Fall 2016 Schedule (academic
calendar) (Grading
So Far)
Class Meet Time &
Location: Wednesday 11:00AM -
01:30PM MS-408 in Marshak (note
the new new
classroom!)
Office Hours:
Wednesday 10:00 - 11:00 am and 1:30 pm -
2:30 pm, NAC 8/211
- August 31, First day of class: Course
Introduction by Prof.
Z. Zhu and Introduction to Assistive Robotics [Slides]
(Xiao).Prof. Jizhong Xiao (Assignment 0 - Resumes with
Project Interests. Please send your resume in PDF via
email to zhu@cs.ccny.cuny.edu. Due Sept 07, 2016 before
class ).
- September 07, Past Project Presentations by
Graduate and Undergrad Students (1) GCTC Action
Cluster - Greg, Vishnu, Ken; (2) Facial Computing - Wei,
Christina, Farnaz; (3) Vista and Multimodal and
Alternative Perception - Wai, Edgardo; (4) Exergames and
Navigation - Hao, Norbu, Feng; (5) QT Interface to 2D to
3D matching - Martin. Please
prepare for your presentations for a paper with a few
slides either on September 28 or October 05 - Tentatively
schedules and instructions
(please send me your resumes and paper selections if you
haven't).
- September 14, (1) Human
and Machine Vision by Prof. Zhu. (2)
Visit and Presentations by Brian Bateman of NYSID [link], Celina
M. Cavalluzzi [Slides]
and Aaron Shmueli from Goodwill NY/NJ on CREATE
teams.
- September 21, Visiting Goodwill NYC Sites (Times
and Lists of Students to the Three Sites - with
Locations and Some Directions)
- September 28 and October 05. Student Paper
Presentations - Updated
schedules and instructions(25
students (13 on 09/28 and 12 on 10/05, 7+3 minutes
each).
- October
05. Proposal
1 will be TEAM PROPOSAL with team members and a quad
chart (template). Due Oct
05 midnight (changed to meet the CREATE
proposal deadline of October 15). The proposal will follow the CREATE
guidelines, which should include a specific project
title and be a brief discussion of the project under the
following headings: Background (the needs and
state-of-the-art, the context of the problem to be
solved), Problem (what you will do), Rationale (why this
approach, how it is related to employment) and Design
(how you are going to do it). Detailed
Instructions for the CREATE Proposal can be found here.
For those teams who want to go
CREATE please also add a slide for itemized budget
estimation (under $1000), and in the quad chart, please
justify for employment of people with disabilities.
- October 12, No Classes
Scheduled
- October
19, Team pre-proposal
presentations (around 6-8 teams including all CS/CpE/EE
students, 10+5 minutes each team; Oct 19 is
the deadline for CREATE team proposals -
3-5 pages including a budget)
- October 26, Paper presentations by EE students;
LECTURE ON Robotics:Sensor, Control and Locomotion - Introduction
(Xiao)
- November 2, Robotics:Sensor, Control and Locomotion - Key
techniques (Xiao) - Assignment
1 (Due Nov 9)
- November 9, Vision: Image Enhancement and Feature
Detection (Slides
| Lecture
Notes by Zhu) - Assignment
2 (Due Nov 16)
- November 16, Vision: Stereo Vision and Visual
Motion (Slides
| Lecture Notes on Stereo
and Motion
by Zhu) - Assignment
3 (Due Nov 23)
- November 23, Class Discussions
on the Final Teams/ Proposals and Exam
Coverage.
- November
30, Final Writing Exam
- December 7 and 14, Student Team Proposal Final
Presentations (Updated
Schedules and Grading Guidelines - all need to come in both class meets -
we will take class attendance). External guests
will be invited to provide feedback to your proposals.
- December 08, Grading
So Far (including the exam). Submissions
for homework assigned have been closed.
- December 14, 2016,
Class Meet Location will be moved to Steinman Hall
ST-124 (Exhibit Room), 11:00 am - 12:45 pm. Each
team will have 25 minutes.
- Dec 16, 2016. Final proposal
writing should have at least 5 pages, single
spaced (Due Dec 16 midnight).
Please share both your
writing report and your PPT slides, both in PDF, via
Google Drive, to Prof. Zhigang Zhu's gmail address
(copying Prof. Jizhong Xiao). Email us
as attachments if you don't use Google Drive. In
addition to enhancing the four headings (background,
statement of the problem, rationale, and design with
technical details), you should include new headings for
information on (1) cost of your system and/or a budget,
(2) a weekly or bi-weekly schedule for Spring 2017,
(3) references (citations) of papers, products,
documents for your background section, and (4)
individual roles of all team members.
- December 29, 2016. Final
Grading (with the Ethnics Part - 01/03/2017).
Combined Final Grading will be submitted on Wednesday
noon (01/04/2017).
Capstone Wiki Pages (Internal
Use Only)
Background
Leveraging
Prof.
Zhigang Zhu's expertise in human-computer interaction
and computer vision, Prof.
John
(Jizhong)
Xiao's expertise in robotic navigation, we have
expanded their research focus to developing advanced human
centric assistive systems to help people in need, e.g.
visually impaired people, to achieve
independent and quality life in familiar or unfamiliar
environments. We have collaborations with the Computer Center for
Visually Impaired People (CCVIP) at CUNY
Baruch College, the NYS Commission for the Blind
(NYSCB), New York Institute of Special
Education and
most recently NYSID and Goodwill NY/NJ
via the CREATE
program. Their feedback could help us
to develop
compact, lightweight, inexpensive devices or services to
improve the quality of life of people, particular those in
need .
Description
We have developed a
cross-department joint senior design course for
undergraduate seniors in CS, CpE and EE in developing
automated and assistive technologies for smart living of
all. These include: multimodal, passive and
unobtrusive techniques for helping visually impaired people
to achieve independent travel in unfamiliar environments;
smart house systems and mobile apps for improving the
quality of life of elderly and people in need (such as with
Autism Spectrum Disorders - ASDs); and sensing technologies
for health monitoring and rehabilitation .We have obtained
multiple NSF, NYSID and VentureWell awards to carry out
basic research and to run the
cross-department joint senior design program for CS/CpE/EE
seniors. The joint
senior design program builds on our existing capstone
design course structure in CS and EE departments, but with
a new concentration on assistive
technology for people in need.
In each year, the joint
senior design course is a mandated two semester sequence
for senior students in both CS and EE departments. In
the first semester we will offer lectures on basic
technologies in sensors, actuators, robotic navigation,
vision algorithms, and assistive technologies by the
instructors. The general lectures will introduce important
aspects of a business plan such as project management,
intellectual property (IP), entrepreneurship. In addition,
the lecture series on entrepreneurship at GSoE will be
utilized where professionals are invited to share their
real world experiences.
As the
second part of the first semester, students will read
technical papers and present to the class. Under the
guidance of the instructors, the undergrad seniors will form
teams to survey the state-of-the-art technologies in several
challenges areas (i.e., multimodal sensing approaches,
assistive technologies, and mobile apps), perform
patent searches, conduct marketing analyses, and write
project proposals which shall include design ideas, a
reasonable budget, a management plan with milestones, and a
business plan. CS/CpE/EE students are encouraged to form
multidisciplinary teams and work collaboratively to
contribute their different expertise in the projects. The
faculty mentors will review the
proposals and give senior design students feedback to refine
their projects
In the second semester,
the student teams are expected to implement design ideas,
prototype, test, and evaluate different designs. Students will also have the opportunities to
perform usability study on vision impaired users in
collaboration with NYSCB therefore better understanding
their needs to improve the designs and to create more
appropriate business plans. The prominent teams with
innovative ideas/technology and good business plans will
be recommended to compete for (1) Zahn Center
Competitions, (2) NYSID CREATE Awards
and (3) VentureWell
E-TEAM Competition. The CREATE
Awards will provide up to $1000 during the senior design
period, and the winning teams in Zahn and E-Team will be
supported to continue the effort in summer and beyond.
Reading
Materials
Other
Useful Links
NSF
EFRI-M3C Funding Support for Research
NSF GARDE Funding Support for
Course Development
VentureWell Course and Development
Our 2011-2012 Capstone Team V.I.S.T.A. together with two
other students in our labs won the $50000
Kaylie Prize A video demonstrating
the early prototype of the device can be found here.
Professor Zhigang Zhu's Visual
Computing Laboratory
Professor John (Jizhong) Xiao's Robotics Laboratory
NYSID
and CREATE
Program
Goodwill NY/NJ
Copyright @
Zhigang Zhu,
2016-2017