CS81 Final Project

• Apply any of the systems we discussed this semester to an adaptive robotics task.
  • Evolving neural networks with NEAT
  • Novelty search
  • Resource allocating vector quantizer (RAVQ)
  • Growing neural gas (GNG)
  • Intelligent adaptive curiosity (IAC)
  • Category-based intrinsic moitvation (CBIM)
  • Self-organizaing distinctive state abstraction (SODA)
  • Reinforcement learning (Q-learning)
• Try to reproduce an experiment we read about.
• Try to improve on a system we discussed.
• Invent your own adaptive robotics approach using aspects of any of the systems we've discussed.
• Take an idea from a previous CS81 project and expand on it:
  • CS81 Spring 2010
  • CS81 Spring 2009
  • CS81 Spring 2008
• Experiment with an adaptive robotics technique that we did not discuss in class.

Your project proposal should be at least two pages long. It should include a clear description of:

• The adaptive method you will be testing. Will you be using existing software or writing it from scratch?
• The environment, task, and agent that you will use in the experiment. Will you be using a simulated agent or a real robot?
• Your hypothesis and expected outcome.
• How you will analyze the results to demonstrate whether your hypothesis was correct.

Email me a pdf of your proposal by 9am on Thursday, March 29.

Each group or individual doing a project will give a demonstration in class on either April 10 or 12. Your experiments do not need to be completed at this point, however be prepared to execute some implemented aspect of your system.

You should plan to speak for 10 minutes with an additional 5 minutes for questions. You are not required to use slides for this demonstration, but are welcome to if you would like. Begin by describing your project (cover the same points in your project proposal) and then demonstrate some running code.

Section 1

• Tuesday, April 10
  • Danny, Sam, and Adrien
  • John and David W.
  • Kenny and David D.
• Thursday, April 12
  • Peter and Kristen
  • Steve and Mark
  • Catie and Stella
  • Bernie and Abigail
  • Taylor

• Tuesday, April 10
  • Nick and Phil
  • Dasol and Emily
  • Manny
• Thursday, April 12
  • Temple
  • Alex B. and Seth
  • Jessi, Dylan, and Greg
  • Celia and Lisa
  • Abel and Alex C.

You will give a 20 minute presentation about your project with an aditional 5 minutes for questions. Each group or individual doing a project will be assigned a time to speak during the last two weeks of class.

It may be the case that you are still running experiments at this point. However, you must have some preliminary results to report. If it is a team project, then each team member should speak for an equal portion of the time. You must use slides of some kind.

You should follow these guidelines (put together by Tia Newhall) when creating your talk.

Your paper should be 8-10 pages long and include the following:

• A short abstract of 200 to 300 words summarizing your findings.
• An introduction that contrasts your study with other related work. Find and read at least three articles related to your experiment and discuss these papers here. Read about how to properly cite related work.
• A detailed description of your experiments. There should be enough information provided so that someone could reproduce your experiments.
• An explanation of the results. Use figures and tables where appropriate.
• A discussion of the significance of the results.
• A bibliography.

Your grade will not be based on whether or not your experiment succeeds. Negative results are also useful. Your grade will be based on the design and execution of the experiment as well as the thoroughness and readability of the paper. You do not need to turn in any programs.

Most computer scientists use LaTeX to write research papers. I encourage you to give it a try. You can see an example of a LaTeX paper including bibliography and figures in /home/meeden/public/latex-example.

You should start writing the paper before the experiments are complete. Begin with the introduction, related work and bibliography. Then move on to the describing the experiments. Only the explanation and significance of the results as well as the abstract need to wait until the experiments are complete.

Email me a pdf version of your paper by noon on Friday, May 11.

Your project experiments may require a lot of time to run. Please read the following suggestions for how to conduct your experiments so as not to disrupt the work of other students. Pay special attention to the use of nice and screen.