April 14, 2000 - - Tim Danner, a junior in the Department of Computer Science, is the winner of the James S. Waters Creativity Award. This award is given annually to a Rice Engineering undergraduate in recognition of unusual creativity in independent work.
Nominated by his research advisor, Assistant Professor Lydia Kavraki, Danner was selected for his paper, Randomized Planning for Short Inspection Paths. Danner will be presenting this paper at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in San Francisco, scheduled for April 24 - 28, 2000. As the primary robotics conference, it draws 800 researchers worldwide.
"I believe that Tim's work is a very fine example of the work that our brightest undergraduates can do," Kavraki said. Expanding upon a group project undertaken in Kavraki's Algorithmic Robotics, Comp 450, Tim was inspired to investigate the art-gallery inspection problem. He defined it as follows: "Given an art-gallery, find a short path for a guard/robot such that each point on the boundary of the workspace is visible from some point on the path." Autonomous inspection, such as by a flying camera, or a virtual reality architectural walkthrough, could be guided by a solution to the above inspection problem. The need for autonomous inspection is pressing, especially in space applications (inspecting the outside of a spacecraft, the projected space station, etc.)
"Getting involved in research enable our students to join the faculty in knowledge creation," said Chair Moshe Vardi. "It is extremely satisfying to see students getting recognition for cutting-edge work."
An anonymous donor endowed the Waters Creativity Award in 1968 to honor James S. Waters. Waters devoted nearly 50 years to Rice University, beginning with his life as an undergraduate and culminating to a 30-year term as chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering. The Waters Award will be presented at the Rice University Prizes and Awards Ceremony at 5:15 p.m. on May 12, 2000 in Cohen House.