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This repository is here to orient the students who conduct a project (Studies on Mechatronics, Bachelor-, Semester-, and Master Theses) at the Robotic Systems Lab (RSL) at ETH Zurich. It contains general information, guidelines, templates and helpful links.
You can download all files and templates as a ZIP-file here.
This page contains the general information and overview of a student projects.
Bachelor and Semester projects last 14 weeks starting at the first day of the semester and end at the end of the semester. Master projects last 6 months and the starting date is agreed on with the supervisor.
Make sure to enroll for the thesis in mystudies. To do so, you need to upload a thesis description. Your supervisor should provide you with a project description template. In this document, outline in your words the goal of the thesis and send it to your supervisor for approval.
Please provide your supervisor a work schedule within two weeks after the start of the project.
You will agree with your supervisor on a weekly meeting. The meeting is meant to answer your questions and to check your progress. It is helpful for you to prepare these meetings with the coordination sheet provided in this repository in Coordination report/.
Scientific publications can be found on websites such as
Make sure to access these website from within the ETH network or use VPN. This gives you access to download full PDF files from many publishers.
Use the bibliographies and the cited by functions to find related publications.
For the organization of your references, we recommend to use Mendeley, a free and cross-platform reference management software. As a handy feature, Mendeley can automatically build your BibTeX files. Make sure to follow these instructions to access additional features.
During your BA, SA or MA project, you will have two presentations of different format.
Presentations are scheduled in this calendar.
Online streaming of all presentations is performed through this link: http://www.leggedrobotics.com/studentpresentation.html.
An informal intermediate presentation about your work will take place around mid-term. The goal of the presentation is to give a brief summary of the work done, to propose a plan for the continuation of the project, and to discuss about the main directions of the project.
This duration of presentation is strictly limited to 4 minutes (we will interrupt), consist of at least the following content (problem description, method, results, problem/next steps) and will be followed by a 10 min discussion.
Make sure with your supervisor that you fix the date early enough.
1 day before the presentation, the student should send out a short description of their work to leggedrobotics@ethz.ch (subject: [RSL intermediate, "Thesis Title", "Student Name"]) with the exact time and location of the presentation along with names of supervisor(s) and committee member(s). This will allow all interested people to join. Furthermore, the student should separately send a copy of their presentation to the committee member(s) at least 24 hours before the time of the presentation.
The final presentation will take place at the end of the project. A test run is presented to and discussed with the supervisors 2–5 days before the public final presentation.
Please arrange exact dates and times for the intermediate and final presentations with your supervisors and the lab administration.
The duration of the final presentations are
- Bachelor and Semester projects: 15 minutes presentation, 5 minutes questions / discussion,
- Semester/Bachelor Project with integrated SoM: 22 minutes presentation, 8 minutes questions / discussion,
- Master projects: 20 minutes presentation, 10 minutes questions / discussion,
- Studies on Mechatronics (SoM): 10 minutes presentation, 5 minutes questions / discussion.
The presentation is evaluated based on the final public presentation.
For the slides, we recommend to use the template as it is provided in this repository in Presentation/. Further information on the ETH Zurich templates is given here.
1 day before the presentation, the student should send out a short description of their work to leggedrobotics@ethz.ch (subject: [RSL Final, "Thesis Title", "Student Name"]) with the exact time and location of the presentation along with names of supervisor(s) and committee member(s). Furthermore, the student should separately send a copy of their presentation to the committee member(s) at least 24 hours before the time of the presentation.
A report has to be handed in to the responsible supervisor. The report has to describe the full work performed during the entire project. A preliminary version has to be handed in per e-mail or printed one week after the final presentation or as determined with the supervisor. The preliminary version of the report is discussed with the supervisor. The report is evaluated based on the preliminary version with the requirement that the remarks are incorporated in the final report.
We recommend to use the LaTeX template as it is provided in this repository in Report/. Information on the usage of LaTeX is given in Manuals/The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX 2E.pdf. Also, make sure to be familiar with the style guide described in Manuals/LaTeX Style Guide.pdf.
Students are encouraged to publish their thesis if the work is scientifically truly excellent and meets our high internal standards. The publication can be used 1:1 as part of the thesis report that must be handed in at RSL. However, before the student and direct supervisor take the decision to make a publication, it is mandatory to consult with the professor to clarify which path to take and what the financial contribution will be
- A) journal publication: RSL will cover the publication fee if applicable. If the journal offers the possibility to present additionally at a conference, RSL will also cover the conference registration and cheapest flight, all other expenses (accommodation, food, local transport) is up to the student
- B) top-tier conference publication (e.g. ICRA): RSL will cover the conference registration and cheapest flight, all other expenses (accommodation, food, local transport) is up to the student. If the conference offers online attendance, the student can decide to participate online.
- C) second-tier conference (e.g. CLAWAR). RSL will cover the conference registration and the student is expected to present online, cover travel and accommodation, or let the paper present by a supervisor that may attends.
- D) (this should never happen) if the supervisors do not encourage paper publication but the student has a strong wish to do so, the student can submit to a conference/journal. All costs will be covered by the student. If the supervisors still help with the paper or contributed to the work, they (together with the hosting professor) should be on the paper. If it was an independent work (e.g. external), no RSL members must be on the paper If you are hired by RLS by the time the conference happens, all costs will be covered by the lab.
In case of equal contributions of the first author, the RSL-employee has priority to when it comes to presenting at the conference. If the student still wants to go, registration will be covered by the lab but the remaining costs are up to the student. In case of two first-author students, the students need to decide who is going for the conference.
Publications of student works at external labs do not get financial contributions from RSL even if they are co-supervised by ETH. If you make a publication, please first consult with the hosting professor about financial contribution.
Every student has to make himself/herself familiar with the ETH Zurich rules regarding plagiarism.
Every student has to make himself/herself familiar with the Intellectual Property conditions for a thesis conducted at RSL. The IP Agreement can be found in the report together with the Declaration of Originality. This shall provide the right legal basis in order that ETH can use the generated results and that the student can profit similar to a collaborator.
You will be evaluated according to the RSL evaluation sheet. For Bachelor, Semester, and Master Theses, the grade consists of
- 40% General (Commitment, Methodology, Autonomy, Theory etc.),
- 20% Implementation,
- 20% Report,
- 20% Presentation .
For Studies on Mechatronics the grade consists of
- 40% General (Commitment, Methodology, Autonomy, Theory etc.),
- 30% Report,
- 30% Presentation.
After you have revised your report based on the supervisors comments, please prepare a ZIP file with the following contents:
- Final report as PDF and as LaTeX source code,
- IP agreement and declaration of originality (first pages of report) with your signature (scan the signed document or insert the signature with Adobe Reader)
- Presentation as source file (e.g. PowerPoint) and as PDF,
- All files (CAD, MATLAB, code etc.) used or created during the project.
Please provide a copy of the file to each supervisor and confirm that your supervisors have received it in case it was emailed or uploaded somewhere. There is no need to print and bind your report.