Trinity University hosts robot competition
By Usha Lee Mcfarling
Knighl-Ridder Newspapers
HARTFORD, Conn. - The creators of
“The Jetsons” may have predicted
microwave ovens and exercise
treadmills, but when it came to the all
purpose robot maid Rosie, they were
way off the mark. Here we are,
spinnning toward the millennium, and
we’re still vacuuming our own floors.
Where are all the robots?
Some are already here. About
90,000 robots are hard at work on
America’s assembly lines, putting
together Ford Explorers, Pentium II
chips and Mint Milano cookies. A
handful of robot vocations are
impressive indeed: Some scour
Chernobyl’s nuclear reactor core,
others detonate bombs and one robot
at Stanford University has performed
brain surgery. (Even surgeons, a group
not generally known for small egos,
admit robot docs are better at some
tasks, like precisely placing screws
into artificial hips: Robots don’t get
distracted and their hands don’t
shake.)
Impressive as these machines are,
they are not “true robots",
49ers backup quarterback confident he will be cleared in rape of college student
By Clark Judge
Knight-Ridder Newspapers
SAN JOSE - An indictment unsealed
Friday in Virginia's Montgomery
County Circuit Court accused 49ers
backup quarterback Jim
Druckenmiller of raping a Virginia
Tech student early last month. The
indictment was returned April 13 after
the grand jury heard testimony from
the alleged victim and a detective
from the Blacksburg (Va.) police
department.
Though Druckenmiller declined to
answer questions regarding the
incident, he indicated he is not guilty
of the charges. "I feel very confident
I will be available for this season,”
he said Friday at the team's mini
Swarm dorm gets all A’s in
By Jennifer Rothacker
Knight-Ridder Newspapers
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Some college
roommates are messy. Others play
their music too loud. But UNC
Charlotte junior Kevin Moore has
quite the tale of roommate woe: tens
of thousands of swarming, stinging
bees.
Honeybees, perhaps as many as
40,000, have built an empire between
the outer brick wall of Pine Hall, an
apartment-style dorm housing 84
students, and the inner cinder block
GOP lawmakers seek increase
in Pell Grants, federal aid
By Christine Tatum
College Press Exchange
WASHINGTON (CPX) - House
Republicans are floating a plan to
increase federal grants to college
students from low-income families
that could score the GOP major
brownie points with a young voting
bloc that typically aligns itself with
the Democratic party.
The GOP’s $1 billion plan would
add $4OO to the $3,125 maximum a
student can get each year under the
government’s Pell Grant program and
is expected to be one of the driving
forces behind this year’s debate over
how to fund education in fiscal 2000.
The Clinton administration has
proposed a plan of its own, one that
would add a lesser amount, $125, to
the grant maximum. Other increases
proposed by President Clinton, of 50
percent or more in some categories,
are mostly for teacher training, aid to
colleges in predominantly Hispanic
communities and GEAR UP, a new
college preparation program.
Over the last few months, college
lobbyists and student activists have
blasted the White House for its
lackluster support for several core
student-aid programs. They’re quick
to point out that the Pell Grant’s
autonomous machines negotiating
through the real world. Most are fixed
into position to perform rote tasks.
The few working robots that move do
so by remote control or by following
fixed routes. "Dumb as dirt," Gregory
Dudek, a robotics expert at McGill
University, says of assembly line
robots. “Plodding dullards," says
Hans Moravec, a founder of the
eminent robotics program at Carnegie
Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
But set robots free to make
decisions in the real world, or the
closest most come, robot contests, and
see what happens. At "Robocup," a
robot soccer competition last summer
in France, contestants wandered the
field blindly, mistook opponents for
the ball or got hopelessly trapped in
corners. Entrants in a flying contest
were described as "drunken, airborne
food processors."
And here at Trinity University this
week, in what’s billed as the world’s
largest true robot competition, robots
took on the role of firefighters,
attempting to delect and douse a house
fire represented by a candle. Many
found themselves careening into walls
and sometimes wheeling right into the
camp in Santa Clara. "I do believe
justice will prevail."
If convicted of rape, Druckenmiller,
the 49ers’ first-round draft pick in
1997, could face from five years to
life imprisonment. According to the
indictment. Druckenmiller, 26, is
accused of attacking a woman in a
house in Blacksburg between 3 a.m.
and 4 a.m. March 4. The woman,
whose name has been w ithheld, went
to the hospital later that morning, the
indictment said.
Blacksburg is home to Virginia
Tech, where Druckenmiller was a star
quarterback. As he did a year ago,
Druckenmiller returned to the school
in the off-season. Druckenmiller’s
attorney contested details of the
incident, charging that Druckenmiller
wall. It's believed their honeycomb
stretches the entire height of the
three-story building, with the bees
gaining access through tiny slits
created to help the building breathe.
“It's like a Stephen King novel,"
said Jacklyn Simpson, a UNCC
associate vice chancellor and director
of housing. They fly in frantic circles
above Moore's balcony. Their
synchronized buzzing is so loud at
times, Moore has to shut the
windows. Dead bees are scattered on
his carpet. One he managed to swat
is still stuck to a sliding glass door.
spending power has dropped
dramatically over the past two
decades. According to the American
Student Association, the maximum
Pell Grant would have to be raised to
$6,000 to match the coverage it
afforded students in 1980. Today, the
association also notes, the average
student graduates $12,063 in debt.
“The President says he wants to
make vital investments in a time of
prosperity,” said Anthony Samu,
president of the USSA. “Is there any
better investment than making college
truly available for all those who wish
to obtain a college degree?”
Republicans are seizing the
opportunity to win over students
concerned about their pocketbooks
and to take a swipe at Clinton at the
same time. Their plan meets the $4OO
grant increase college lobbyists
pushed for after getting a look at the
White House’s proposal a few months
ago.
“The president once again has
listened to his pollsters,” said Rep.
Bill Goodling, a Pennsylvania
Republican who serves as chairman
of the House Education and
Workforce Committee. “He is
meeting his political needs, not the
real needs of students and educators.”
Goodling also criticized the President
National Campus News
llames they were meant to extinguish.
It turns out the things we humans
find so simple, avoiding walls,
crossing uneven floors, finding
objects, are the hardest things for a
machine to do. Just ask Deep Blue,
the genius computer that scored a
coup for the silicon world by heating
champion Garry Kasparov at chess:
It needed a human assistant to find and
move pawns and rooks during the
"The reason those things seem so
easy is because we’re specialized to
do them through millions of years of
evolution. To think we could match
those easily represents tremendous
hubris on our part." says Dudek.
Indeed, what Moravec calls the “robot
giddiness of the early 'Bos," when C
-3PO was fresh in our minds, gave way
to more than a decade of frustration
as robot aficionados realized the
computer revolution wouldn't easily
translate into walking, talking and
thinking machines. Frustration echoes
through the names of some robot
creations: One entry here was called
"Migraine." Another: "The Money
Pit."
We knew it would be hard," says
was falsely accused. In a one-page
statement, attorney David Neufeld
claimed that Druckenmiller was
victimized
"Jim and his friends were visiting
some local nightspots with others,”
the statement read, "when the accuser
openly and aggressively began
pursuing him. That same evening they
had sex. but she now apparently
questions whether or not she
consented.
"As soon as Jim learned of this, he
spoke to. and cooperated with, the
authorities. Jim also voluntarily took
and passed a polygraph test, but, to
our knowledge, she did not. Efforts
to gel additional information have
been hindered by the accuser's
demands that an investigator not
When it was "just one or two, we
would swat them." Moore said. “I'm
not about to swat at 30 bees. I’m not
an idiot." The bees have annoyed
students till year. A few have felt their
wrath: Senior David Rittenhouse of
Hickory was recently stung three
times, twice on his head, once on his
hand, after coming into his apartment
alter a jog.
The annoyance turned creepy last
w eek, when thousands of bees came
out of their hive and clung to one of
the dorm's outer brick walls, a huge,
black, throbbing blanket. A few
for favoring new programs rather than
supporting those that are “tried and
true.”
The White House is battling back
with claims that the GOP is trying to
lure young voters with a plan that pits
higher education against programs
designed to support school children
and prepare them for college.
Jake Mendelssohn, an early believer
in robotics who organized the
firefighting robot contest here. “But
no one knew it would be this hard."
Yet, the believers still believe. Yes,
they say, robots were overhyped. Yes,
the performance of early robots was
downright embarrassing. "The quality
of soccer play, just pathetic,” sighs
Moravec. But things are different now,
they say. Today's robots are making
huge developmental strides. And some
are crawling, wheeling and climbing
their way out of the lab.
Robot builders tick off the growing
accomplishments like proud parents
discussing crawling toddlers. They
can see! They can hear! They can
navigate! They can build maps in their
heads! One humanistic robot
developed by Honda Motors even
climbs stairs. And while many of the
firefighting robots competing here
were klunky and error-prone, a few
were sleek and stealthy, setting about
their task like predators and
extinguishing fires within seconds.
"I truly believe in a few years
firefighting robots will be as common
as smoke detectors," says
Mendelssohn. Dudek agrees: “Robots
contact other persons who have
knowledge of that night’s events."
The NFL declined to comment on
Druckenmiller's situation, but the
league will be heard when
Druckenmiller is arraigned. According
to the NFL’s "violent crime policy,”
Druckenmiller is required to undergo
a “mandatory clinical evaluation and
appropriate counseling" once he is
formally charged. The evaluation and
counseling must be performed under
the direction and supervision of the
league’s vice president of player and
employee development. Failure to
comply will be considered conduct
detrimental to the league and is
punishable by a fine or suspension.
The league's policy cites several
examples of violent crimes, including
students said they couldn’t get to
class, said they were being held
hostage," Simpson said.
University officials didn't want to
kill the insects, since honeybees
across the nation are under siege from
mites, and their population is
dwindling rapidly. But there was no
way they could be taken out alive
without destroying the wall. “You
cannot get bees to abandon their
nest,” explained Stan Schneider, a
UNCC biology professor who studies
honeybee behavior and estimated the
wall might house as many as 40,000.
Document reveals Western
Kentucky’s delay in acting
against accused harasser
College Press Exchange
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (CPX) -
Officials at Western Kentucky
University are running for cover in
light of a recently publicized
bombshell of a report detailing
numerous accusations of sexual
harassment lodged against a former
administrator by female students and
employees.
A local newspaper, “The Park City
Daily News,” obtained a copy of the
340-page internal report, which
concluded that C. Wayne Jones,
director of the university’s Glasgow
campus, had been sexually harassing
female students and employees for
years. The report also concluded that
the university’s efforts to reprimand
Jones weren’t strong enough to
prevent him from repeating the
objectionable behavior.
Though only four women filed
formal complaints about Jones, an
affirmative-action officer who
testified before internal investigators
said that if she had tallied all of the
calls she had received from women
complaining about Jones, there would
have been at least 50. The Daily News
also reported that Western Kentucky
pressured Jones to resign after one of
the women challenged the school’s
Thursday, April 29, 1999 - The Behrend College Beacon - page
are going to be everywhere." Fine,
but when are they going to start
cleaning apartments?
Well, a few robots have quietly
entered the personal service industry.
A robot arm in Sacramento, Calif.,
pumps gas. Sushtbots in a London
restaurant cut raw fish and, next
month at the International Robots &
Vision Show in Detroit, a robot arm
named "Isaac Fillmore" will mix
drinks with varying amounts of ice,
shaken or stirred. "He never makes a
mistake, he doesn’t overpour and he
doesn't take money out of the till,"
says Ron Potter of Factory
Automation Systems, the College
Park, Ga., company who created
Isaac.
A robot called “the lawn nibbler,”
developed at the University of
Florida, can mow on its own. And,
yes, there is even a vacuum. Two
months ago, Eureka Co. unveiled a
sleek black disk with a built-in radar
that allows it to vacuum, on its own,
without bumping into anything. It’s
not vet for sale. But robot experts like
Moravec say such machines still
aren't good enough. They leave
random patches untouched. They
"any crime involving the use or threat
of physical violence to a person or
persons.” Druckenmiller met
Thursday with 49ers Coach Steve
Mariucei, a meeting Druckenmiller
ealled himself, and the quarterback
informed him of the situation.
“When he visited with me he was
shaken, shocked and surprised,"
Mariucei said. “But he informed me
and explained it as best he could.
That’s not easy for anybody, but he
feels confident the legal process will
take care of itself.” Druckenmiller,
who has been criticized publicly by
General Manager Bill Walsh, said
teammates were "supportive and
confident" and indicated he felt
"confident" in his situation.
*‘We’ll let the legal system progress
He said bees are attracted to tight
spaces like the dorm building wall
because they can more easily guard
their hive.
So early Monday, after removing
24 students from six apartments,
Steritech Pest Elimination of
Charlotte sent a crew clad in
protective uniforms to spray a
synthetic insecticide into the holes.
"It was save the bees or save the
students,” Simpson said. "We
decided on the students.”
Some of the slits were barricaded
with small strips of screening to
reprimand and appealed to the
university’s president, Gary A.
Ransdall, for help.
An internal appellate committee
charged with hearing the woman’s
grievance ruled in her favor. The
committee’s report stated that several
complainants had been ill advised by
university officials, that
administrators had interfered with
the initial investigations into Jones’
behavior, that appropriate
punishments had been ignored and
that no one monitored Jones after his
reprimand.
The report also stated that
university officials waited too long
before looking into the women’s
allegations against Jones. The first
harassment complaint against him
was made in 1996, but the university
waited until 1998 to investigate.
Efforts to reach Jones were
unsuccessful. The report also stated
that Jones said he was a “toucher”
and a "hugger” who often made
contact with students “to boost their
self esteem” and to let them know
they were appreciated.
mainly crawl along walls. They, get
stuck too often. "The brains are just
not up to anything." says Moravec.
"By now, I’m jaded."
But bigger brains are coming.
Computing power, cheap, fast, light
computing power, is here and getting
cheaper, faster and lighter every day.
Such advances, meaning robots that
can operate in a real world full ol
dropped toys, dirty clothes and
napping pets, are on the way. It's not
a matter of if we’ll have household
robots, says Moravec, hut of when,
and of what types of creatures they'll
be.
In his book "Robot." Moravec
predicts that early versions of such
creatures are about five years away.
They’ll evolve into an array of
increasingly complex and different
creatures he calls "an ecology of
robots." And vacuuming robots are no
superficial pursuit. Moravec thinks
they’ll be first out. He’s got one (“the
dustbot") on the drawing board, for
both technical and personal reasons.
“I hate pushing that machine." he
says.
as it normally would, keep our
business on the football’ field and
evaluate him accordingly," Mariucci
said. Montgomery County prosecutor
Peggy Frank told the Associated Press
that Druckenmiller's lawyers assured
prosecutors he will surrender to
authorities by Wednesday.
Druckenmiller declined to comment,
but Mariucci said Druckenmiller is
expected to be with the 49ers through
their weekend camp, which concludes
Sunday. “Despite the obvious anguish
caused by the false charges, Jim is
confident and finds some comfort in
knowing that he will be fully
vindicated," Neufeld said.
bees
prevent re-entry. Still, bees hover
around Moore’s balcony, trying to
find new ways into their expansive
home. Eventually. Simpson
anticipates the bees will leave when
they realize their home is coated in
poison. But that won’t be the last
trace of them. “Now what we’re all
waiting to see is how big the
honeycomb is and how much honey
is in it,” Simpson said. ’’When it gets
hot, it will melt.”
Pitt students hold
hunger strike
over denial of
benefits for gay
partners
College Press Exchange
PITTSBURGH, Pa. (CPX) - Two
students at the University of
Pittsburgh have been on a hunger
strike for a week to protest school
policies prohibiting the extension of
medical benefits to the domestic
partners of gay and lesbian
employees.
The protesters, members of an
organization calling itself the Equal
Rights Alliance, said they would
continue the strike until the
university’s board of trustees agreed
to meet with them to discuss the issue.
School officials say it’s a meeting
that’s not likely to happen.
The group claims the university is
violating a 1990 city ordinance that
bars employment discrimination
based on sexual orientation. But
school officials say those claims have
no basis, maintaining that state law
doesn’t require the university to
provide such benefits. To bolster their
argument they're quick to note that
other state institutions do not cover
same-sex partners in their health plans
either.