Month: January 2014

This past semester, several Computer Science students attended the annual conference of the Southeastern Region of the Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges at Furman University. The research of four students was accepted for the poster presentation at the undergraduate student research competition at the conference. Thomas Lux and Randall Pittman were two of the students chosen to present their joint project and their project won the competition (scores being based on their abstracts, poster presentations, and oral presentations). Eight students, in two teams of four each, participated in the programming contest at the conference and out of 30 teams, Roanoke’s team, consisting of Natalie Wilkinson, Maya Shende, Thomas Lux, and Randall Pittman, came in third place.

Thomas Lux (Junior) has been doing research at Roanoke since his first year here and he will be starting a new project this semester.

“From the start of my college career I’d shown an intense interest in pursuing side projects for my computer science classes. In the spring semester of 2013 the professors of our computer science department approached me and two of my classmates about the possibility of doing research in the coming summer. Needless to say I was ecstatic, and immediately began working with the professors to decide what it was that I was going to pursue.”

The project that Thomas and Randall worked on was about “robotic localization and mapping, and to compare various sensor platforms for the purpose of mapping indoor environments with robots.” The project came about by their interest in the topics of robotics and artificial intelligence. Their faculty mentor for this project was Dr. Durell Bouchard and Thomas explains that working with him was an amazing experience.

“The experience has forever changed the way that I will approach new problems. Every other day we would meet to discuss progress, plans, and problems that we had encountered. This really helped us with time management and learning to set achievable goals. By setting goals, we were able to break down the immense amount of work we had into manageable chunks.”

Thomas highly encourages students to get involved in research opportunities here at Roanoke:

“Research is an experience unlike any other that you would receive in a classroom. Roanoke gave me a great opportunity because I simply showed interest. So show interest and try to learn about new things that you previously didn’t know existed.”

For more information on the Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges visit: https://www.ccsc.org/

Joe Gutowski recently had the opportunity this past November to present his research project at the VAHPERD convention. Joe was asked by Dr. Michael Maina if he would be interested in presenting his project that stemmed from a Team Sports activity class that Joe took with Dr. Julie Maina.

Our assignment was to present and teach a “team sport” activity to our class. A few other Health and Physical Education majors and myself decided to present a non-traditional team sport…We were brainstorming ideas and curling, a well known sport during the winter Olympics, was brought up. After researching the sport and its history, we became really interested in how to incorporate this activity into a physical education class. After our initial idea, the lesson and presentation had to be modified several times before we had our final product to be presented.

Joe first began doing research during the spring semester of his junior year and he has now done research for more than three semesters. Joe had the opportunity to work with both Michael and Julie Maina for this project. He explains that:

When presenting research with a professor, you develop a bond with them outside of the classroom and get to know them on a personal level. Dr. Michael and Julie Maina guided us in the right direction with our presentation and facilitated our research, while still being available for any questions or assistance we needed.

This presentation marked Joe’s fourth time presenting at a professional conference and second consecutive year presenting at VAHPERD.  Joe mentions that:

Presenting research is a very unique experience, especially at VAHPERD. VAHPERD generally consists of professors from Virginia Colleges and Universities, as well as Health and Physical Education teachers. Because of this, I was one of the few, if not the only undergraduate presenter. I was very happy at the turnout of our presentation though. It was a great experience to have professionals coming up to me and asking questions and my opinion on areas or modifications. These experiences serve as evidence and demonstrate to myself and my advisor that I am prepared to be an educational professional.

Joe feels that students should be encouraged to present research while at Roanoke.

Not only does it strengthen academic skills in ones content area but it also helps develop confidence in your field of study and public speaking abilities. I am fortunate for the opportunities I have had to present while at Roanoke and am grateful that Dr. Michael and Julie Maina presented research opportunities to me and pushed me in the direction to present research.

For more information on the VAHPERD convention check out: https://m360.vahperd.org/event.aspx?eventID=70329