BOOM Bits on Our Minds (BOOM) BOOM explodes with student invention
CIS Professor Geri Gay
[right] looks on as a
student describes her
project at BOOM ’04.
CS Professor Gün Sirer [left]
with a student at BOOM ’04.
Above: CIS Dean Robert Constable and CS Professor Gün Sirer talk with Kathy Okun, wife of Cornell president Jeffrey Lehman
at BOOM.
With soccer-playing
robots downstairs and
computers that can
play chess upstairs,
this year’s eighth
annual BOOM (Bits On
Our Minds) exhibition
looked like something
out of “The Jetsons.”
Some 120 presenters
with a total of 64 projects crowded
three floors in Cornell’s
Upson Hall on March
3 to partake in the
annual expo hosted
by the Department
of Computer Science
and the School of
Electrical and Computer
Engineering.
“We have this expo
every year for two
reasons,” said Emin Gün
Sirer, assistant professor
of computer science
and faculty coordinator
for BOOM. “We want to
reach out to undecided
majors and to people
who are not in college
yet to show them the
opportunities computer
science holds. We also
do it as a teach-in,
to show colleagues
what the cutting-edge
research is.”
Irene Chung’s project
is an example. Chung’04, college scholar,
displayed her Web concept
managing tool,
a program that allows
the user to generate
many different Website
styles for the same
information. Chung
already has sold her
program to Production
IG, a prominent animation
firm in Japan.
Production IG used
Chung’s technology to
configure the animation
in the recent feature
film “Kill Bill.”
“I have a lot of work
to still do with this
program,” Chung said.“But I think what is
going on right now with
the project is awesome,
and I’m glad a company
likes it.”
The RoboCup team drew
a big crowd. The team’s
soccer-playing robots
operate on artificial
intelligence programs
that team members
write. “Every year
we build the project
from the ground up,”
said graduate student
Nathan Pagel, M. Eng.“It is great to see
the robots through to
completion.” Cornell’s
team “rules the world
in robotic soccer,” Sirer
said, referring to the
university’s success
in competition.
The theme of robotics
was common to
many projects, including
a robot built by
Ithaca High School
students for the FIRST
(“For Inspiration and
Recognition of Science
and Technology”)
Robotics competition.
Cornell undergraduates
work as mentors to the
Ithaca High students.
This year’s team will
compete in the second
round competition in
Toronto in April.
Not all projects came
from the computer science
school of thought.
Lindsay Lyman-Clarke,
a graduate student in
textiles and apparel,
displayed her project,
which uses body scan
data to design clothing
sizing systems. She uses
lasers to acquire body
scan data, in conjunction
with computer
patterning programs,
to design clothing.
BOOM was sponsored
by Bloomberg and
Credit Suisse First
Boston, which now has
sponsored BOOM for
three years in a row.“We see BOOM as a
way to tap into the
talent here at Cornell,”
said Carolyne Phillips
of Credit Suisse First
Boston.
Other BOOM projects
ranged from computer
animations to a selfguided
submarine to
types of computer
games.“It is wonderful to
see what students
are doing,” said
Kathy Okun, wife
of President Jeffrey
Lehman. “There are
lots of interesting
things going on in
computer science,
and it’s so great that
students have the
opportunity to do
these things.”
RACHEL EINSCHLAG ’04
(reprinted from Cornell Chronicle,
March 11, 2004)