Spring Summer 2003

August

MCS Dept. Email Newsletter, 8-22-03

Dr. Chung presented a paper co-authored by Andrey Shvartsman, Maurice Tedder, and Chan-Jin Chung at the International Conference on Computer, Communication and Control Technologies (CCCT) '03, July 31-Aug 2,2003, Orlando, Florida. The title of the paper is "A Modular Mobile Robotic Platform As An Educational Tool In Computer Science And Engineering", which is published in Proceedings of International Conference on Computer, Communication and Control Technologies (CCCT), Volume V, pp. 314-317. The proceedings is also published in a CD-ROM format.

July


Robofest summer camp 03 was held on Sat. July 26, in the atrium of the Management building. Since the event is for experienced students and a registration fee was required, 6 teams participated. They completed perhaps the first synchronized robot dance party in the world as shown above. Robot movements were synchronized by sending and receiving IR messages. Students implemented "repeater functions" to pass the messages to neighbor robots.


Our MSCS student Maurice Tedder has been working as the program manger of the DTE Science and Technology summer program from June 23 to August 8th for Girl Scouts sponsored by DTE Energy Foundation in Summer 2003 at Winship Elementary School, 14717 Curtis Detroit, MI 48235. Programs offered to Girl Scouts are Geology Rocks/Can You Dig It, Math Mania, Robotics, and Brain Power. Our Computer Science senior student Adam Gretch is also teaching Lego robotics class together with Maurice. On August 8, there will be DTE Extravaganza from 10:00am - 1:00pm at the school. Girl Scouts will present and demonstrate what they have learned from the program this summer. Fuel cell cars assembled by students and powered by "water" in Robotics class will be introduced for the first time in this area. Dr. Chung is volunteering for the program as faculty support. Please click on here (MS Word) for the extravaganza flyer.

MCS Dept. Email Newsletter, 7-18-03

Robofest Summer Camp will be held on July 26 at LTU. For more detailsExtravaganza please go to www.robofest.net

June

Please check out the IGVC official result here. We were ranking 3 University after Virginia Tech and U of Florida in the Autonomous Challenge Division!

The Robofest 2003 National Champion Award Ceremony was held on June 7. Channel 7 broadcasted a part of the event!

Dr. Chung taught a Robotics Workshop with RoboLab 2.5 for Utica Community School teachers on June 24 and 26 at Joan C. Sergent Instructional Resource Center.

David Chamulak taught the Lego Robotics Summer Program from June 16 - 20 for Macomb Intermediate School District Science Center at Joan C. Sergent Instructional Resource Center.

Dr. Chung was invited to a "Lego Learning Expo" in Windsor at Windsor Crossing Premium Outlets on Sunday, June 22. He introduced Robofest and showed Robofest 2002 and 2003 videotapes to the audience. U of Windsor also participated in the event.

May

Robofest 2003 New Hampshire was held on May 4th in Hollis in NH.

MCS Dept. Email Newsletter, 5-16-03

April

Prof. Mike Merscher was chosen as the winner of the 2003 Marbuger Fund for Excellence Award. He received a $1,000 honorarium and commemorative citation. Congratulations!




MCS Dept. Email Newsletter, 4-23-03

MCS Dept. Email Newsletter, 4-9-03

Senior Project Presentations on Thu. April 17. S217


The 2003 Mathematical Contest in Modeling: Feb. 6-10

Can you design an algorithm to improve the accuracy of the gamma knife, a new surgical tool for brain tumors? How can you minimize the number of boxes used to cushion a movie stunt man jumping a motorcycle over an elephant? These were the problems faced by the three teams of LTU students competing in the 2003 Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM)

Submissions from the USA and eight other countries, many from China, are collected and judged by experts from industry and academia. Of the approximately 500 papers, 11, or 2%, were judged outstanding and will be published. The next 14% were judged Meritorious, the next 31% were judged Honorable Mention, and about half are judged Successful Participant. Good writing is one of the keys that distinguish the best papers.

The LTU teams were:

  1. Brad Dillon, Steve Holcomb, Roy Jones Gamma Knife problem (Meritorious)
  2. Mike Livermore, Jeff Lowe, Jamie Samland Motorcycle problem (Honorable Mention)
  3. Joey Katz, Jeremy Malchow, Chris Sabatowich Motorcycle problem (Successful Participant)
Of the twelve teams from Michigan colleges and universities that entered the MCM, only an LTU team received Meritorious, and we were one of only three to receive Honorable Mention.

Faculty advisors were Ruth Favro (Math/ Comp. Sci.) and Valentina Tobos (Nat. Sci.). The student majors included Mathematics, Math & Computer Science, Physics, Electrical Engineering, and Computer Engineering.

At the end of the MCM, the students went home to catch up on their sleep and homework. Congratulations to all the students on their efforts! See the full article in the next Tech News.


A student chapter of ACM at LTU was approved on April 2 from a student government meeting. Please check out LTU ACM homepage at here. They are planning a meeting on Tuesday, April 16 in CW 21.

March

An LTU student chapter of the Math Association of America has been formed. Please check out mcs.ltu.edu/maa


An LTU student chapter of ACM (Association of Computing Machinery) has been formed. Please check out mcs.ltu.edu/acm

February

The 34th Annual Lawrence Technological University Mathematics Competition for High School Students will be held on Sunday, April 27, 2003. The time is from 1:00 to 3:00 pm. There will be a lot of prizes. Please check here for more info.


Dr. Chung introduced Computer Science classes to campus exploration day groups on Feb 7.


If you are an MCS student or faculty member, you can get all the software development tools available from Microsoft here at LTU. If you are interested in, please go to here.


Robofest registration was closed only after 11 hours! There will be an additional site in Detroit as well as in New Hamphire. Robofest became a National Contest. Please check out www.robofest.net

January

We welcome visting professor, Dr. Deng from Wenzhou University in China. His reasearch areas are data warehouse and data mining.


Dr. Chung gave a talk on Robotics and Robotics Competitions at Larson Middle School science classes on Jan. 8.


Now recruiting students: "Mathematical Contest in Modeling". International contest, teams of 3; intense but worth it!!
Feb. 6 - 10.
Practices: Come to the AAC.
Tuesdays Jan. 14, 21, 28, Feb. 4, 12, 12:30pm.
or
Wednesdays Jan. 15, 23, 30, Feb. 5, 3:30pm
See/email favro@ltu.edu in S106 to sign up or for more info.
Also check out: www.comap.com/undergraduate/contests


James Tartamella donated a Lego Mindstorms kit to the Robotics lab. Rita Chen donated a soldering tool to Robotics lab. Thank you!


Please check out MCS IGVC team homepage at mcs.ltu.edu/~igvc. Team members are: Christopher Aulepp, David Chamulak, Li Ping Chen, Santosh Nair, Andrey Shvartsman, Maurice Tedder, and I Tseng



Robotics lab has a new robot member: "ER1".



MCS Dept. welcomes Dr. Christopher Cartwright, a new full-time factulty member! His email address is CARTWRIGHT at ltu.edu. His Office is at S123.


The first MCS Department web survey results are posted here. As of Dec. 20, 76 students out of 285 responded. Thank you so much for your valuable inputs.


Dr. Chung gave a talk on Robotics and Robofest at Larson Middle School in Troy on January 8th.


Need a tutor? Please make an appointment with a tutor at AAC using myTutoring. This system has been developed by MCS student and faculty member.


Please check out ltu-online.com for unofficial information about LTU campus life. The site has no affiliation with Lawrence Technological University.