If you have been in the department as a major for at least one quarter and have time on Wednesday from 430-600 to serve as a mentor for a new CSE ugrad, please sign up on the catalyst survey. Food is included!
https://catalyst.uw.edu/webq/survey/cseadv/162148
Please sign up soon. If you sign up, plan on attending, but we’ll try to send a follow up by Wednesday morning. with a few more details.
Thank you,
CSE Advising
If you are interested in taking this course and are not a CS grad student, please contact Josh…add codes are now available.
Joshua R Smith <jrs@cs.washington.edu>
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Joshua R Smith <jrs@cs.washington.edu>
Date: Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 10:41 AM
Subject: CSE 599 Personal Robotics Clinic: Algorithms & Applications
To: Cs-Grads <cs-grads@cs.washington.edu>, cs-ugrads@cs.washington.edu
Cc: Faculty <faculty@cs.washington.edu>, ee_all@ee.washington.edu
Restr 12587 J 3 WF 1030-1150 CSE 503 SMITH,JOSHUA R. Open 0/ 15 PERSONAL ROBOTICS
CSE 599 Personal Robotics Clinic: Algorithms & Applications
The Personal Computer allowed ordinary people to use computers for countless new applications, most of which had not been imagined when PCs first emerged. Today’s Personal Robotics researchers are imagining and prototyping tomorrow’s robotic applications, and the algorithms that these applications need.
In this “seminar-clinic” course, students will read and present recent papers on Personal Robotics applications. They will also implement and present classic robotics algorithms that are relevant to Personal Robotics. The term “clinic” refers to the hands on software implementation projects. The goal of the course as a whole is to stimulate thinking about new Personal Robotics applications, and build the skills needed to implement them.
Students will be provided with a custom simulation / visualization environment (written in Python running on Ubuntu Linux, and available as a pre-configured Virtual Machine) to support their implementation of path planning algorithms. Other tools and environments (such as Matlab, C++, or Java) can be used at the student’s discretion. In order to keep the focus on learning the algorithms, rather than on learning libraries, the course will NOT emphasize existing packages or libraries (such as ROS).
Left: Personal Robot folding a towel. Right: Animated visualization of the RRT planning algorithm, using the course tools.
The algorithms subject matter in the course will adapt to student interests, but will include
The course will not focus on vision, learning, or control, topics that are addressed in other UW courses.
The course will include a final project, which can be chosen by the student, or suggested by the instructor. The final project will be similar to the earlier implementation projects, but greater in scope. In some cases it will be an extension of the earlier projects.
Students will be expected to participate actively. Each student will
present application papers (twice)
implement and present an algorithm (twice)
implement and present a final project
Students will not all implement the same algorithms, to increase the breadth of topics that the group as a whole explores. The number of student presentations will be reduced if necessary for scheduling reasons.
Instructor: Joshua Smith
Meeting place: CSE 503. Time: MW 10:30-11:50
3 credits. Limited to 15 students. Prerequisites: permission of instructor. Adventurous undergraduates will be accepted if space permits.
Sample Personal Robotics Readings
Clothing manipulation:
“Bringing Clothing into Desired Configurations with Limited Perception,” Marco Cusumano-Towner, Arjun Singh, Stephen Miller, James F. O’Brien, Pieter Abbeel, ICRA 2011
Mobile manipulation:
“Cart Pushing with a Mobile Manipulation System: Towards Navigation with Moveable Objects”
Jonathan Scholz, Sachin Chitta, Bhaskara Marthi, and Maxim Likhachev. ICRA 2011
Sample Algorithm readings:
RRTs:
“RRT Connect: An Efficient Approach to Single-Query Path Planning”
Kuffner, LaValle, ICRA 2000
“Space-Filling Trees: A New Perspective on Incremental Search for Motion Planning”, James J. Kuffner, Steven M. LaValle, Proc. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2011
Laplace planning:
Path Planning Using Laplace’s Equation, Connolly, Burns, Weiss, ICRA, 1990
Arm Kinematics
Forward
Spong Chap 3, Forward Kinematics, the Denavit-Hartenberg Convention
Inverse
Direct solution
Spong Chap 4, Inverse Kinematics
Iterative Jacobian solution
“Overview of Damped Least-Squares Methods for Inverse Kinematics of Robot Manipulators,” Arati S. Deo and Ian D. Walker, J. Intelligent and Robotic Systems, Kluwer 14: 43-68,1995
—
Subject: Google Games Seattle: Sign-Up Today!
Hi UW Students,
(We hope finals are going well, Spring break is around the corner! In case you need something to pull you back to school after a crazy Spring Break, you’ve got Google Games to look forward to!)
Think you got game? Compete against other students from UW for victory in challenges that test your creative and mental mettle at Google Games Seattle! Teams of five will go head to head in rigorous events: Geek Trivia, Lego Building, Puzzles, and Coding Competition.
Find four friends (Computer Science background strongly recommended) and register here. Can’t find a team? Sign up as an individual and we will do our best to put you in a team with others. In addition to the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, Google will also be supplying free refreshments to all participants and prizes to our top competitors. Bring it on!
Google Games Seattle
Date: Saturday, March 31
Time: 10:00am to approximately 4:00pm
Location: Google Seattle (651 N. 34th Street, Seattle)
Deadline to register: Wednesday, March 21st
FAQ
Q. Can we have less than five members on our team?
A. We strongly recommend having the maximum number of members – any less and you’ll lose your competitive edge.
Q. Do you have to be a current student to participate?
A. Yes, you must be currently enrolled at the University of Washington.
Q. Can we replace a member before the start of the event?
A. Sure. Just let us know (googlegames@google.com) about the new team member and who is being replaced.
Q. Should our team wear uniforms?
A. Show your team’s spirit however you choose: uniforms, team dance, team flag or poster, cheer, fight song, etc. A prize will be awarded to the team with the most spirit. Check out past Google Games here for inspiration.
Q. Will transportation be provided?
A. Transportation will be not be provided but we will provide parking validation for our parking structure.
Q. Will food be provided?
A. We will be providing lunch, snacks and drinks. If you have any dietary restrictions, please note this in the form and we will be sure to accommodate you.
Q. When will our team receive a confirmation about the Games?
A. After the registration deadline, we will reach out to teams with more details. Not all registered teams will be selected due to space limitations.
Please direct other questions to: googlegames@google.com.
Thanks,
Yin and Zoanna
You probably have noticed, but in case you didn’t, and you’re wondering why your old links don’t work any more, the CSE department has finally introduced our new website. http://www.cs.washington.edu/
If you have feedback, on the ugrad pages, please send it to the advising staff.
Please adjust your bookmarks accordingly.
CSE Advising
Spring Break building hours:
M-F 7am to 5pm*
S-S locked*
*as always, you have access 24/7 on your cardkey
Tracy Erbeck
Facilities Manager, CSE, University of Washington
206.543.9264 (office)
206.543.2969 (fax)
—– Forwarded message ———-
Follow up- the call came into UWPD at 5:45pm (so it was definitely was not that awesome thunder that happened around 8:45pm last night)
From: receptionist-admin@cs.
Sent: Monday, March 19, 2012 11:48 AM
To: cs-grads@cs.washington.edu; faculty – Mailing List; cs-staff – Mailing List; cs-ugrads – Mailing List
Cc: John Young
Subject: [Receptionist] [Cs-staff] UWPD in the building on Sunday, March 18th
If you were here on Sunday, you got to see UWPD in action….they responded to a call from a building occupant about possible gun shots heard (not a false call). They arrived quickly, and searched CSE along with EE and Sylvan Grove. They didn’t find any evidence of a gun discharged, and there wasn’t anything out of place (thankfully).
We haven’t determined what made the noise- if anybody was working on or near the 3rd floor and has information, please let me know.
Tracy Erbeck
Facilities Manager, CSE, University of Washington
206.543.9264 (office)
206.543.2969 (fax)
______________________________
Cs-ugrads mailing list
Cs-ugrads@cs.washington.edu
https://mailman.cs.washington.
Hey everyone, we want to get you guys some great T-shirts this year so we’re gonna start collecting designs now.
Turn your designs in here: https://catalyst.uw.edu/collectit/dropbox/timjv/20261
Look forward to seeing the best designs on some swanky t-shirts at the spring barbecue.
———- Forwarded message ———-
If you were here on Sunday, you got to see UWPD in action….they responded to a call from a building occupant about possible gun shots heard (not a false call). They arrived quickly, and searched CSE along with EE and Sylvan Grove. They didn’t find any evidence of a gun discharged, and there wasn’t anything out of place (thankfully).
We haven’t determined what made the noise- if anybody was working on or near the 3rd floor and has information, please let me know.
Tracy Erbeck
Facilities Manager, CSE, University of Washington
206.543.9264 (office)
206.543.2969 (fax)
ChronoZoom is VERY cool!
I wanted to share with you the launch of ChronoZoom yesterday. As I have shared with many of you before, ChronoZoom is an open-source cloud service community project dedicated to visualizing the history of everything. Big History is the attempt to understand, in a unified, interdisciplinary way, the history of cosmos, Earth, life, and humanity. By using Big History as the story line, ChronoZoom seeks to bridge the gap between the humanities and sciences an enable all this information to be easily understandable and navigable.
Last night we officially launched at the opening of the NCCE conference. The blog has a hyperlink to share on facebook if you want to share on your community links. We have gotten a great response and a bunch of partners to begin working with us after launch. This is a free tool made by the academic community for the academic community with the support of Microsoft Research Connections. We hope you will share it with your teachers and students. We would love to hear their feedback, once they experience ChronoZoom, at the bottom right they will see Take the Survey. In this survey they will vote for features, help us with navigation and help us prioritize the next set of capabilities in the tool. We hope to have 500,000 responses by end of the summer to guide us in our development. To learn more about the tool and the partnerships please open the Blog link below. You will also find links to the tool, tutorial, user guide and lesson plans. We hope you enjoy the experience.
Website: http://www.chronozoomproject.
Tutorial Video: http://research.microsoft.com/
Launch Blog: http://research.microsoft.com/
Guide: ChronoZoom Quick Reference Guide
Lesson Plan: ChronoZoom User Guide and Lesson Plan
The Chronozoom release crossed the wire yesterday at 11 am ET. Here’s the link: http://www.prnewswire.com/
Have a great day!
Thank you,
Rane Johnson-Stempson
Education & Scholarly Communications Principal Research Director | Microsoft Research Connections | Cell +1.425.457.3665 | Office +1.425.421-3447
| http://www.cs.washington.edu/research/ap/
|
Application for CSE 458 |
|
Want to learn more about the 2012-2013 animation course series? Attend an info session! When:
Where: Paul G. Allen Center room 691 (Gates Commons, 6th floor) What: Computer Science & Engineering (CSE) and the Animation Research Labs invite you to an information session on the Animation Production undergraduate course sequence at UW Seattle. This sequence runs from Summer 2012 (A term) through Spring 2013. The Summer course, Story Design for Computer Animation, is highly recommended but optional. The Animation Capstone culminates in a very professional and exciting collaboratively produced digital short film, similar in process to Disney/Pixar and Dreamworks productions. Examples of previous award winning films produced in the dept will be shown and questions regarding applications and admission, etc. will be addressed. We look forward to seeing you there. Light refreshments will be served. |
The CSE Undergraduate Research Seminar is now on the time schedule. It’s listed under CSE 497 (1 cr, CR/NC), and will be offered on Fridays at 12:30. Please sign up if you are interested in learning about current research projects in the department. Undergrads who have already participated in research are encouraged to sign up as well, and would have the opportunity to present their own research experience to the seminar.
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Brief Course Description: This course aims to get current undergraduates interested in CSE related research topics by exposing them to projects that are currently going on in the department. Additionally, this course gives current undergrads a venue to discuss their research with other students outside of their research area.
A typical 50 minute meeting is primarily lead by a grad student or undergrad who is currently doing research. The majority of class time is devoted to the presenter talking about one primary topic with the possibility of a second. The primary discussion topic is related to their research area. Following the research discussion, further dialog and discussion will be opened up for entire class participation.
Student Responsibilities: At the end of the quarter, each student must write a single page reflection on a research area discussed that they found the most interesting and why. Additionally, students who are currently doing research are highly encouraged to sign up for a presentation, but not required.
