Springfield (MA) Public Forum presents Roboticist Dr. James McLurkin

[Rosiebotboss]

Roboticist James McLurkin (with his robots) Sunday September 14, 2008 - 2 p.m. at the Springfield Symphony Hall (1801 East Columbus Ave, Spfld, Ma)

"Dances with Robots: How They Work, What They Do" An Interactive Investigation of Swarm Robots

Co-sponsors: Hasbro, Inc. and Peoples Bank

FIRST demo presented by Rosie Robotics (Team 839 Agawam HS) and Mechatronic Maniacs (Team 1027 West Spfld HS)
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Roboticist James McLurkin knows the power of play and exploration to the budding scientist. As a child, he was constantly building with plastic bricks, cardboard boxes, or any other materials he could access. Today, McLurkin continues this tradition, both in his work and in his lectures. James McLurkin is dedicated to illustrating the fun and excitement in science and engineering, and has taught many classes for high school programs from physics to civil engineering, in an effort to help mold a future engineer corps.

Using Mother Nature as a model, his core research is developing algorithms and techniques for constructing and programming large swarms of autonomous robots. Inspired by the behavior of ants and bees, the SwarmBots perform individual tasks that collectively contribute to the goals of the group. They were originally created during his five-year post as Lead Research Scientist at iRobot, one of the world's leading robotics companies.

McLurkin holds an SB in electrical engineering with a minor in mechanical engineering from MIT (1995), a M.S. in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley (1999), and an SM in computer science from MIT (2004). He has just completed his Ph.D. in computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), working under Professor Leslie Kaelbling. His first robot, Rover, was constructed in 1988, and was quickly followed by many other designs, including the Robotic Ants created at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab for his undergraduate thesis.