ipa_combined.shtml http://alt-usage-english.org/ipa/ascii_ipa_combined.shtml)
tedsuo 15y ago
Bummer I signed up a while ago but never received an email that classes were starting.
- jfoutz 15y ago
  Just yesterday. go watch the videos now. I imagine the next lecture will be out on tuesday.

59 points by eguizzo 15y ago

A clarification, the homework is NOT due later today. The FAQ said homework was given on Monday and due on Wednesday, but it meant next Wednesday[1]. The homework hasn't been released yet[2]. [1]http://www.udacity-forums.com/cs373/questions/276/homework-deadlines http://www.udacity-forums.com/cs373/questions/276/homework-d... [2] http://www.udacity-forums.com/cs373/questions/129/has-the-homework-been-posted-yet http://www.udacity-forums.com/cs373/questions/129/has-the-ho...

mtrn 15y ago

The strong statement from the mentioned robot.cc: >I am against education that is only available to the top 1% of all students. I am against tens of thousands of dollars of tuition expenses. I am against the imbalance that the present system brings to the world. I want to empower the 99%. I want to democratize education. Education should be free. Accessible for all, everywhere, and any time. When this becomes a bit bigger and mainstream, a lot of people will be interested in that space and will be ready (and happy) to pay for it, I guess. And this need not necessarily be the students: revenue could come from course sponsors (like course champions at OCW, http://ocw.mit.edu/donate/ocw-course-champions-program http://ocw.mit.edu/donate/ocw-course-champions-program) or institutions who build own offers around and based on certain courses.

jakubw 15y ago
In an interview, David Evans, who teaches the search engine class, said Udacity's business model will be recruiters paying for access to the top students.
- mhurron 15y ago
  Can you find that interview? I've been wondering how Udacity and Coursera planned to stay in business.
  - jakubw 15y ago
    Here it is: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/frontier-digital-education-15539244 http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/frontier-digital-education-1...

mistercow 15y ago

I have a lot of respect for Thrun, but the online AI class was such an unmitigated disaster. I feel like he and Norvig really needed to work with someone experienced with organizing and producing that kind of project rather than just trying to wing it themselves. Maybe it was just a rough first attempt, but I would be extremely reluctant to take part in another one of his online teaching efforts, or to recommend them to others interested in learning.

MaxGabriel 15y ago
What went wrong? I ask because I completed the first unit of Robotics AI on Udacity yesterday, and I had a big fat grin on my face for having so much fun programming. Aside from a few minor bugs (which were responded to promptly on the forums), no technical issues whatsoever.
- mistercow 15y ago
  Well, first off, there was the fact that the "whiteboard" consisted of them writing on notebook paper. Had this been the only shortcoming, it would have been fine, but seriously, there are so many better ways to present something on a computer screen than writing in a notebook under a camera. But what really got under my skin and ultimately caused me to give up on the program were the errors in the videos, and how they were dealt with – namely, by putting some correction text underneath the video on the website. This was annoying and frustrating to try to learn with even for simple errors. But it was ridiculous when the error was a single character change within three lines packed with newly introduced notation. The minimal correct way to handle this would have been simply to overlay a YouTube annotation over the incorrect text. Those would have shown up in full screen mode, and they wouldn't have required students to simultaneously mentally amend what they were watching while juggling new concepts in their heads. I was also not thrilled when newly introduced terminology got thrown around imprecisely in some of the videos, leaving the viewer wondering what these terms actually mean, and what the teacher was actually trying to say. I have no doubt that Thrun and Norvig are great computer scientists. But a great scientist and a good teacher are not often found in the same person. For that person to also be a good video director would have to be a miracle.

robobenjie 15y ago

Does anyone know how to pronounce the name? I see ooh-duh-CITY, but I presume that they were trying for you-DAH-city or maybe OOH-dah-city...? (like University + Audacity). Regardless they picked a hard one to figure out.

electrichead 15y ago
I think it is probably you-DAH-city
- DanBC 15y ago
  I love ASCII-IPA. But I'm hopeless at remembering the pronunciation. It'd be great to have a simple thing for pronunciation; maybe a plug-in that lets me highlight and right click ascii ipa or even unicode ipa. (http://alt-usage-english.org/ipa/ascii_ipa_combined.shtml http://alt-usage-english.org/ipa/ascii_ipa_combined.shtml)

tedsuo 15y ago

Bummer I signed up a while ago but never received an email that classes were starting.

jfoutz 15y ago
Just yesterday. go watch the videos now. I imagine the next lecture will be out on tuesday.