Summer Institute |
Summer Institute ProjectsThe cornerstone of the Ohio Supercomputer Center's Summer Institute is the projects. The students work together in small teams on diverse and challenging research-level projects. Teams are comprised of a project leader (staff member who conceived and designed the project) and three or four students. This year's project options will be posted at a later date. Last year's projects included:
1) Obstacle Avoidance Roomba Project -Sponsored by The Ohio State University and the http://www.nsf.gov/ Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) Program The device used will be a Roomba, a autonomous robotic vacuum cleaner, fitted with lidar (a light based ranging device). The goal of the National Science Foundation funded project is to progam the Roombas to be capable of avoiding randomly placed obstacles. Students will work with a robotic simulator, called player-stage, to design “the brains” of a Roomba through computer programming. After successfully simulating the behavior, the research group will do “real-life” tests of the Roomba in a specially fitted laboratory. This project relates to the NSF Project “Autonomous Driving in Mixed-Traffic Urban Environments” which is under the Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) Program.
Network Forensics- More Info This project involves collecting and presenting network forensics information as an “expert witness” by investigating (simulated) real-world cyber-attack incidents that have affected a multi-million dollar corporation’s E-business. You will conduct a cyber-crime investigation as a network forensic expert. For this, you will use tools such as Wireshark packet capture tool and Snort Intrusion detection/prevention tool in a “Honeynet” that has been built at OSC. A Honeynet shown in Figure 3 is a network that includes computers that need to be protected. It appears to a hacker as a real-system while infact, it carefully monitors the hacker attacks and collects clues to trace the hacker’s location on the Internet. In addition, you will use open-source software such as Mysql database and the Ploticus graphing package.
3) Image Processing - More Info This project involves a real world application of finding comets in sun observation images from the SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) spacecraft. SOHO is a cooperative mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). SOHO studies the sun from deep down in its core out to 32 solar radii. The spacecraft orbits the L1 Lagrangian point. From this orbit, SOHO is able to observe the sun 24 hours a day. Even though SOHO's primary objectives relate to solar and heliospheric physics, the onboard LASCO instrument has become the most prolific comet discoverer in history! LASCO (Large Angle Spectrometric Coronagraph) is able to take images of the solar corona by blocking the light coming directly from the Sun with an occulter disk, creating an artificial eclipse within the instrument itself. LASCO images are automatically posted on the web approximately every 20 minute. Since LASCO began taking observations in January of 1996, the C2 and C3 coronagraphs have observed over 950 new comets and 9 known comets. The vast majority of these comets were discovered by amateur astronomers who closely examine the images for potential comets. Below is a typical image recently taken by SOHO.
4) Biomechanical Regulation of Cellular Signaling and Organization For tissues to form, individual cells must assemble into multi-celullar structures and communicate with one another. This project examines how cells use mechanical forcesto signal to one another and to form multi-cellular structures. Specifically, the role of collagen, a fibrous protein that surrounds the cells, will be explored. It is hypothesized that the cells pull on the collagen fibers (similar to how we would pull on ropes) to transmit forces over long distances. To test this hypothesis, microscopy images of cells and collagen fibers (see image) in conjunction with computer simulations are used to understand force transmission through these collagen fibers. Students do a vast amount of work in a short period of time to finish their projects. It is a crash course in time management. First, they learn UNIX, the operating system of the computers they used. Then they learn a programming language and the software needed to compute their projects. Students are required to do their own work from code implementation to final presentations. The ability to develop algorithms and an understanding of the project's science/engineering basis are needed. Finally, the students make a video animation displaying their simulation data -- which is the ultimate goal of each project. Groups present their findings and animations to family members, OSC staff, and guests attending the SI Closing Ceremonies . |
