Spring / Summer 2005

LTU Computer Science Alum Meeting in Taipei, Taiwan

Maurice Tedder, Robotics Lab Assistant, visited Taiwan this summer. He was greeted by many Taiwanese classmates and IGVC team members. See a photo below taken when he was invited to a dinner by LTU Computer Science alum living and working in Taipei.




A new MCS class!: Embedded Programming

Dr. Miller is teaching a new class, Embedded Programming this fall 2005. For more details, please go to http://medicalopensource.net/mcs4993-ep



Lego Robotics summer camps this summer

Dr. Miller taught Lego Robotics Summer Camps at George Crockett Academy, Allen Academy, St. Tim School, and Herlong School in Detroit in June and July. Dr. Chung helped to coordinate the camps and gave a robot demo and talk at St. Timothy School in Detroit on June 20.
Our Computer Science alum did also fantastic jobs in teaching Robotics for the young students. Maurice Tedder, MSCS 2005, taught Lego robotics camp with RoboLab programming language at Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor, from July 11 to July 16 (see a photo below). Joe Engalan, MSCS 2004, taught Lego robotics class for all girls sponsored by AT&T from June 26-30 on LTU campus.




Summer Science Institute, June 26 - July 1

Dr. Chung taught laptop robot class with Java for high school students sponsored by Natural Science Department. Maurice Tedder, MSCS 2005, assisted the class. Please check out: Photo Album



IGVC, June 11 - June 13

LTU Think-Tank robot was in the top ten in all competition categories of IGVC (Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition) held in Traverse City, June 11-13. In the Autonomous Challenge competition category, our robot traveled 232 feet. Our place was 10th out of 34 world class universities. In the GPS Navigation Challenge, we reached 4 waypoints and placed 9th. In the design competition, we won 5th place for our group B with 17 teams. You can download our robot design report as well as many photos from our IGVC 2005 team web page is at ltu164.ltu.edu/igvc Math and Computer Science Dept. sponsored materials to construct our intelligent robots, LTU Alumni association supported student's trip to Traverse City, EDCC provided extra battery for MPC laptops which is the brain of the robots. Also Lee Keshishian, mechanical engineering machine shop, gave computer science students a big help.



RoboCup US Open Report

LTU Computer Science students participated in the 3rd annual RoboCup held at Georgia Tech, Atlanta from May 7 till 10th.

Even though we worked very hard working overnight, our AIBO robots were not quite ready to compete with Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pennsylvania due to many factors such as on-board computer vision problems. According to the rule, if a team is not ready to compete, the results are recorded as 10 to zero. We finally were ready to compete with Bowdoin College Brunswick, Maine who was participating for the first time like us. The score was zero to zero.

The Champion of the four-legged AIBO soccer US Open was Carnegie Mellon University, second place winner was University of Pennsylvania, and Third place went to University of Texas, Austin. Most of the team members of the winning teams were Ph.D. students who have worked on AIBO robot projects related to computer vision, robotics control, and machine learning for many years. To make the competition more exciting, European Champion, University of Dortmund team from Germany came to compete against the US Champion. The winner was the German team who defeated CMU, two to nothing.

We learned a lot from this event and had a wonderful opportunity to see what world-class computer science students were achieving. We also attended workshops to learn many other topics including multi-target tracking, robot soccer simulation, and path planning, among others.

We thank our sponsors for supporting this trip: LTU MCS Dept, LTU Alumni Association, LTU Student Government and DELMIA corp. Some photos from the competition can be found here. Also, videotapes of this event will be available later.



MSCS student Maurice Tedder received the 2005 Ed Donley Distinguished Graduate Awards, 18-karat Balfour ArtCarved class ring! Read the Tech News article (Vol 72 No. 10, May 4, 2005).



Please check out the winners of the 36th Annual Mathematics Competition at www3.ltu.edu/ltucomp/2005winners.html



Warren Beard and Dr. Miller taught a Lego Robotics class at George Crockett Academy in Detroit. Here are some photos.



Computer Science students demonstrated laptop robots, AIBO robots, and "Larry Kart" project during the "Meet the Deans" event on Feb 26. Please check out a photo album.



Spring 05 MSDNAA (Microsoft Developer's Network Academic Alliance) Schedule

Students taking MCS classes or instructors teaching MCS courses can get free software development tools such as .NET, Windows XP and many others from Microsoft. If you are interested in the program,
  • Go to www3.ltu.edu/mcs and click on MSDNAA button
  • Click on "Register Now" and fill out the online form

    The detailed procedure how and when to check out CD media will be sent to your email address given in the on-line application form. Therefore, make sure the email address you enter is correct and valid.

    The MSDNAA office where you can pickup/return CDs is located in the University Technology and Learning Center T220 (Computer Science Advanced Graphics Lab)

    Spring 2005 Office Hours (Feb. 3 - Apr. 29) by Eden and/or Steven:

    Please note that members must renew every academic year. If you were a member last semester, you do not need to renew. If you have any questions, please send email to ltu_mcs_msdnaa@hotmail.com

    CJ Chung, MSDNAA faculty advisor
    Associate Professor of Computer Science
    x3504, www3.ltu.edu/~chung




    LTU Math Club is sponsoring a talk by Dr. Dennis Blumenthal from General Motors Research. He will speak on "Mathematical Modeling for Robust Solutions in the Automotive Industry". Dr. Blumenthal will talk about how Operations Research solves many interesting problems (see flyers for abstract).

    This talk should be of great interest to students in math and computer science (also sciences, engineering, and management).
    Prof. Ruth G. Favro
    Mathematics & Computer Science Dept.



    Any undergraduate student interested in the Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM) or Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (ICM) is welcome at the practices which are now going on. Come to the AAC on Thursday at 3:00-4:30, or see Prof. Favro in S106 (favro@ltu.edu).

    The contest starts Thursday, Feb. 3 at 8:00 pm and lasts until 8:00 pm on Monday, Feb. 7. This international contest is done on campus, with teams of 3 students (maximum of six teams).

    You will be modeling a real-world problem by discovering its mathematical basis, finding optimal solutions on a computer, and writing a paper detailing your results.

    Teams of students with different backgrounds usually do well, since they bring their different viewpoints to bear on the problem. Besides, it's fun (and there's free food).

    See www.comap.com/undergraduate for contest information, or see me for copies of old problems.

    Prof. Favro



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