Video of the event (12min) | Info Meeting | photo album | YouTube Video
LTU Robofest was invited to IEEE SEM (Southeast Michigan Section) Fall Conference held at U of M Dearborn on November 2, 2006. Robofest videos were presented to IEEE members. Five Robofest winner teams came to the conference to present their winning robots to IEEE members. The winner of senior exhibition division from Cranbrook schools demonstrated their autonomous Barbie Jeep. The winner team of Junior Game Competition winner, DeCoDerS from Detroit Country Day School demonstrated Junior Games together with Black Dog Robotics from Novi Middle School teams that won 2nd place award. Junior Exhibition Division 3rd place winner, GirlTech from Canton Charter Academy demonstrated their candle making robot. Cranbrook team demonstrate VEX Pentathlon games. Our Robofest area was the highlight of the conference because of the interesting and high tech demonstrations. Our Robofest students were explaining professionally about autonomous robotics to the visitors. LTU Student, Joe Long who participated in Robofest for 3 years, now a Computer Science freshman, assisted the event. IEEE sponsored $2,400 for Robofest 2006 medals given to every participant. Photos from the event can be viewed at the following URL: www.robofest.net/2006/ieeeFallConf
OCCRA Women's Robot Competition was held at LTU on Sat Oct 28th. Lori Birman coordinated the event with OCCRA and it went very well. Dr. Marilyn Rands and Lori Birman serverd as Judges for the event. From 11am, we also had a meeting for Thanksgiving Robot Parade. So our campus was full of Robotics events with many robotics directional yard signs on campus. LTU - a robotics hub in Metro Detroit! Please check out the picture from the event at ltu164.ltu.edu/mcsnews/06/occra06/index1.html
Professor Michael Merscher on Detroit Tigers Odds on Channel 4. Check out the first interview with Rob Meloni and second interview.
Lawrence Technological University's autonomous robots were demonstrated at the Hilton Hotel Troy during Troy Chamber's annual Business Showcase on Thursday, October 26. Featured robots were AIBO robot dancing and soccer-playing dogs, Fuel cell powered H2Bot, NXT based raffle robot, and L2Bot. Black Dog Robotics Robofest team from Novi Middle School demonstrated Robofest 2006 game and Cranbrook exhibition team demonstrated laptop based Barbie Jeep. We had interview with so many news media including Channel 4, Detroit News and Detroit Free Press. We thank Eric Pope who sent press release to many places. Here are some pictures from the event at ltu164.ltu.edu/mcsnews/06/TroyHilton/index1.html. We would like to thank Bruce Annett for providing us this wonderful opportunity what LTU students are doing with autonomous robotics. Lori Birman coordinated the event by working with Troy Chamber of Commerce. They made a promotional brochure with AIBO dogs and LTU banner. The brochure was distributed to many places. Even, Troy School District sent an email to all the parents in the school district to encourage students to visit the LTU robot demo. I would like to thank Frank DeHesselle. He suggested using the Denso LTU shuttle bus when we had troubles in transporting the big and heavy H2Bot. He also helped many ways for me to drive the bus. The bus was really perfect to transport many items for the show. Without LTU students, nothing is possible. Jacob Bushon, H2Bot 2006 member who graduated this May volunteered to help with the fuel cell system. Thank you again Jake! Marcus Randolph and Brace Stout did fantastic jobs for the H2Bot and L2Bot demo. They visited the hotel to test the robots before the event, because we needed to adjust our programs for the carpet color and pattern of the hotel. During the demo they explained professionally to the interested visitors. Emily Trudell and Steven Kryskalla did wonderful job demonstrating AIBO robots. Nate Johnson also assisted the demo in various ways by being an MC of the demo as well as moving many heavy things for the demo. Bill Cleveland, a new AIBO team member also assisted the demo and he will be improving the C++ programs for better shows. We presented Robofest videos as well as LTU College Tour DVD using the HDTV. I should not forget Cliff Johnson who helped us to move the heavy H2Bot into the bus. Also he helped to unload the H2Bot from the shuttle bus. Respectfully, CJ
Picture from Oct. 14th Campus Visit Day.
LTU H2Bot article from Detroit Auto Scene, Tech Center News, Oct. 9th, 2006. Here is a team photo on the newspaper.
The Sothfield SUN newspaper with LTU H2Bot cover story. The online version does not have pictures.
MCS Department Autonomous robots were demonstrated at the Microsoft sponsored SIM (Society for Information Management) of Friday, October 6 at LTU Lear Auditorium. The theme of the event was "Future Potential in IT" and has been successfully delivered in collaboration with Microsoft at other locations during the year. Robofest 2006 video and LTU campus tour video were played in the lobby. Joe Long who participated in Robofest for three yeas and now a Computer Science major freshman assisted the Robofest table and the video. After the interesting presentations including Microsoft Bill Gates and Lear CIO John Crary via video, our robots were introduced to the audience by Lori Birman, Robofest coordinator. First AIBO roboCup soccer and synchronized dance were demonstrated by Steven Kryskalla Math/Computer Science senior and Emily Trudell, Computer Science senior. Dr. Chung demonstrated autonomous L2Bot (LTU laptop robot) carrying a heavy XBox into the Lear Auditorium. Then Dr. Chung demonstrated his LEGO NXT robot for raffles. Raffle tickets were evenly distributed into two trays, before the robot started. It chose the left tray at random then finally picked a ticket. It was a moment that the winner for the XBox was decided by the new LEGO NXT robot, for the first time in the world history. See all the pictures at admin.robofest.org/sites/06/SIMMS/index.html
Sally Ride Festival Report: Robofest was invited by Sally Ride Festival held at Macomb Cultural Center on Oct. 1, 2006. www.sallyridefestivals.com Kathy Sullivan who did the first space walk as a woman astronaut gave an inspiring talk. Around 500 young students were amazed at Robofest booth and autonomous robots demonstrated by Cranbrook Robofest teams. Channel 2 Fox news showed two robot teams during their news hours in the evening. Dr. Hsiao-Ping Moore gave workshops entitled, "Bio-detection and 9-11", Dr. Lisa Anneberg gave workshops entitled, “When life gives you Lemons … Make Lemon Batteries!”, and Dr. Maryam Roshanaei gave workshops entitled, “Computer Science and Networking”. Dr. Marianne Wilhelm, new Biomedical Engineering Professor, also gave a workshop there.
Lori Birman, Robofest coordinator and Robotics lab student assistants, Emily Trudell, Nathaniel Johnson, and Steven Kryskalla assisted the Robofest booth and the event. Some photos from the event as well as Channel 2 news snapshots can be found at http://admin.robofest.org/sites/06/sallyRide/index.html LTU brochures were on the table and many people picked them up. CJ Chung
H2Bot Demo Report: During the public demo today on Sep. 29 at 12:30pm, H2Bot successfully completed the mission: visiting all 4 waypoints and coming back to home while avoiding obstacles; face north exactly and stop. Used sensors for today's mission are D-GPS, camcorder, and digital compass. For this demo, our computer science software expert Marcus Randolph and Brace Stout worked very hard. Jacob Bushon volunteered to help with the team for the fuel cell system. Dr. Bindschadler, Dr. Azar, and Dr. Csaszar came to encourage our students. Many students who might be interested in joining IGVC team came to watch the demo. IGVC 07 team member Jeremy Gray who recently joined assisted the demo, and already he has many plans. His senior project advisor is Dr. Anneberg. 2006 team leader David Bruder stopped by with his son to encourage new members and IGVC 2007 team. LTU News Bureau Manager Eric Pope worked very hard to bring news media: Southfield cable TV, and Southfield Newspaper. The IGVC 07 software team is now preparing another demo at Hilton Hotel Troy on Oct. 26 hosted by Troy Chamber of Commerce. New ME and EE students will design a new robot for IGVC 2007. We plan to enter two robots next year: H2Bot and a brand new robot - it will be slimmer, may be two parts similar to Virgina Tech's bot, also, possibly adding solar panels. IGVC just released the official results of IGVC 2006 competition. LTU's overall ranking is 6.
Please mark your calendar and join us on Thursday, September 21, 2006 for our annual Service Recognition Awards Luncheon at Noon in the Faculty Lounge that is located inside of Cafe Lawrence. Our department will be honoring the following colleagues for their service and dedication to LTU.