Contents
  1. I. Resume Questions
  2. II. Project Questions
  3. III. Casual Conversation Questions
  4. IV. English Questions
  5. V. Technical Questions

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The questions below are ones I was asked during my interviews. They are for reference only; each school’s interview style differs, but overall they’re fairly similar.

I. Resume Questions

  1. Briefly describe the research training you’ve participated in / give a brief overview of your research experience.
  2. Describe what vision methods you’ve used (your resume lists related projects).
  3. Name a few functions you used in OpenCV and explain what each one does.
  4. Robotics is a broad field—haven’t you considered a specific sub-area?
  5. What is SLAM? (When answering, say you’re interested in SLAM as a research direction.)
  6. Looking at your resume, you’ve picked up quite a lot—why did you study so many different things? Is there one area where you’re especially strong? (The resume lists quite a few skills at the bottom.)

II. Project Questions

  1. Briefly introduce your XXXXXX project / describe a project you think you did best.
  2. What were your main contributions in this project?
  3. How many legs does the robot you built have, and why that many? How did you choose the leg layout, and why that layout? How did you compare and evaluate the options computationally? (Tests whether you really designed the project yourself.)
  4. Did your project achieve the expected functionality?
  5. What sensors are inside the robot?
  6. What is the sampling frequency of the accelerometer inside the robot?

III. Casual Conversation Questions

  1. Why do you want to pursue graduate study at our university? Why did you choose our school, and how likely are you to come?
  2. How many summer camps did you apply to, and where does our school rank among your preferences?

IV. English Questions

  1. Introduce your campus.
  2. Which research direction interests you?

I only encountered English questions at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Harbin Institute of Technology; other schools were entirely in Chinese, though that may just be because of the particular schools and departments I applied to. Below are a few English questions friends ran into—listed here for reference as well.

  1. Introduce your hometown.

  2. What’s your favorite season?

V. Technical Questions

  1. What is PID? Does the proportional term make the system more stable? How do P, I, and D each affect system error?
  2. What is assembly accuracy? What aspects does assembly accuracy include?
  3. What is Abbe’s principle? Give two examples to explain Abbe’s principle.
  4. What’s the difference between a material’s strength and stiffness?
  5. What factors affect a material’s elastic modulus?