Students' robot steals the show

By Katelin McInerney
Updated November 5 2012 - 6:51pm, first published October 23 2008 - 10:16am
Team leader Isabelle Storey with EMO II at the University of Wollongong trade show and research showcase yesterday.  Picture: GREG TOTMAN
Team leader Isabelle Storey with EMO II at the University of Wollongong trade show and research showcase yesterday. Picture: GREG TOTMAN

He might not have the cute appeal of Disney's adorable android Wall-E, but EMO II proved he could pull a crowd at the University of Wollongong trade show and research showcase yesterday.Face recognition software, tailored home security systems and cutting edge online encryption were just a few of the ground-breaking projects on show by students from the School of Computer Science and Software Engineering and School of Information Systems and Technology.For their software project, third-year computer science students Isabelle Storey, Adrian Taylor, Jason Lagaac and Reece James created the EMO II, or Erratic Moving Obstacle to show off LARS, their Lua-based Autonomous Robotics System, which they created under the watch of Dr Jo Abrantes.The software created runs on any type of computer from Apple to PC and team leader Isabelle Storey said it would give the user a template that allowed them to create their own robot more easily. "Basically, we've created a number of functionalities that allow people to run a robot of any size, and as these functions are already programmed our software will save people time and reduce the risk associated with writing programs of their own from scratch," Ms Storey said.School of Computer Science and Software Engineering head Professor Philip Ogunbona said he was greatly impressed by the students' work."This is a fantastic opportunity for students to show what they have been doing to a wider audience," Prof Ogunbona said.Madeleine Roberts, from the Faculty of Infomatics, said the showcase exposed students to representatives from industry and provided industry with the opportunity to see what was happening.The UOW trade show and research showcase continues today with a display by students and researchers from the School of Electrical, Computer and Telecommunications, starting at 3pm in the UniHall.

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