Winter/Spring 2005

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SPELMAN

W I N T E R/

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SpelBots Score Spot in International Soccer Competition

S P E L M A N

C O L L E G E

Legacy Leadership

FOLLOWING FAITHFUL FOOTSTEPS

hirty years from now, when historians look back to see how historically black colleges and universities were involved in robotics research, Spelman College will dominate their findings. Students Aryen Moore-Alston (team leader), Brandy Kinlaw (lead software integrator), Ebony Smith, Karina Lyles, Ebony O’Neal and Shinese Noble make up the SpelBots RoboCup Soccer Team that recently qualified for the International RoboCup 2005 Four-Legged Robot soccer competition to be held in Osaka, Japan on July 11–19, 2005. The SpelBots’ (short for Spelman roBotics) participation in the competition was no small feat. Out of the 24 teams from around the world that qualified, Spelman is the first and only HBCU, the only all-women institution and the only U.S. undergraduate institution to qualify. The other U.S. teams are Carnegie Mellon University, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Pennsylvania and the University of Texas at Austin. The remaining teams are from Europe, South America, Asia and Australia. RoboCup soccer matches teams of four Sony AIBO four-legged robots in a soccer competition. The robots must autonomously (without human intervention) find the soccer ball, the goal and their competition. They must try to score goal shots while defending their own goal. The goal

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Members of the SpelBots RoboCup Soccer Team (left to right): Shinese Noble, C2005, Aryen Moore-Alston, C2005, Brandy Kinlaw, C2005, Karina Liles, C2007, Ebony O’Neal, C2007, and Ebony Smith, C2006.

of the International RoboCup soccer initiative is to develop a team of humanoid robots that is able to win against the official human World Soccer Champion team by the year 2050. The research topics and technology involved include computer vision, localization, motion and locomotion, robot path planning, multirobot coordination and robot communication. Spelman’s team is also researching the ability of robots to learn optimal behaviors such as kicking using a machine-learning algorithm. Under the direction of Dr. Andrew Williams, the students are using and adapting a software framework called Tekkotsu that originated from Carnegie Mellon University. The SpelBots team will also compete in the RoboCup U.S. Open on May 7–10, 2005, at Georgia Institute of Technology, and hopes to inspire other young women to pursue education and research at Spelman and explore careers in computer science and robotics. The team acknowledges the generous support of President Beverly Daniel Tatum; Dr. Andrea Lawrence, chair of the computer science department at Spelman; Dr. Ayanna Howard, Eddie Tunstel and Eva Graham from NASA JPL; Charles Bartel, University of Iowa; Dayo Ajayi, Spelman College, and Dr. Dave Touretzky and Ethan Tira-Thompson from Carnegie Mellon University. ●

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Empowered Spelman Students Get Out the Vote, Impact 2004 Election ne major news story of the 2004 presidential election is that young people turned out in record numbers. And the students of Spelman College played a key role in helping to get out the vote in the Atlanta University Center (AUC) and West End community. The Spelman Student Government Association (SGA) led a strategic campaign to raise awareness, register new voters and motivate African Americans to show up at the polls on voting day. The SGA also prepared themselves to advocate at the polls in case any registered voters were denied the right to cast their ballots. Spelman women took their spirit of leadership and service seriously, working hard to ensure that their community’s voices were heard. And they scored many important victories.

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Youth Vote Growing According to The Center for Information and Research on Civil Learning and Engagement Continued on page 2.


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Winter/Spring 2005 by Spelman College - Issuu