Romain Cambier and Marc Honore Reflect on Thier Time at SRL

During spring 2015 and the first part of summer, the Sketch Recognition Lab and director Dr. Tracy Hammond happily hosted Marc Honore and Romain Cambier, two students studying abroad from their homes in Belgium.

This, however, was not their first trip to Texas A&M University. A few years ago, they won a week trip as a first place award of a challenge that they won in Europe.

“It was a really cool stay – we really enjoyed what we saw here,” Cambier explained their motivation for spending spring in Texas. “When we decided to work on a master thesis, we just talked about A&M. It was a great experience, so why not try again for a longer period?”

While at SRL, Cambier and Honore combined their interest of computer intel and science to work together on a prototype for a project titled SmartBricks. Consider, for a moment, Legos that could be used to build functioning, programmable technology. That’s SmartBricks. With and easy-to-use code creator (that looks a lot like a digital drag-and-drop circuit board), users can program individual blocks to do various functions in a process.

(Marc Honore [left] and Romain Cambier [right] working on SmartBricks)

In the video here, SmartBricks is seen in action. In the video, it is programmed to be a screen cleaner for a smartphone. Each command is shown in order throughout the process.

When asked if they would take the chance to return to SRL, Cambier and Honore smiled.

“A lot of people have been asking us to stay,” Honore stated.

“We really enjoyed our stay here, really enjoyed the people – the people were all very welcoming,” Cambier added before both quietly agreed that they would probably take the opportunity to return, if it was presented to them.

Being a part of Texas A&M University and SRL has given Cambier and Honore many experiences, both good and challenging.

It only took Honore a beat to list the weekly lab meetings as one of his favorite memories and aspects of the lab.

“It means there is a lot of interaction between all of us, which I think is really good for SRL,” he stated. “And all the activities that are done outside the lab – like our waffle day.”

(Stephanie Valentine [left], Marc Honore [center, back], and Raniero Lara-Garduno [right] at Waffle Day 2015)

Waffle Day 2015 is a day that will live on forever in SRL memory. The event was announced via an email titled “Belgian waffle day.” One morning, Cambier and Honore decided to bake waffles for the lab. Like a wildfire, the excitement to eat Belgium waffles made by Belgians spread. The event was so popular (and the cooks were so good) that there was a second event a month after the first.

“Everyone is very friendly,” Cambier agreed. “It’s very welcoming and very cool.”

Of course, both students encountered a few obstacles while studying abroad. Most of which occurred before they ever arrived. Obtaining a student visa from the federal government is not a cake walk. Papers, forms, and background checks slow the process down exponentially. It took about three weeks for Cambier and Honore to complete the process.

“One thing that was difficult, here, during the first week is to find everything, from buildings to places to eat,” Cambier added about Texas A&M University.

However, no challenge could keep them away from having fun and touring a few Texas hotspots, such as San Antonio (which was Honore’s favorite place visited), Austin, and Houston (which was combined with the Space Center to create Cambier’s favorite visit).

(Romain Cambier working in SRL)

In a word, their departure from SRL was bittersweet. Everyone was happy to have made two new friends, and were sad to see them go so soon. Although Cambier and Honore were leaving TAMU, they were going home to all the things they were excited to see again:

“My family,” Honore instantly listed.

“Girlfriend,” Cambier commented, getting a quick agreement from Honore.

“The food.”

“Oh, yeah! The food!”

As their visit came to a close, Cambier and Honore gave a few tidbits of advice based on their hindsight.

“The most difficult part [of transitioning into the lab] was finding a desk,” Honore joked. “But besides that, the first day we came here was a Monday, so there was a lab meeting and we got to meet a lot of people. Then, afterward, Paul and Jung-In took us out to lunch. After that, it just took us a while to get all the stuff we needed.”

“Honestly, people were so welcoming and friendly that it was easy to discuss and find what we needed,” Cambier added. “I remember at the first week, Vijay took us to grab some stuff to start working.”

“All we had to do was go next door and find people,” Honore concluded.

SRL Members Embark on Summer Opportunities

This summer, the members of the Sketch Recognition Lab are going statewide and nationwide to participate in research and internship opportunities.

Many students will be remaining in the Texas A&M University lab to continue working on research, projects, and conference submissions. Others will be traveling far and wide to work.
For example, Siddhartha Karthik is interning at Yahoo Inc, in Sunnyvale, California for the summer. While he was excited about working in the beautiful Silicon Valley, Karthik was equally intrigued by the prospect of working with Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, whom he had heard a great deal of praise for.

(Siddartha Karthik and Marissa Mayer)

"I am part of the Network Security team," Karthik elaborated.

While working under David Filo, the team will be "pushing code that actually impacts 500 millions users on a daily basis."

When asked how his summer opportunity relates to his work, Karthik replied, "I have always been interested in Network Security. This internship will give me hands on experience on one of the largest networks in the industry."

All the while, Ranerio Lara-Garduno will be spending a large part of his summer at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston for his first research internship.

By combining information from GIS and GPS systems found in cellphones, Lara-Garduno will be researching technologies that can not only locate someone, but also be able to tell whether that person is inside or outside of a building – something that global position systems (GPS) cannot currently do.

Both Lara-Garduno’s research in SRL and his summer research will be dealing with the fusion of public health and computer science. While Lara-Garduno is enthusiastic about his summer opportunity, one of the things he is most excited to do is spend time in Boston. He attended the TAPIA conference in the same city, but was unable to explore due to the winter storms and isolated location of the conference.

“I like the idea of going to a new city and getting to know it for a bit,” he explained. “And, of course, the research connections I’m going to make there are going to be second to none.”

Lara-Garduno went on to explain that what drew him to this opportunity is how unique it was for him.

“I don’t think that it’s something you would normally see for research labs and summer research. It’s research in a much more applied sense – I’m not doing something in a computer science department,” Lara-Garduno explained. “My specific research is an applied research, which is different from a lot of computer science projects.”

Larry Powell, meanwhile, will be working a 12 week internship with Freescale. He will be working and researching post-silicon verification. While he was unable to speak about much of the content of his summer opportunity, he stated that he’s excited for the experience.

“The knowledge is definitely going to be useful,” Powell stated.

He is also planning to work on his main research during the summer as well and has made a deal with Freescale to be able to do his research when he is not working on his internship projects.

Across the country, Folami Alamudun is doing research work in Oak Ridge National Lab in Oak Ridge Tennessee.

 (Folami Alamudun on a hike in the Smoky Mountains)

Alamudun’s research in SRL focuses on gaze interpretation and tracking in radiologists performing mammograms. He hopes to help cut down human error in misdiagnosis. His summer opportunity perfectly synchronizes with his interests.

“I will be analyzing radiologists' gaze data collected during mammographic screening,” Alamudun explained. “This summer, I am trying to extract additional features to build a predictive model for diagnostic error.”

While the prospect of hiking in the Smoky Mountains every weekend greatly excites him, Alamudun was equally attracted to the national lab for another reason as well:

“The idea of working in a national lab with so many brilliant scientists (and history) is thrilling,” he commented. “I get to walk past Titan [a massive supercomputer] every day. That never gets old.”
Similarly, Seth Polsley will be working at the University of Kansas in the Speech and Applied Neuroscience Lab, an area of study that is different from his main projects with SRL – Mechanix and Persketchitivity.

“I’ll be working on application for children with speech apraxia and other speech disorders,” Polsley explained his summer work. “Basically it’s an application where they can drag and drop words and things and they can move how long they are and where they are placed up and down. They can practice intonation and learn how tone works.”

After working at the SAN Lab, Polsley plans to work on his thesis either locally or in Kansas.

“I really, really want to start a nonprofit this summer with my sister,” Polsley commented when asked what he was most excited for this summer. “Because my thesis ties in with her stuff as well.”

He went on to explain that he would like the nonprofit, tentatively titled “Upright”, to be an educational or assisted living organization. Upright would provide technology and frames that provides rehabilitation assistance to people who are paralyzed from serious injuries.

“There is a big gap where if you don’t show notable improvement within a month and a half or so of [physical] rehab, they have to let you go and they tell you that you’ll never get better and you’ll never be able to do anything again,” Polsley explained. 

The issue presented in medical rehabilitation that Polsley and his sister want to help with is that science has proven that is not until two years after the initial incident that caused nerve damage that the body begins to repair itself and rehabilitation works best, but after just a few months, the medical system discharges people who are not showing notable improvements.

“It works well with my thesis topic since I want to use gesture and natural sensing methods to aid in rehabilitation,” he added. “I want to do rehabilitation research and I really want to start a nonprofit. It shouldn’t be something like you get into an accident and it takes away your life. This is the 21st century. We should have the technology and be able to say ‘we can help you.’”

Where ever this summer has led members of the Sketch Recognition Lab, everyone is hard at work finishing projects, fixing programs, advancing technology, and planning lab outings to de-stress and enjoy one another's company.

TEES 100th Anniversary and Dr. Hammond's Presentation to Legislative Correspondent Michael Sobolik

The TEES conference on April 20th and 21st marked the 100th anniversary of the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES). Dr. Tracy Hammond, the director of the Sketch Recognition Lab at Texas A&M University, attended the reception in Washington DC that celebrated the achievements of researchers.

The anniversary consisted of two events - a reception with the theme of Homeland Security and a round-table panel and discussion titled "The Role of Cybersecurity in Protecting the Nation's Infrastructure" that was held the next day.

The discussion revolved around how researchers and research universities can train future workers to be capable of defending resources in a digital world and resolve issues faced by current agencies. 

"Cybersecurity is a challenge that affects us all," Dr. M. Katherine Banks, the director of TEES, was quoted saying, "It is critical that we raise public dialogue on this topic by bringing together our engineering experts with public policy leaders."

Moderating the panel were Dr. Valerie Taylor, the senior associate dean for academic affairs and Royce E. Wisenbaker, a professor at Texas A&M University. Along with Dr. Pierce Cantrell and Dr. Daniel Ragsdale from TAMU, the panel included Dr. John Launchbury - the program manager for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and Dr. Victor Piotrowski - the program director for the National Science Foundation. US Rep. John Ratcliffe attended.

The reception was hosted by Chancellor Sharp, Dean Banks, and the Center on Competitiveness. Featured at the reception were demonstrations by Dr. John Valasek (UAS Surveillance), Dr. Robin Murphy (Infectious Diseases), Dr. Jim Wall (electronic Warfare Technology), and Dr. Tracy Hammond (Mobile Technology for Military). The research displayed attracted people from Capitol Hill, nonprofit organizations, and federal agencies. 

“For 100 years, the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station has performed groundbreaking engineering research and developed technology to address state and national problems,” TEES website states.

TEES partners with industry, communities, and academic institutions to improve the quality of life and promote development in the economy. They create new technology and help resolve problems in health and environment.

To further research, TEES has centers in specialized areas such as education and training, energy systems, healthcare, information systems and sensors, safety and security, and materials and manufacturing. They gain funding from federal agencies including the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and NASA.

“In addition, as an institute of higher education, we work to improve student performance in math, science and technology,” says TEES website.

Their mission is “to produce and transfer the highest quality, relevant engineering and technology-oriented research by leveraging capabilities statewide in order to:

• Improve economic development and quality of life in Texas and the nation
• Enhance educational systems
• Support interdisciplinary fundamental and applied research
• Transfer technology from research and development activities to useful applications
• Commercialize promising technologies.”

While attending the 100th anniversary reception, Dr. Hammond presented highlights of her government funded research on Homeland Security to Senator Cruz’s Legislative Correspondent, Michael Sobolik.

(Dr. Hammond's poster for her presentation to Mr. Sobolik and the TEES reception)

Her presentation covered her research about GeoTrooper – the haptic navigation vest for paratroopers. Highlighted in her presentation was the incredible travel-time difference that occurred when GeoTrooper was introduced. It cut down the time for a soldier to reach their desired destination from around two hours to about 10 minutes.

With up to 2,000 soldiers jumping from planes at a time, this difference is even more important for keeping large amounts of paratroopers safe.

Furthermore, the hands-free navigation allows for soldiers to stay alert to their surroundings – which on the battlefield is absolutely necessary and important.

Dr. Hammond has also done research with GeoTrooper for more recreational reasons. Dubbed HaptiMoto, the vest can also be used to help guide motorcyclists safely to their destinations.

SRL congratulates TEES for celebrating its 100th birthday! Here’s to 100 more!