Friday, August 27,2004
Student
By Lori DeFabio
student life editor
One Behrend student spent his summer doing
research and creating software for which he may
be awarded a patent as primary inventor.
On June 6, Jason Donnell, EET, 07, left his
hometown of Pittsburgh and drove ten hours to
Milwaukee, Wis. The six hundred mile drive was
necessary because he was chosen as one of ten
people across the country to participate in the Re
search Experience for Undergraduates at the Mil
waukee School of Engineering (MOSE).
Donnell became aware of the Research Experi
ence for Undergraduates from an e-mail that Car
rie Payne sent out to Behrend engineering stu
dents.
“It was the longest application 1 ever had to fill
out,” said Donnell. “1 had to write a paper saying
why I wanted to participate, write papers explain
ing my knowledge of solid freeform fabrication,
send four letters of reference, an official transcript.
and my resume.”
It took almost two months before Donnell found
out that he was chosen to participate in the Re-
search Experience.
“I just figured I didn’t get accepted because it
took so long before I heard anything,” said
Donnell. “The school said that they had 80 ap
plicants, and they narrowed it down to 20. Then
later I got a message saying that I was one of ten
people in the United States accepted.”
Participants of the Research Experience for Un
dergraduates were teamed up with an advisor and
given a topic to study. Donnell’s topic was “Pho
tographs for the Blind” and was originally the idea
of his advisor’s colleague. The project was to
develop a program that would create a model from
a photograph so a person who was blind would
be given the opportunity to visualize an image
through the sense of touch.
“There was a huge range of products devel
oped,” said Donnell. My project was somewhat
in the bio-medical field as well as the electrical
engineering field. All of the projects were simi-
Associate Professor Stars in
Erie Playhouse’s The Best Man’
Mr. John Kerwin, left, stars in the Erie Playhouse performance of “The Best Man."
By Meghan 800 l
staff writer
Mr. John Kerwin, Associate Professor of Com
munications, is starring in the current Erie Play
house production of "The Best Man," starting this
weekend.
"The Best Man" takes place in the political spot
light during a presidential election. It is an intense
story about two politicians, Secretary of State Wil
liam Russell, the good guy, played by Kerwin, and
Senator Cantwell, the bad guy. These two politi
cians are running to become the next president.
It is a dirty race in which Cantwell will do what
ever it takes to become the next president. Even
though the race has gone to its extreme, Russell
does not stoop to Cantwell’s level. He only ac
cuses Cantwell of sexual misconduct. In the end,
Russell drops out of the running. Because of this,
Russell is considered "The Best Man."
It seems very timely that the Erie Playhouse
would choose a politically famed play so close to
the presidential elections. Kerwin explained that it
S7UDKNT UN
spent summer inventing
lar in the sense that they all had something to do
with solid freeform fabrication.”
Donnell began his project by researching the
disability of being blind and using Matlab soft
ware to elevate a photograph and turn it into a
three-dimensional model. After four weeks of the
ten-week program, Donnell decided that the
Matlab software he was using was not working
out as well as he had hoped and knew that he had
to find another program to use.
Donnell discussed his dilemma with another
participant, Josh Mueller, at the Research Expe
rience for Undergraduates, and it was recom
mended to create a program for his project by
using the C++ programming language.
“I was provided with the model writer and the
file reader parts of the software that Josh down
loaded from the internet,” said Donnell. “All I
had to deal with was the processing portion of
the software which was very helpful considering
I only had six weeks left in the program. Josh
helped me out.”
The project to create a model from a grayscale
photograph was successfully completed by using
the C++ programming language. Three models
were created and tested, but because of time con
straints, the models were only tested by one per-
The three images tested were of varying diffi
culties. The first image tested was a playing card
that was scanned onto the computer, run through
the software, and then sent to the solid freeform
fabrication program that turned it into a model.
The person testing the model was able to feel the
image and could tell it was a nine of clubs.
The second image tested was harder than the
first and required the person testing the image to
be reminded how to figure out the picture of the
image
“The second image was a picture of a tree with
a cloudy sky,” said Donnell. “I had to remind
him that darker shades are raised higher, and then
he realized that it was a picture of a tree.”
The third image was the hardest; it was a pic
ture of a ghost town. The person testing the model
was chosen due to this election year.
"It’s just theatrical magic," said Kerwin.
Kerwin has been very involved with television,
acting, and behind the scenes work for many years.
He is originally from New York City and from there
traveled to many different places, building experi
ence everywhere he went. Since coming to Erie,
he has become very popular in the Erie Playhouse
as well as smaller theatres around town such as the
Roadhouse and the Directors Circle. He states that
this type of art "is an adrenaline push" that allows
him to love it as much as he does.
When asked what advice to give to future thespi
ans, Kerwin said, "Constantly get involved in local
theatre groups and participate in workshops to bet
ter yourself.”
"Only act for the love of acting, not for the fame
and money. The love and fun of it will be payment
in itself."
“The Best Man ” will be showing Sept. 16
through Sept. 19 and Sept. 22 through Sept. 26.
Show times are 7:30 p.m. with 2:00 shows on
Sundays.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Jason Donnell, EET, 07, participated in a 12 week program at the Milwaukee School of
Engineering.
felt the images while Donnell looked at the pho
tograph and told him what he was feeling.
“I do have a way to make the hardest image
easier to detect,” said Donnell. “I could drill out
a little hole in the model and place a sensor so
when he touched the image, it would speak to him,
much like a children’s book. I didn’t have the
time to implement that idea because I lost four
weeks working with the Matlab software.”
When the Research Experience for Undergradu
ates ended, Donnell, his advisor, and the Dean of
Research at MOSE decided that the software
should not be released freely to the public. In
stead, Donnell signed an Invention Disclosure
Outdoors Club Plans Trip
By Brian Mitchell
contributing writer
The Outdoors Club is planning to take a
canoe trip down Alleghany River on Sept. 25
and 26. If you are interested, meetings for
the Outdoors Club are held every Tuesday at
7:30 p.m. in Reed 114.
“People should join the Outdoors Club be
cause we go to more places than just the
gorge,” said Jason Feirrer, CMPEN, 07.
Last year, the Outdoors Club took an ad
venture trip to the Laurel Highlands located
in Ohiopyle, Pa and plans to do the same this
year. The club members caved the Laurel
Caverns and went whitewater rafting in the
Youghiogheny River.
“I thought the trip was a very fun because
I got to do a minor adventure,” said Raymond
McKee, PLET, 05.
There was a lot of climbing, crawling and
worming around while caving the Laurel
Caverns. The cave consisted of many small
spaces, which were tough to get around.
“The toughest climb was at the end when
we had to stand on a relatively tough spot
and had to figure a way out,” said Luke
Borowy, BLASC, 03. “The director pointed
to the exit and everyone figured a different
Safe Net
Erie County’s Domestic Violence Safety Network,
invites you to participate in our
Join us in demanding that abusers be held accountable for their
actions. Show the community that Penn State is standing up
against abusive behavior, and show support for all victims of in
terpersonal violence—both locally and around the nation.
Student Groups / Panhellenic Societies: Wear group t-shirts,
carry your group banner!
Community Service Hours Available for Participants.
Call Lisa - 455-1774, ext 248, for more details!
6* Annual March Against Domestic Violence
Date: Sunday, October 3,2004
Registration Time: 12 - 1 pm
March Begins: Ipm
The Behrend Beacon | 5
paper stating that he is the primary inventor of
the software.
“Right now it is not a finished product,” said
Donnell. “It just has a black screen and does not
have any graphical user interface. That’s not mar
ketable. I’m hoping I’m able to finish it from
here and then the Milwaukee School of Engineer
ing will help me get a patent.”
When asked if he would attend again if the op
portunity, he said that he definitely would with
the exception of living off-campus and living right
in the city next time.
“It’s an experience I had to have.”
way out.”
Borowy decided to check out the
Youghiogheny River, which was the river they
went whitewater rafting in the next day.
“The water was very rapid due to the large
amount of rocks in the river,” said Borowy.
“The rocks make the river flow; without the
rocks, the river would flow slowly.”
By the evening, everyone met back at camp
and cooked foil dinners. Foil dinners are
made by wrapping a variety of food (ground
beef, carrots, potatoes, etc.) in aluminum foil
and cooking it over the campfire. After din
ner, people made smores for dessert and were
able to talk and get to know one-another.
Sunday morning, the students had a quick
breakfast and headed to the Youghiogheny
River at for whitewater rafting. Before go
ing on the river, the students learned some
quick rules about rafting: how to paddle and
what to do when approaching a rock.
“It was on the chilly side in the morning
but warmed up as the day went on,” said
Borowy. “It rained off and on throughout the
day.”
“I really enjoyed whitewater rafting,” said
Floyd Mattie, BIOBD, 07. “Navigating the
rapids was a pretty intense experience.”