Motion planning is a cornerstone of autonomous robots, enabling robots to safely and efficiently perform tasks such as package delivery, infrastructure inspection, and manipulation. However, as the field of robotics matures, robotic systems are being developed that (1) are challenging to analytically model, (2) require computationally expensive model-based controllers, and...
We present student perceptions of a new first-year engineering programming class that was designed by informed research practices. While the College of Engineering at Oregon State University saw a lot of major switching in the first year, there were not many students switching into computer science (CS). This could have...
The use of genetic algorithms to compose music and generate sounds is an area of interest in the artificial intelligence field. Music and instrument sounds have known rules and structures that can be followed which make them well-suited for genetic algorithms. However, genetic algorithms still struggle to generate sounds comparable...
Excavations at the Cooper’s Ferry site (10IH73) revealed a long record of repeated human occupation extending from the late Pleistocene into the early Holocene (~16,000-10,000 cal BP) and have yielded unique insights into the Western Stemmed Tradition (WST), which includes. Several studies have focused on WST pit features encountered at...
Autonomous robotic agents are on their way to becoming in-home personal assistants, construction assistants, and warehouse workers. The degree of autonomy of such systems is reflected by the manner in which we specify goals to them; the abstraction of low-level commands to high-level goals goes hand-in-hand with increased autonomy. In...
I conducted a field study using gray wolf and mountain lion urine to investigate white-tailed deer and mesopredator behavioral responses to novel predator cues in a natural setting and to see if any changes in wildlife activity correspond to changes in the local biodiversity of a wetland environment. I created...
Coastal stream basins are of great importance to efforts aimed at refining our understanding of the earliest populations that inhabited the ancient Oregon coast. However, geomorphic responses to post-glacial sea level rise in these settings has produced depositional environments that destroy or deeply bury late Pleistocene and early Holocene-age archaeological...