Aug. 2001
July 2001
There was a mini Olympics in the robotics lab on July 25. Micro Khepera robots were pushing packages to the final line and racing in a maze. Geoffrey Nagle won the Maze race and Shaakir Shah won the Box Pushing race. For more details about this robot game, please check out Dr. Chung's Intro to Artificial Intelligence Class homepage in the Summer E. Yes, robotics is a wonderful motivator in education. In Germany, they created a new word: Robots for Edutainment.
Dr. Chung gave a talk and robot demonstrations for a group of girl scouts on July 18 in his robotics lab. During the demo, an autonomous robot for ribbon cutting built by Handy Board was introduced for the first time in human history, as far as he knows. The concept of the robot was designed by Dr. Chung and his student Hsien-Hsiang Chiu designed and implemented it during this summer E session. The LTU robotics lab and Dr. Chung hold another world record regarding robotics. He developed the first "autonomous" robot picking raffle tickets on April 15, 2000. Pictures of the seminar can be found here. Also, here are two video clips: 1 and 2.
Correction: The editor found out that there were two similar autonomous robots developed for the ribbon cutting ceremony both in 1998. Please check out U of Mich, and U of Alberta, Canada sites.
Faculty Appreciation Day
On Tuesday, July 3rd, the
Department of Math and Computer Science held an informal pizza party to
thank faculty members for their hard work. Department Chairperson, Dr.
David Bindschadler, awarded plaques to the following faculty members to
recognize their extra work for the Department and the University:
v Professor Mike Merscher for running the Detroit Metropolitan High School Mathematics and Computer Club, and for holding the Annual Lawrence Tech Mathematics Competition for High School Students
v Professor Ruth Favro for coaching the award winning team that participated in this year’s Mathematical Contest in Modeling
v Professor Howard Whitston for also coaching a team entered in the MCM competition, and for his involvement in the student chapter of ACM
v
Dr. Chung for his robotics events (RoboFest, First Lego
League, the upcoming RoboFest Show & Tell)
Many thanks to all who came and shared their afternoon with us, including: Associate Provost Vaz, Dean Rodgers, Associate Dean Bauer, Diana Richard, Susan Penner, Christina Hooke, and Clifton Johnson. (Thanks to Kathy Kane for organizing the event!) Please check out the photo album from the party.
June 2001
Congratulations! The following MSCS students passed the Sun Certified Programmer for the Java 2 Platform on June 26.
Jeffrey Wen-Chih Lin
Paul Pei-Hsuan Lee
Teresa I-Fang Kang
Wei-Wen Chang, the winner of CEC2001 competition, gave a talk about his solution to 2D & 3D optimization problems on June 20. Dr. Chung awarded the 1st place prize, a $400.00 check sent by CEC, to him. Dr. Chung also received registration tickets worth $700.00 for World Congress on Computational Intelligence conference in Hawaii. Please click here for photo album from the seminar.
May 2001
The 32nd Annual Lawrence Technological
University High School Mathematics Competition was held on April 29, 2001,
as a feature of the annual LTU Open House. Some of the finest mathematical
talent in the state of Michigan participated in the competition this year.
(Reported by Prof. Merscher)
Winners list:
1st place: Shailesh Agarwal, 11th grade, Troy H.S.
2nd place: Mike Asmar, 12th grade, Troy H.S.
3rd place: Hogyeong Jeong, 11th grade, East Lansing H.S.
Honorable Mention (alphabetically):
Chris Battey: 12th grade, Ann Arbor Pioneer
Anant Gupta: 10th grade, Troy H.S.
Ron Hagiz: 12th grade, Detroit Country Day
Congratulations! Jun He passed the Sun Certified Programmer for the Java 2 Platform on May 21.
Congratulations to Prof. Ruth Favro, she has been elected Chairperson of the Michigan section of the Mathematical Association of America.
Dr. Chung gave a talk at the LEGO Robotics Forum,
Tuesday, May 15, 2001, Pierce Middle School Auditorium
15430 Kercheval, Grosse Pointe Park. This forum was sponsored by the Grosse Pointe Association
For Gifted Education with the support of the Grosse Pointe Public Schools.
Andrey Shvartsman, Physics and Computer Science Major, assisted Dr. Chung
in demonstrating Lego and Handy Board robots. There was an article about
this forum in Grosse Pointe News, May 10, 2001
Apr 2001
63 teams, 211 students, 32 schools/institutions competed at RoboFest 2001 during LTU's Open House. Details at http://www.robofest.net/01/results.htm The Detroit News, Friday April 27, 2000 introduced RoboFest in Page 4D.
ACM Chalk Talk: Game Design with Brad Wardell (project manager of the Corporate Machine and Galactic Civilizations), Wed. April 11, 2001, 3:00pm, in S207
MSCS Students, Wei-Wen Chang and Baraa Baraa Basata Won the CEC2001 International Competitions. For more details, please click here.
A letter from Prof. MERSCHER
I am pleased to announce the winner of the Annual Calculus Award for 2000-2001. He is Mr. Anthony Tyll, a Mechanical Engineering major from Ubly, Michigan. This award is presented each year to that student who, in the judgment of the Award Committee, showed the best performance in the sequence of Calculus courses through Differential Equations. The award will be presented to Mr. Tyll at the Student Government Awards Banquet, held this year on Saturday, April 21. Congratulations to Mr. Tyll and to the many runners-up, and also thanks to our Calculus faculty.
Mar 2001
Dr. Chung was awarded travel grants from AAAI. He talked/demonstrated at AAAI Symposium on Robotics and Education at Stanford University.
Jy-Jung Chiang passed the Sun Certified Programmer for the Java 2 Platform on March 7, 2001 Congratulations!
26 students from 6 High Schools attended the Handy Board Class
A letter from MCM coaches
Dear MCMers,
I just received a phone call from Dr. Frank Giordano, the director of the Mathematical Contest in Modeling. He relayed the following **GREAT NEWS**:
1. Team #652 --Ken Kopp, Mark Wagner, and Bill Kolasa-- has been selected as one of 6 Outstanding teams in the 2001 MCM for Problem B (the S. Carolina hurricane evacuation problem)! The six teams are LTU, Duke, Harvey Mudd, Wake Forest, The Governor's School (VA) and Bethel College (MN).
2. LTU and Wake Forest are both getting the INFORMS prize, which will be a check for money, and a plaque for each student. It was felt these two teams wrote papers which were not only outstanding, but super outstanding!
3. The two papers and information about the two teams will be forwarded to the appropriate people in South Carolina, and it is possible that they may ask the teams to make a presentation to them.
There will be an official press release from COMAP when the results are announced.
*Needless* to say, we are all very proud of you and the effort that all our teams put into this competition. The three of you on team #652 are seasoned competitors, and have invested a lot of your free time in this and other competitions, with the rewards of enjoyment, camaraderie, and the opportunity to broaden your education. This year, the combination of knowledge in mathematics and computer science, plus good writing and teamwork, really paid off!
Congratulations Ken, Mark, and Bill!!
Sincerely,
The MCM Coaches: Ruth Favro, Howard Whitston, Scott Schneider
Feb 2001
The 2001 Mathematical Contest in Modeling, an international competition, is taking place, Feb. 9 - 12 (Fri. - Mon.). The following students are participating: Ken Kopp, Steve Holcomb, Bill Kolasa, Mark Wagner, Stivin Apostoloski, Jim Coleman, Brandy Shuler, John Mysliwiec, and Mike Krachenfels. Faculty advisors are Ruth Favro, Howard Whitston, and Scott Schneider. Go LTU/MCS!
Jan 2001
