In the first of what may become a series of outreach events to undergraduate students, the Electrical Engineering department opened their labs to the public last Thursday.
As part of what will be called “demo days,” the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics & Native Americans in Science, or SACNAS, hosted an open house for students to take an inside look at the type of ongoing research in electrical engineering.
A medium crowd attended the Demo Day, an event which Dr. Lobaton plans to continue for the near future.
“We will be looking for other faculty that have accessible research and that are willing to share their enthusiasm toward their work. All of the STEM fields will be considered included (but not limited) to chemistry, biology, physics and mathematics,” Lobaton said.
Edgar Lobaton, Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), opened the event by sharing his research with attendees.
Lobaton’s main areas of research center around motion sensor camera systems—like what video game designers might use to mimic human movements—and robotics designed to imitate the movements of insects such as honeybees, for which the sense of sight is quite limited.
Participants were given the opportunity to learn about an affordable platform robot designed by N.C. State department, the WolfBots. WolfBots allow researchers to apply different experimental designs and test various algorithms with a single robot. Compared to other platform robots on the market today, WolfBots are much cheaper, costing about $500 to build.
WolfBots would be used in topological mapping, or mapping out the contours of areas where humans may be unable to reach, likely in disaster-stricken areas.
“Some of our research is related to sensor networks and swarm robotics [think of how bugs swarm]. For example, after a natural disaster, we may be looking for survivors. A swarm robotic system can localize people based on sound or even imaging information. We have developed a technique [topological mapping] that allows localization of the agents and mapping of an environment without having to build an accurate 3D model of the scene,” Lobaton said.
Members from SACNAS-NCSU will present their WolfBots robotics platform at the 40th Annual SACNAS National Conference in San Antonio, TX later this week, from Oct 3rd to Oct 6th.
Daniel Benavides, a senior in electrical and computer engineering, is especially looking forward to presenting their WolfBots research at the conference, along with two other students in the ECE department.
WolfBots are easy to program, which makes them an attractive platform for other researchers.
“They run on a Linux operating system and Python programming, which allows them to be easily integrated into any type of research,” said David O’Hara, a senior in ECE working with Benavides.
Students also were able to try out the motion sensor camera, complete with the black suit and white orb sensors that may seem familiar from videogame commercials for common sports games.
Veronica Galindo, senior in Electrical and Computer Engineering, tested the motion sensor equipment.
“Yeah, I actually tried the suit on; it was kind of funny. But they’re using the motion detectors in order to mimic human movement, and to translate human movement into algorithms for the robots to use,” said Galindo.
For it being SACNAS’ first time hosting an event of this type, Galindo left impressed.
“I wish that more professors would do this, that they would allow students to be on the cutting edge of research, to see what they do on a daily basis…people might get more excited about going to grad school, especially if they want to be on the more innovative front of the engineering fields.”
