Self-Driving Cars

N00b question. Would it be possible to prepare for AI4R by taking these Coursera courses in advance from UofT?

https://www.coursera.org/specializations/self-driving-cars

I would hold off on doing that - there is a pdf of it available online (https://docs.ufpr.br/\~danielsantos/ProbabilisticRobotics.pdf). Honestly if he's getting back into robotics, he should focus on doing what he can right now without a lot of the fundamental knowledge that's needed from linear algebra, physics, coding, etc. Maybe look into something like the Coursera Autonomous Vehicles course (https://www.coursera.org/specializations/self-driving-cars) since they start from the basics and walk you through projects related to Localization, Planning, and Perception. Jumping into something like Probabilistic Robotics without the mathematical maturity of having taken some college math classes will make the read very difficult and possibly demoralizing. My suggestion is start with something hands on (either hands on coding wise via the Coursera course or building a simple project) and then let him delve into the more complicated topics once the time comes further down the line. If he has experience with high school robotics, something like the Duckietown project is a pretty good comprehensive way to build something and also code a bunch of the software modules (https://www.duckietown.org/).

It doesn't seem like there will be anything coming soon.

I'd recommend you to take Robotics from UPenn @ Coursera:

https://www.coursera.org/specializations/robotics

The 'Perception' module there would teach you multi-view geometry, bundle adjustment etc. that is needed for more advanced things like Structure from Motion (SfM), briefly touched upon by Computation Photography @ OMS CS.

Another good idea is to take Self-driving cars from UToronto @ Coursea:

https://www.coursera.org/specializations/self-driving-cars

You can build your own minimum viable car with Donkey Car: https://www.donkeycar.com/ with which you can race with in DIY Robocars: https://diyrobocars.com/ (lots of resources there, on courses, videos, tutorials, etc.). There's lots of local races, but you can also create your own if you want to.

If you're more on the simulation side, you can do it with CARLA: http://carla.org/ You can add almost any sensor type there, create your pipeline, even use Openpilot from Comma ai.

If you want to do a course, theres' the Coursera Self-Driving Specialization, though I must warn you it is advanced.