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Bits
On Our Mind (BOOM) 2001
The following
article was written by Melissa Globerman for the Cornell Chronicle.
BOOM 2001 was co-sponsored by ECE.
On
February 28, BOOM (Bits On Our Mind) 2001 came to the Engineering Quad
for the fourth year, and the rumble could be felt strongly on three
stories of Upson Hall. Forty-seven computer sciencerelated exhibits
highlighted student talent from across the university to show current
research and new applications in digital technology. Projects ran the
gamut from an instrument to transmit images of Mars in color for NASA's
Athena mission, scheduled to launch in 2003, to an artificial intelligence
prototype robot named Max, whose motor control is directed from the
parallel port of an on-board laptop computer.
BOOM is a showcase
of creativity from undergraduates and graduate students' work from engineering,
fine arts, psychology, space sciences, andof coursecomputer science.
"Every year, we've become more interdisciplinary, but that's also
because the interest in the event has grown tremendously all over campus,"
said Charles Van Loan, chair of the Department of Computer Science.
Two benefactors,
alumnus Philip Young '62, B.M.E. '63, and the Microsoft Corporation,
donated approximately $9,000 to the event to add swanky catering to
the ambience and free t-shirts for the participants. Though Van Loan
said it would be impossible to guess how many of the projects were already
being developed for commercial production, scouts from corporations
were invited to mingle with the students and browse their projects.
One project that
garnered interest at the event will undoubtedly get more attention on
East Hill later this spring. Three computer science undergraduates,
working with the Human Computer Interaction research group in the Department
of Communications, have created a Cornell campus tour guide that fits
in the palm of a hand. Taking advantage of a campus pilot project in
wireless networking for which eight buildings have been equipped with
wireless transceivers, the students created an interactive messaging
and mapping program. Using a personal digital assistant (PDA) with a
global positioning system receiver attached, visitors can take a self-guided
tour of the campus.
The PDA, which
visitors will be able to rent at Day Hall, uses GPS to determine the
user's location and then makes a beeping sound to alert them when information
related to that location is available. "But what's cool about this
program is that it creates social maps, so the user can then type in
what they think about each of the various spots, rate them, and other
users can then see those results," said Jenna Burrell, a senior
in computer science and one of the exhibit's creators.
Other better known
projects on campus also debuted their latest research. Members of Cornell's
RoboCup team gave demonstrations of how their new omni-directional bots
were able to capture their second robot soccer world championship title
in Melbourne, Australia last summer.
The Cornell Hybrid
Electric Vehicle team displayed photos of their most recent gem: the
2000 Chevrolet Suburban that they've converted to use a large battery
pack as its energy storage buffer. The team, in its eighth year of competition,
is almost ready for their second Future Truck competition.
Also, undergraduates
from the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering displayed
the moonbuggy that they are readying for a NASA competition in Huntsville,
Alabama this spring. A team of eight students constructed the vehiclea
four-wheel drive bicyclefor NASA's simulated lunar crater racing course.
Junior Brett Lee explained that while the moonbuggy itself doesn't appear
to be a digital technology project, the steering and suspension geometry
necessary to create its most essential parts are assuredly "the
products of high tech computer design and programs."
Whether the project
is about designing an on-line coursework submission system, creating
a program to instruct a computer to teach itself to play backgammon
or checkers, or designing software to recognize human facial expressions,
"this kind of forum gives the students a great opportunity to explain
what it is they did and also get feedback on their work," said
BOOM faculty advisor and associate professor of computer science Stephen
Vavasis.
Learning opportunities
notwithstanding, for participants and observers alike, BOOM was a blast
of entertainment and a resounding success.
Corporate
Interactions
Corporate
Partnerships and Affiliations
The department's
Corporate Partnerships and Affiliates programs support research collaborations
and interactions with internationally respected scientists on a number
of levels. Our programs are also designed to support education of our
undergraduate and graduate students. The department offers opportunities
for interaction and the support of education in such vital areas as:
- artificial intelligence
- bio-informatics
- computational
methods for mechanical design and simulation
- computational
molecular biology
- digital libraries
- distributed
computing and fault tolerance
- formal specification
and verification methodologies
- graphics
- information
technology
- natural language,
document classification, and retrieval
- networking databases
- parallel computing
- programming
languages
- programming
logics
- remote collaboration
technologies
- scientific and
numerical computing
- security
- supercomputing
(through affiliation with CTC)
- theoretical
computer science
- vision and image
interpretation
Our Corporate Partnership
program fosters strategic relationships with major sponsors of the department's
activities. Corporate Partners are invited to participate directly in
the technology development process, through on-campus representation,
short term and extended visits, and consulting arrangements. Additional
opportunities include access to technical reports, colloquia, seminars,
the department's annual report, and resumes submitted by BA, BS, MEng,
and Ph.D. candidates expecting to graduate. Our Corporate Affiliates
program offers small companies many flexible arrangements to interact
with our faculty and students. Such arrangements are designed on an
individual basis to suit the goals of the companies and the department.
Department of Computer
Science faculty and researchers continue to collaborate with corporate
partners: Microsoft, Intel, GTE, Lockheed Martin, Lucent Technologies,
IBM, McGraw Hill, and Sun Microsystems. GTE continued its support of
the department's initiative in information technology with a five-year
grant to support new faculty hires in this strategic area. Lockheed
Martin provided support to the undergraduate and Ph.D. programs. Sun
Microsystems made generous donations of equipment to the department.
Lucent Technologies donated funds for a fellowship for Professor Jon
Kleinberg's graduate student Amit Kumar.
Professor Johanne
Gehrke continues to receive support from several companies for his research
in new data-mining techniques. He received support from McGraw Hill
to develop teaching materials and from Mastercard Corp. in support of
his work in e-commerce. IBM gave professor Gehrke a Faculty Partnership
award. Microsoft also awarded him $50,000 in support of his efforts
in Online Data-mining Operators and to facilitate and foster collaboration
between his research group and its Bay Area Research Center.
Professor E. Gun
Sirer received funding from several sources to support his teaching
and research efforts. Microsoft contributed equipment valued at $20,000
to be used for class projects by students in the spring 2001 CS414/415
course. In addition, Microsoft has committed to three years of support
for his research in Assuring the Security of Components in the .NET
Framework.
Intel provided
major funding to the department for research and instruction. Gifts
included $55,800 to fund a Graduate Fellowship for the academic year
awarded to Stephanie Weirich, $2551 awarded to Professor Fred Schneider
for equipment in support of his research in secure Information Assurance
native code and $152,000 in equipment from Intel's Technology for Education
2000 grant.
Microsoft continued
its generous support for research, instruction, and general support.
Gifts included $75,000 to Werner Vogels's research in scalable enterprise
cluster computing and to facilitate and foster collaboration between
his group and its Bay Area Research Center. Microsoft also supported
our migration to Win2000 and our student technology demonstration day,
BOOM, with gifts totaling $42,000. In addition, it made gifts of Microsoft
Office XP Professional software valued at more than $359,000.
Industrial
Partners
- AT&T
- Hewlett Packard
- IBM Corporation
- Intel Corporation
- Lockheed Martin
- Microsoft
- Sun Microsystems
- Verizon
Corporate
Gifts and Grants
The department
is grateful for the support, including equipment and software, provided
by our industrial partners.
- Air Products
& Chemicals $2,500
- Battery Management
Corporation 1,000
- Green Hills
Software 1,800
- IBM 40,000
- Intel Corporation
58,351
- Lockheed Martin
15,000
- Lucent Technologies
45,000
- McGraw Hill
11,000
- Microsoft 551,400
- Teradyne, Inc.
1,000
- Verizon/GTE
50,000
The department is
grateful for gifts from the following individuals:
- Mary Salton,
a gift of $5000 for the Gerald Salton Reading Room in Upson Hall
- Phillip Young,
a gift of $1000 to support BOOM, our student technology showcase
The Office of Computing
and Information Science wishes to acknowledge support from the following
corporate partners:
- Intel $200,000
- MasterCard International
$77,114
Alumni
and External Relations
This year marked
a significant turning point in the history of alumni relations for computer
science and computing related fields at Cornell. Alumni are networking
in record numbers, and many have become actively involved with Cornell's
efforts to support the development of Computer and Information Science
across a wide range of disciplines.
Successful events
were held in Boston and Palo Alto, which primarily included large gatherings
of alumni and friends of the Department of Computer Science. The Boston
event was a sponsored dinner hosted by the Dean of CIS, Robert L. Constable.
Nearly three dozen alumni and friends attended. Corporate gifts were
facilitated by Neeraj Agrawal '95 of Battery Management Corporation
and Dan Proskauer '90 of Teradyne.
In Palo Alto over
50 alumni and friends attended an evening mixer that included Professor
Dan Huttenlocher and Charles Weiss '66 of Oracle (pictured
below). Not only are these folks on the West Coast doing well, in spite
of fluctuations in the market, they have an infectious optimism and
justifiable excitement about things that are yet to come.
At this year's
alumni reunion breakfast in June, alumni and guests joined Computer
Science Department Chairman Charlie Van Loan, and CIS Dean, Robert Constable.
Among those attending was George Joblove '76, MS '79, special
effects wizard and now senior vice president of technology at Sony
Pictures Imageworks.
Cornell alum Philip
Young '62 made a substantial gift to support this year's student
technology fair. The fair, which is called BOOM, was held in February,
and featured 47 project presentations by students from Cornell.
Nikola Valerjev
'96 was again instrumental in obtaining sponsorship from his company,
Green Hills Software, for two Cornell programming teams to represent
Cornell in the ACM Programming contests during the fall and spring semesters.
The Degenfelder
Family Scholarship was awarded to Marla Leahy '02. It awards
$5,000 to a student working at the boundary between computer science
and biology. Joseph R. Degenfelder '60 and his wife Dr. Pauline
Degenfelder '61 worked with Professor Ron Elber to establish an
endowment for this special award.
Mary Salton,
the wife of the late Professor Gerard Salton, made a generous
gift to establish the Professor Gerard Salton Seminar and Reading Room.
Gerry's ground- breaking research in information retrieval helped to
found the current broad field of Information Science. The Department
of Computer Science is pleased to honor his contribution. The Salton
Reading Room, located on the 5th floor of Upson Hall, was dedicated
in a ceremony on April 18th, 2001. In attendance to honor the event
were Mrs. Mary Salton, wife of the late Professor Salton, and members
of his family, as well as a number of friends and colleagues. Professor
Edgar Rosenberg gave a moving tribute to the late professor, as did
Professor Juris Hartmanis and Dean Robert Constable. The ceremonies
ended with the cutting of the ribbon, by Chairman Charles Van Loan.
For more information
about alumni or external relations in CIS or the Department of Computer
Science, please contact Dan Jenkins at jenkins@cs.cornell.edu.
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