Douglas Blank Associate Professor Bryn Mawr College Computer Science (610) 526-6501   dblank (at) brynmawr (dot) edu   101 North Merion Ave Rm 246, Park Science Building Bryn Mawr, PA USA 19010 FAX: (610)526-6535   cs.brynmawr.edu/~dblank/

Spring 2013, Courses and Activities

• CS371: Cognitive Science
• CS245: Data Structures
• Institute for Personal Robots in Education - NSF Grant, CCLI

Past Courses

• CS245: Principles of Programming Languages
• CS202: Mobile Computing
• CS201: Physical Computing
• CS330: Algorithms: Design and Practice, Spring 2012
• CS399: Senior Conference, Spring 2012
• CS110: Introduction to Computing, Fall 2011
• CS380: Androids: Design and Practice, Fall 2011 - creating a team of robot soccer players, using the Kinect, Nao, and Lua
• C371: Cognitive Science, Fall 2010
• CS206: Structures of Computation, Fall 2010
• CS110: Introduction to Computing, Spring 2010
• CS246: Programming Paradigms: Merging the Real and Virtual Worlds, Spring 2010
• CS361: Emergence, Fall 2009
• CS110: Introduction to Computing, Fall 2009
• CS206: Data Structures, Spring 2009
• CS308: Developmental Robotics, Spring 2009
• CS245: Principles of Programming Languages, Fall 2008
• CS110: Introduction to Computing, Fall 2008
• Emergence, Computer Science 361, 2006
• Data Structures, 2006
• CS110: Introduction to Computing, Fall 2005 and Fall 2007
• Web of Influence, a College Freshman Seminar, Fall 2005
• CS110: Introduction to Computing, 2004
• CS206: Data structures
• CS245: Programming Languages
• CS361: Emergence
• CS371: Cognitive Science, and also in the Fall 2001
• CS376: Androids: Design and Practice
• CS380: Developmental Robotics
• CSEM: College Seminar, Robots Gone Berserk: A Look at Robots in Film

Research

• The Calico Project - Multi-language, mutli-context learning and research environment
• NSF Grant, PIRE Humanoids - Partnerships for International Research and Education, from the Office of International Science and Engineering
• Institute for Personal Robots in Education with colleagues at Georgia Tech and Microsoft Research
• Pyro Robotics
• Developmental Robotics
• Emergent AI Laboratory
• Beyond LEGOs: Building the Next Generation Robotics Laboratory, NSF Grant (completed)
• Emergent Phenomena Research Group
• Bryn Mawr College's Beowulf Supercomputer

Links

• What is computer science?

Colleagues

• Tucker Balch
• Zach Dodds
• Jennifer Kay
• Deepak Kumar
• Jim Marshall
• Lisa Meeden
• Keith O'Hara
• Mark Russo
• Paul Rybski
• Stewart Tansley
• Holly Yanco
• Dianna Xu

Publications

Selected Papers

1. Blank, Douglas S., Lewis, Joshua M., and Marshall, James B. (2005) The Multiple Roles of Anticipation in Developmental Robotics. AAAI Fall Symposium Workshop Notes, From Reactive to Anticipatory Cognitive Embodied Systems. AAAI Press. PDF
2. Blank, D.S., Kumar, D., Meeden, L., and Yanco, H. (2005) Pyro: A Python-based Versatile Programming Environment for Teaching Robotics. To appear in the ACM Journal on Educational Resources in Computing (JERIC). PDF, PS.
3. Blank, D.S., Kumar, D., Meeden, L., and Marshall, J. (2005). Bringing up robot: Fundamental mechanisms for creating a self-motivated, self-organizing architecture. Cybernetics and Systems, 36(2). PostScript, PDF.
4. Marshall, J., Blank, D., and Meeden, L. (2004). An Emergent Framework for Self-Motivation in Developmental Robotics. International Conference on Development and Learning, 2004. PDF.
5. Meeden L., Marshall J., and Blank, D. (2004) Self-Motivated, Task-Independent Reinforcement Learning for Robots. 2004 AAAI Fall Symposium on Real-World Reinforcement Learning. Washington, D.C. PDF.
6. Blank, D.S., Yanco, H., Kumar, D., and Meeden L. (2004) Avoiding the Karel-the-Robot Paradox: A framework for making sophisticated robotics accessible. 2004 AAAI Spring Symposium, Accessible Hands-on Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Education. Stanford, CA. PDF.
7. Meeden, L., Newhall, T., Blank, D., and Kumar, D. (2003). Using departmental surveys to assess computing culture: Recognizing and addressing gender differences. ITiCSE 2003. 162K PDF, 522K PostScript.
8. Blank, D., Meeden, L., and Kumar, D. (2003). Python robotics: An Environment for Exploring Robotics Beyond LEGOs. ACM Special Interest Group: Computer Science Education Conference, Reno, NV (SIGCSE 2003). PostScript, PDF.
9. Blank, D.S., Kumar, D. and Meeden, L. (2002). A Developmental Approach to Intelligence. In Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual Midwest Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science Society Conference, Edited by Sumali J. Conlon. 506K PostScript, 122K PDF.
10. Blank, D.S., Kumar, D. and Meeden, L. (2002). Bringing up robot: Fundamental mechanisms for creating a self-motivated, self-organizing architecture. In Proceedings of the workshop Growing Up Artifacts that live, Simulated Adaptive Behavior 2002, From Animals to Animats. 132K PostScript, 136K PDF.
11. Blank, D.S., Kumar, D. and Meeden, L. (2002). A Developmental Approach to Anchoring. Bryn Mawr College Computer Science Technical Report 2002-01. 1.7M PostScript, 294K PDF.
12. Blank, D. and Kumar, D. (2002). Patterns of Curriculum Design. Proceedings of Informatics Curricula, Teaching Methods and best practice (ICTEM), Florianopolis, SC Brazil. 135K PostScript, 56K DOC.
13. Ward, Em, Blank, Douglas S., Rolniak, Douglas, and Thompson, Dale R. (2001). Complexity as Fitness for Evolved Cellular Automata Update Rules. In Late Breaking Papers of the 2001 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference. 145K PostScript, 51K gzipped ps, and 125K PDF.
14. Blank, D., Beavers, G., Arensman, W., Caloianu, C., Fujiwara, T., McCaul, S., Shaw, C. (2001). A Robot Team that Can Search, Rescue, and Serve Cookies: Experiments in Multi-modal Person Identification and Multi-robot Sound Localization. In Proceedings of the 2001 Twelfth Annual Midwest Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science Society Meetings. PDF, PostScript.
15. Blank, D.S. (2001). Radical Artificial Intelligence: A Postmodern Approach. In Proceedings of the 2001 Twelfth Annual Midwest Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science Society Meetings. PDF, PostScript. See talk here.
16. Blank, D.S. AI Update. 2000-2001. A news/opinion column in intelligence magazine, the journal of ACM's SIGART. Spring 2000, Summer 2000, Fall 2000, Winter 2000, Spring 2001, Summer 2001, Fall 2001, Winter 2001 Preprint
17. Blank, D.S., Hudson, J.H., Mashburn, B.C., Roberts, E.A. (1999). The XRCL Project: The University of Arkansas' Entry into the AAAI 1999 Mobile Robot Competition. Technical Report CSCE-1999-01.
18. Blank, D.S. (1999). The Radical Alternative to Hybrid Systems. In A. Jagota, T. Plate, L. Shastri, R. Sun (eds), Connectionist Symbol Processing: Dead or Alive?, 1-40, a collective article in Neural Computing Surveys.
19. Meeden, L.A., and Blank, D.S. (1998) "Robot competitions as class projects," in SIGART Bulletin, Volume 9, Number 2, 1998.
20. Blank, D.S., Holmes, G., Wells, R., and Wolinski, P. (1998). Interactive Gradebook: TheMissing (Hyper)Link. Technical Report CSCE-1999-02.
21. Berghel, H. and D. Blank. (1999). The World Wide Web, in M. Zelkowitz (ed.), Advances in Computing, v. 48, Academic Press, pp. 178-218.
22. Mashburn, B. and Blank D.S. (1999). Graphics + Robotics + AI = Fast, 3D Scene Construction. In Proceedings of the 1999 Midwest Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science Society Conference. AAAI Press.
23. Blank, D.S. (1998). Is AI becoming Robotics? Implications for Research and Pedagogy. A panel presentation at the 1998 Midwest Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science Society Conference.
24. Clark, M., and Blank, D.S. (1998). A Neural Network-based Cryptographic System. In Proceedings of the 1998 Midwest Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science Society Conference. AAAI Press.
25. Meeden, L.A., and Blank, D.S. (1998). Use of Robot Simulations can Enhance Integration. Working Notes, AAAI Spring Symposium, AAAI98: Integrating Robotics Research. Online: pdf, ps
26. Blank, D.S., and Meeden, L.A (1998). Innovation through Competition. Working Notes, AAAI Spring Symposium, AAAI98: Integrating Robotics Research. Online: pdf, ps
27. Blank, D.S. (1997). Learning to See Analogies: A Connectionist Exploration. Ph.D. Thesis. Indiana University, Bloomington.
28. Blank, D.S., and Ross, J.O. (1997). Incorporating a Connectionist Vision Module into a Fuzzy, Behavior-Based Robot Controller. Proceedings of the 1997 Midwest Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science Society Conference. (postscript 1.5M, PDF 129K)
29. Blank, D.S., and Ross, J.O. (1997). Learning in a Fuzzy Logic Robot Controller. In Proceedings of the 1997 Meetings of the American Association of Artificial Intelligence. (postscript 93K, PDF 9K)
30. Blank, D.S. (1996). Behavior-Based Analogy-Making. Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual Cognitive Science Society Conference. (postscript 137K, PDF 15K)
31. Blank, D.S. (1996). Analogy-Making: A Connectionist Exploration. Proceedings of the 1996 Midwest Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science Society Conference. (HTML 61K, PDF 469K, postscript 1.5M)
32. Blank, D.S. (1995). A distributed representation of multiple objects in a visual scene. Proceedings of the 1995 Midwest Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science Society Conference. (postscript 183K, PDF 126K)
33. Meeden, L.A., McGraw, G.E., and Blank, D.S. (1993). Emergent Control and Planning in an Autonomous Vehicle. In Proceedings of the 15th Annual Cognitive Science Society Conference. (postscript 247K, PDF 143K)
34. Blank, D.S., and Gasser, M. (1992). Grounding via Scanning: Cooking up Roles from Scratch. Proceedings of the 1992 Midwest Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science Society Conference. (postscript 112K, PDF 88K)
35. Blank, D.S., Meeden, L.A., and Marshall, J. (1992). Exploring the Symbolic/Subsymbolic Continuum: A case study of RAAM. In The Symbolic and Connectionist Paradigms: Closing the Gap. (postscript 476K, PDF 272K)

Papers in progress

• Blank, D.S., Kumar, D., Meeden, L., and Yanco, H. (2005) The Pyro toolkit for AI and robotics. Submitted to AI Magzine. PDF, PS.
• Doug Blank, Kim Cassidy, Anne Dalke, and Paul Grobstein. (2005) Emergent Pedagogy: Learning to Enjoy the Uncontrollable and Make it Productive. Under review. HTML PDF
• Marshall, J., Blank, D., and Meeden, L. (2004). Robot Self-Motivation: Balancing "Boredom" and "Confusion". A two-page poster of an idea. See further exploration of the idea below. PDF
• Stober, J., Meeden, L., Blank, D.S. (2004). The Governor Architecture: Avoiding Catastrophic Forgetting in Robot Learning. PostScript, PDF.