IEEE Robotics and Automation Society
Central New England Chapter
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Doors open: 6:00 PM
Presentation: 6:30 PM

ENGINEERING A ROBOTICS PROGRAM FROM SCRATCH

Presented by

Prof. Michael A. Gennert
Associate Professor of Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering
Department Head, Computer Science Department
Director of the Robotics Engineering Program
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
michaelg@cs.wpi.edu
http://web.cs.wpi.edu/~michaelg/

ABSTRACT

In August 2007, the initial group of first-year students entered WPI's Robotics Engineering program, the first four-year undergraduate degree of its kind in the nation. WPI students, faculty, and staff have been involved in robotics projects for many years, including all 17 years of the FIRST competition. But the degrees awarded these students always read Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, or Electrical & Computer Engineering; there was no integrated major in Robotics. What did it take to create the requirements and curriculum for this first-of-its-kind program? What equipment do you need? What knowledge and skills should the graduates possess? And most important: How do you get three different academic departments to cooperate on something like this? Prof. Michael Gennert will reveal the answers to these and other questions as he discusses the details of the RBE program and how it was developed. Accompanying the talk will be live demonstrations of WPI robots and videos of them in action.

SPEAKER BIO

Prof. Michael A. Gennert is Department Head of the Computer Science Department and Director of the Robotics Engineering Program at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where he is Associate Professor of Computer Science and Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He has worked at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, Worcester, MA, the University of California/Riverside, General Electric Ordnance Systems, Pittsfield, MA and PAR Technology Corporation, New Hartford, NY. He received B.S. in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, M.S. in Electrical Engineering in 1980, and a PhD. in Electrical Engineering in 1987 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Gennert is interested in Computer Vision, Image Processing, Artificial Intelligence, Scientific Databases, and Programming Languages, with ongoing projects in biomedical image processing, robotics, stereo and motion vision, very large spatio-temporal databases, and programming language semantics. He is author or co-author of over 80 papers. He is a member of IEEE, ACM, NDIA Robotics Division, and the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council Robotics Cluster.

MEETING INFORMATION AND DIRECTIONS

The IEEE Robotics and Automation Society will meet at its new regular venue: Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, Olin Way, Needham, MA 02492, on Tuesday, February 12, 2008, for an informal discussion at 6:00 PM and the presentation at 6:30.

Directions to Olin College: Take Route 95/128 to exit 19B (Highland Avenue, Needham). Follow Highland Avenue for 1.5 miles to a three-way intersection with Chapel and May Streets; bear slight right onto Chapel Street (to the right of the gas station). Take a right at the first light onto Great Plain Avenue/Rte 135. Proceed on Great Plain Avenue for 1.5 miles and the Olin College campus will be on the right. Enter the campus at Olin Way and follow the road around to the left to parking lot A, which provides access to all campus buildings. From the parking lot take the walkway up to the Academic Center and follow instructions inside. For more detailed instructions, please refer to http://www.olin.edu/campus/getting_around.asp and follow the link to "Olin College Campus Map" in the left navigation bar.

After the meeting, at approx. 8:00 PM, the group will have a no-host dinner at Bertucci's, 1257 Highland Ave., Needham, MA 02492, where more conversations can take place with the guest speaker. Driving directions from Olin College to Bertucci's: Backtrack the previous route on Great Plain Avenue, Chapel St. to Highland Avenue. The restaurant will be located inside a plaza on the left, about 600 ft past the three-way intersection with Chapel and May Streets.

The meetings are open to the general public, and all are welcome at the dinner afterwards. For more information on IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, please contact Chapter Chair Peter Meyer at (781) 334-0052 or chair@robotics-boston.org, or visit http://www.robotics-boston.org/.