Bill Smart: Media and Machines Laboratory

Media and Machines Laboratory

I am co-director of the Media and Machines Lab in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. The lab performs research in the areas of mobile robotics, computer vision, machine learning, and computer graphics. In addition to me, there are five other faculty in the lab:

Burchan Bayazit: Path planning, mobile robotics, sensor networks.
Cindy Grimm: Computer graphics, surface modeling, non-photorealistic rendering.
Tao Ju: Computer graphics, biomedical imaging.
Caitlin Kelleher: Human-computer interaction, computer science education
Robert Pless: Computer vision, computational geometry.

The lab is on the 5th floor of Lopata Hall (building 56 on this map), and is home to a number of doctoral, masters, and undergraduate students working with us on a variety of projects. If you're interested in working on one of the projects in the lab, you should read over the rules first.

Mobile Robotics Laboratory

Within the Media and Machines Lab, I run the Mobile Robotics Laboratory. This lab is home to a number of mobile robot systems, and performs research in the areas of software control architecures for mobile robots, human-robot interaction, and shared autonomy control. The Mobile Robot Lab is physically located within the Media and Machines Lab, on the 5th floor of Lopata Hall.

Joining a Laboratory

If you're interested in working with me in the lab, then you should read the rules listed below before sending me email. If you're interested in working with one of the other faculty members in the lab, you should get in touch with them directly. In general, I'm always interested in talking to prospective students who are interested in doing research in the lab. This applies both undergraduate and graduate students. However, I have a couple of basic rules that you need to be aware of before you get in touch with me.

For Undergraduates

In general, I prefer students to have some significant programming experience (usually in C or C++) before they get involved in research. What constitutes "significant"? That depends on a number of things. As a bare minimum, you should have successfully completed the introductory computer science sequence up to, and including, CSE 332 (and done well in it). Courses like CS441 and CS453 are a definite plus, too. If you're coming from outside of the department, or are interested in a project that does not involve programming, then we can discuss the relevant background.

Machine learning and mobile robotics research requires a fair amount of mathematics. If you're seriously interested in doing research, then you'll need to have a basic grounding in linear algebra, probability theory and calculus.

If you've taken one of the my courses, then I probably remember you. Send me an email and let me know that you're interested in research. Keep it short and to the point.
As a general rule, I'm only interested in "structured" research, where students register for independent study, or something similar. If you're interested in this, then send me a brief email, describing what you'd like to do. Just showing up and saying "robots are cool" isn't enough, unfortunately. You should be aware that everything we do is, to quote an undergraduate, "just hard math and programming". Robots are really cool, but the code that controls them is just code, much like any other.
If you're just interested in talking about robots and learning in general, to try and get a handle on the sorts of things that we do, then you should do three things. Read about the research that we do on my web pages. Find a student who has worked with me and talk to them. Finally, when you have a rough idea of what we're about, send me a brief email and we can meet if I have some free time. Free time, however, is becoming a rare commodity.

For Graduate Students

If you're considering the graduate program in Computer Science and Engineering here at Washington University, then I encourage you to apply. I can't admit students directly, so don't ask. Every potential student must go through the same formal application procedure. I will ignore letters about admissions and assistantships. If I'm looking for new graduate students and you've applied, then I'll find you.
If you're a prospective graduate student and your research interests seriously overlap with mine, then send me an email, and briefly tell me about yourself, so that I know to be on the lookout for your application packet when it arrives. Letters that don't mention specific research issues that I'm interested in will be ignored. Email without my address in the To: line will also tend to get ignored, since that usually means a mass mailing.
If you're currently a graduate student at Washington University and you're interesting in talking about working with me, send me a brief email, and we can take it from there.
I've you've been accepted to graduate school here without funding, don't ask me if I can fund you. If I had money to fund you, we would have made an offer with funding.

Page written by Bill Smart.