UNK Department of Computer Science and Information Systems,
It was all about artificial intelligence on the basketball court as the University of Nebraska at Kearney Department of Computer Science and Information Systems recently sponsored its sixth annual robotics competition as part of the 2008 Midwest Instruction Computing Symposium (MICS) Robot contest.
Students from the department’s artificial intelligence class split up into four teams and had five weeks to completely design, build and program a Lego Mindstorm NXT robot. They then played one-on-one basketball using their robotic all-star. It was not all fun and games for the students–participants have to write a paper discussing the process they used and their experiences. The project counts for 15 percent of their class grade.
The winners of the competition, which was a double-elimination format, now will compete at the regional MICS competition in LaCrosse, Wis., on April 12. The winning team consisted of Kyle Williams of Franklin; Cameron Push and Brandon McAllister, both of Kearney; and their creation, Robo-Shaq.
The other student competitors, and their majors, are listed below by state and hometown:
NEBRASKA
Chappell- Jordan Van Winkle, computer science comprehensive
Hallam- Dustin Lineweber, computer science comprehensive
Hickman- Aaron Steele, computer science comprehensive
Kearney- Ry Lowry, computer science comprehensive
Kearney- Joseph Ostrander, computer science comprehensive
McCook- Derek Ruppert, computer science comprehensive
OHIO
Kent- Oleksiy Golovin, physics comprehensive
