Science fiction has always been full of computers that do impossible things. These days, Cornell students are making computers do those things every day. They're building vehicles and aircraft that drive themselves, devices that analyze the human body and sometimes human emotions, and computers that answer our questions. And it's not just about computer science students any more. Computers are part of everyday work for psychologists, biologists and even artists.
Some of the latest developments in these and many other fields will be on display next week at the annual BOOM (Bits On Our Minds) fair from 4 to 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 9. Usually sprawled through three floors of Upson Hall, the fair will be held this year in the Duffield Hall Atrium. Launched in 1998 as a showcase for computer science students, BOOM now includes student projects from all over the university.
Some of the projects scheduled for display involve Web crawling to study the sociology of online communities, medical imaging and a tool for searching the National Science Digital Library (NSDL). There are forays into artificial intelligence: Would you believe a program that solves Rubik's Cube?
Every year, student teams compete in national competitions to create autonomous aircraft, soccer-playing robots and self-driving cars, and most of those teams will present exhibits.
There's practical stuff, like programs for online surveys, employee scheduling and course management, and geeky stuff, like J-zero, a new language that simplifies Java programming. And inevitably, a bunch of new computer games.
There is a Web page for every exhibit on the BOOM site, http://www.cis.cornell.edu/boom/2005/.
BOOM is supported by grants from Bloomberg, Credit Suisse and First Boston.
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