An expansive showcase of research being conducted by both graduate and undergraduate students was on display at the Fall Projects and Research Symposium at the Indiana Memorial Union Alumni Hall Dec. 5. Nearly 250 students presented 85 research projects ranging from the academic to the entertaining in an event that provided a glimpse into the work being done at the School of Informatics and Computing.
“We wanted to bring undergrads and graduates together to showcase all of the research that we could possibly show,” says Lamara Warren, the interim assistant dean for diversity and education and one of the organizers of the event, which was open to the public.
“It gives the students a sense of accomplishment, and it gives our stakeholders in the school, on campus, and in the community a chance to see what kind of work is being done. It really brings all the research energy together.”
One project focused on text mining for relationships between autism research and the way the media covers the topic. Another created a system to coordinate the feeding of pets. Still another tracked the impact of home-court advantage for the Indiana basketball team. Research on a robotic teddy bear that plays peek-a-boo with children and an effort to model the impact of adrenaline and dopamine in an artificial neural network were on display just feet apart in the same room.
“It shows the wide range of the pure science projects to social projects,” Warren says. “It shows the breadth of our research projects and options available using technology.”
Many students took on the challenge of building devices to go along with their research, and that provided them with the opportunity to test their problem-solving skills.
Senior informatics majors Amelia Weller and Avani Kshatriya designed, coded, and constructed a companion robot for students who live alone. The device, which was housed in a hard, plastic hamster ball, featured a distance sensor and would light up when someone approached.
Weller also enjoyed the opportunity to look in on what her classmates have been up to.
“I love seeing all the work everyone else has done,” Weller says. “It’s fun to showcase our own design, but it’s really cool to see all these different ideas people have had and how they’ve come about making those ideas a reality.”
The chance to demonstrate a project and stretch boundaries was a draw for Ashwini Rajagopal, a graduate student in computer science. She was involved with the FeedMe Manager, the pet feeding coordinator.
“This was a great way to showcase our project. It’s easy to come up with a prototype and present it to a class, but it’s different with the public,” Rajagopal says. “We had a unique experience interviewing people, and that was an interesting experience. People told us this was something they would use.”
Some of SoIC’s freshmen Intelligent Systems Engineering students showcased projects as well. The group of Corbin Nicholson, Jonathan Krzesniak, and Jaclyn Youngs presented TapTap LED, a game using randomized LED patterns and photo resistors to improve hand-eye coordination. They also overcame some adversity to bring TapTap to the event.
“We planned on doing a laser maze, but the fog machine needed to make the lasers visible needed colder temperatures to work right,” Krzesniak says. “We went outside, but it was too cold, and it broke the lasers. So we had to rebuild the project in two days.”
The group used the same concept, and the ability to pivot in the face of a changing reality was a solid lesson learned.
“The coding was tough, and getting the hardware and software to work the way we wanted it to was a challenge,” Nicholson says. “But we got the great experience of working as a team to implement different parts.”
Awards were handed out for the best graduate and undergraduate projects. Freshmen ISE students Helen Hargis, Aidan Whelan, Neil Patel and Ronnie Sun won the Best in Undergraduate award for EcoClaw, a device that turns picking up litter into a game. Best in Graduate honors went to computer science Master’s students Mangirish Wagle and Gourav Shenoy for their Transportation Assistant for the Visually Impaired, an app to assist the blind. The People’s Choice award went to Battle Bot, a project from informatics students Joe Compion, Franny Watne, and Taraneh Ekbia that helps veterans with PTSD remember to take their medications.
“These students aren’t really here for the awards,” Warren says. “This event gives them an awareness of what you can do with research, and it gives them a true hands-on experience of what research looks like in the different fields we offer. We want these students to understand and respect the research process.”
The Fall Projects and Research Symposium was initially conceived three years ago by Katie Siek, an associate professor and the director of informatics undergraduate studies, and the research portion of the event was added last year. Teams identified with computer science, informatics, data science, human-computer interaction/design, and intelligent systems engineering, and one team came from CREST, IU’s Center for Research in Extreme Scale Technologies.
The major organizers for the event included Siek, Warren, postdoctoral fellow Leslie Liu, assistant professor of informatics Norman Su, HCI Master’s student Sarah Ng, and informatics Ph.D. student Ben Jelen.
“There are so many people who make this possible,” Siek says. “The students were impressive, and we received great feedback from the community about the amazing projects and professional presentations. We hope this event continues to grow.”