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Tuesday, September 18, 2012
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Volume 100 | Issue 09
ntdaily.com
The Student Newspaper of the University of North Texas
UNT Green Brigade Drumline named best in nation MELISSA WYLIE Intern
Popular sports media website Bleacher Report recently named UNT’s Green Brigade Drumline the No. 1 drumline in college football. The article, titled “10 Best Drumlines in College Football,” was published online Sept. 5. This is UNT’s second appearance in Bleacher Report. The Green Brigade Marching Band was hailed as the “Best Damn Band in the Land” by the website in 2011. Rounding out the top three p o sit ion s we r e S out h e r n University and Virginia State University. Zack Pumerantz, a featured columnist for Bleacher Report, posted a performance video from each of the 10 schools, as well as a statement on each of the selections. Pumerantz gave the Green Brigade an A+ in his article and included a video of an eightminute snareline performance from 2009. “They teased you and left you wanting more,” Pumerantz said. “Then reeled you back in with synchronized brilliance. It was honestly the greatest drumline I’ve ever heard.” Pumerantz said that video was what motivated him to rank UNT No. 1. He also said that one of the main requirements for a drumline to make his list was a quality recording to post on the website.
“It was honestly the greatest drumline I’ve ever heard”
-Zack Pumerantz Bleacher Report columnist
of being recognized has not interfered with the effort put in daily by the 50 drumline members. They continue to rehearse with the rest of the marching band every Monday, Wednesday and Friday with an additional hour and a half of percussion practice every Sunday. “The g reat t h i ng about this group is that they’re not only hard workers and good st udents, but they’re n ice people,” Williams said. PHOTO BY TYLER CLEVELAND/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Cody Haddock, drumline Music education freshmen Kyle Williams and Brice Freeman (right) practice Monday at Fouts Field. “It’s pretty relaxed. It’s fun to be good,” Freeman said. The member and music education drumline is ranked No. 1 in the nation by Bleacher Report, a sports website. junior, said he is honored by Although the recognition percussion event in the world. the recognition, but there is no Band, said the drumline’s Even if a school had a good However, he said that the was based on a past perfor- reason to become complacent. reputation, he would not rank recognition is much appreci“I’ve always known that this them if there was not a decent ated but is not a total surprise Green Brigade Drumline’s mance, drumline member and appearance on Bleacher Report music education sophomore was a special group,” Haddock to him. video of a performance. Williams said that the drum- was out of the ordinary because Timothy Biles said it has made said. “This ranking has made The video of the five-man ensemble made an impact line specifically has performed the website is rooted in athletics an impact on the current drum- the drumline work harder line. because now we have to live on Pumerantz, who called well for decades, continu- rather than musicianship. He said it encourages new up to even higher standards.” “Musicians always complithe Green Brigade Drumline ally receiving acknowledgeThe Green Brigade Drumline “soot h i ng , rhyt h m ic a nd ment at the annual Percussive ment musicians,” Williams members to step up and builds Arts Societ y International said. “For those outside the the confidence of those who can be seen defending their engaging.” title at UNT’s next home game Nicholas Williams, director Convention, which, according music industry to take notice have been in the line before. Williams said the excitement Saturday at Apogee Stadium. of the Green Brigade Marching to its website, is the largest is really cool.”
Mean Green Racing team to build car from scratch BEN PEYTON Staff Writer
PHOTO BY ZAC SWITZER/SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
The developers of “Untangled,” from left to right: Krunalkumar Patel, Anil Kumar Sistla, Xiaozhong Luo, Gayatri Mehta and Brandon Rogers. “Untangled” is a strategy-based mapping game created to help find new algorithms for future technology .
UNT-developed game untangles human mind JULIE BIRD Staff Writer
A team of UNT engineering students is developing a game that could help make future technology more energy-efficient by recording how the human brain sees patterns and connections. A free beta version of the game, “Untangled,” is currently available online. The game simulates the mapping and placement of chips on an electronic circuit, but the simplified graphics, helpful tutorials and color-coded components make it more easily understandable to those outside of the engineering world. “We didn’t want the game to just be played by engineers,” computer science senior Natalie Parde said. Parde worked on “Untangled” as part of a research program this summer. She said more than 800 people have registered and played the game online so far.
Players are given a puzzle of squares, or nodes, connected by lines that they must move according to a set of specific rules. The object of the game is to arrange the squares into as compact a group as possible without violating the set rules. Researchers on the project have learned that people can arrange the squares more quickly by seeing the connections between the squares and moving them accordingly. “As humans, we look for clusters and find things grouped together, and then move together,” electrical engineering master’s student Anil Sistla said. Sistla said that players begin to develop more elaborate, successful strategies for arranging the squares after a few games. “People get faster and more efficient the more they play,” he said. Data from each game played is recorded and saved, giving the student programmers, developers
and researchers the ability to study players’ strategies. “We can learn what strategies the top players use, and see what common patterns there are,” said electrical engineering assistant professor Gayatri Mehta, who is leading the project. These player-generated strategies are often faster and more efficient than traditional methods for arranging the nodes, she said. Information and algorithms collected from “Untangled” data can be used to improve the next generation of portable electronics by making them more efficient. “By putting two nodes closer together, the wire between them is shorter,” Mehta said. “This means the device will use less power.” To play “Untangled,” visit untangled.unt.edu and create a username. The website currently has six variations of the game, as well as multiple difficulty levels, instructions and tutorials.
The new Mean Green Racing team is working on getting its ideas off the drawing board and onto the track with hopes to smoke the engineering competition sometime next year. The team, in its first year of existence, is a UNT Society of Automotive Engineers group that develops open-wheel racecars from the ground up. The organization offers students hands-on engineering experience and will ultimately compete against other schools from around the world. “I think this will be the face of engineering at UNT,” said mechanical engineering technology senior Matt Ellis, who is participating for his senior project. The team is still in the design phase but expects to begin building the racecar over winter break. The vehicle should be completed by spring break and ready for competition, which will test various aspects of the car’s design and functionality, by June. Mean Green Racing got the green light last March to begin the roughly one-year process of building a racecar – everything but the engine, tires and differential must be created from scratch. Developing the engine and differential would be too risky for the first-year program, Ellis said. Other requirements include a 4-stroke 600cc engine max, a minimum of a 60-inch
PHOTO BY MICHELLE HEATH/SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Mechanical engineering junior Mike Goodman hops in University of Texas at Arlington’s F12 Formula SAE competition car to wheel it back to the room after the meeting Thursday at Discovery Park. wheelbase and a 20-millimeter restrictor intake, which is about the size of a nickel. The competition has five categories that test skid pads, autocross, acceleration, endurance and fuel economy. The Mean Green Racing team does not confine itself to a specific field of engineering and includes students with various fields of expertise. “We could have every single [eng i neer i ng] depa r t ment involved in this,” Ellis said. The organization is mostly engineering students, but mechanical engineering and energy junior Michael Stoddard, a member of the team, said students with other majors could also help out. The competition requires teams to submit a design report, cost report and presentation to the judges. The SAE racecar project is a major undertaking in the
UNT College of Engineering and would further legitimize the unaccredited Mechanical Engineering and Energy department, Ellis said. “If we could be that organization to get them [the Mechanical Eng i neer i ng a nd Energ y Department] accredited, that would be crazy,” Ellis said. The University of Texas at Arlington SAE racing team, headed by Robert Woods, has helped guide UNT through the process. UNT is a step ahead of the competition because of UTA’s assistance, Ellis said, because racing teams improve by documenting their designs and building on them from year to year. To track the team’s progre ss, v i sit it s Faceb ook p ag e at Fa c eb o ok .c o m/ MeanGreenRacing.
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