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CITY COLLEGE & SHEFFIELD UNIVERSITY - 3RD ROBOTICS CHALLENGE, COMPUTER SCIENCE - FEBRUARY 4 2015
The 3rd Robotics Challenge for all 3rd level computer science students entitled “Design and Build a Robotic Ant Colony” was held with great success 22 and 23 January 2015 at our main campus in Thessaloniki.
The two-day event was part of the "Agents and Robotics" unit, led by Dr Kostantinos Dimopoulos. In the frame of the challenge, students had to build robots and programme them to face a series of challenges each a bit more difficult from the previous one. This year the challenges where leading to the development of
robotic
ants. Simple robots would search their environments looking for two things: food and their nest. Once a new nest was discovered by an ant, the ant would communicate the information to the other ants. In a similar manner, when an ant located food that it could not pick up, it would also communicate this to the other ants. The aim was for the ants to forage their food.
The students worked in groups and developed a robot to face the given challenges. They had to research similar robots and suggest solutions, build the robots, using the
Lego
Mindstorms platform, and programme the robots, thus using all the skills and knowledge they acquired from their studies and specifically at the unit.
The students were very excited with this year’s challenge. In fact, they asked for the challenge to be extended and although the event was schedule to last from 10am to 5pm for two-consecutive days, students insisted to continue until the Faculty’s premises were closed.
Finally, the challenge was successfully completed by most groups.
DR KOSTANTINUS DIMOPOULOS
Lecturer, Undergraduate Projects Coordinator
Academic Position: Lecturer
Position: Undergraduate Projects Coordinator
Academic Qualifications
BSc Cybernetics and Control Engineering, The University of Reading,
PhD Cybernetics, The University of Reading
Office L. Sofou Building, 6th floor
Office Hours:
Monday - Friday 12:00 - 16:00, excluding lecture hours
Telephone 2310 536544, 528450 (ext. 113)
Email k.dimopoulos@city.academic.gr
Skype k.dimopoulos
KONSTANTINOS
DIMOPOULOS - is a Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science. He is a member of the Intelligence, Modelling & Computation research group and of the Information Security research group. He has worked as a research assistant at the University of Reading where he was also a part time lecturer. He has worked with the application of Neural Networks as nonlinear identifiers for the purpose of control and linearisation of nonlinear systems. He has also worked with the investigation of nonlinear control strategies and their application on robotic manipulators. He is currently working on mobile robots, algorithms of networked systems, and neural networks.
Teaching:
* "Introduction to web technologies"
* "Operating Systems",
* "Human Computer Interactions",
* "Software Development",
* "Intelligent Systems",
* "Agents and Robotics",
* "Knowledge technologies for Innovation",
* "Games and Media Technologies"
Research Interests:
“Robotics”, “Neural Networks”, “Biologically inspired computation”, "Science communication".
1st THESSALONIKI SCIENCE FESTIVAL, MAY 20 2015
- INTERNATIONAL FACULTY
The University of Sheffield International Faculty, CITY College celebrated science by participating in the 1st Thessaloniki Science Festival, with a series of workshops and presentations, 14-17 May 2015.
Prof. Panayiotis Ketikidis, Vice Principal of our Faculty delivered an interesting speech on ‘The Greek Startup scene: a bubble or a window to the future’ and discussed the growing number of Greek startups and their potential to become profitable and successful.
Representing the Psychology Department, Dr Frosso Kalyva, Honorary Senior Lecturer and Dr Aristea Ladas, Lecturer and Research Associate together with Dr Elisavet Chrysohoou, Lecturer, run a series of interactive workshops entitled ‘We Say "No" to Violence' and ‘Brain science for kids: Come play…with our brains!’ respectively. The workshops engaged many children that enjoyed their participation while parents commented that they were very useful and educative.
Dr Kostas Dimopoulos, Lecturer at our Computer Science Department, along with a team of student-volunteers presented two robotics-related demonstrations: ‘Virtual worlds in education: Three 3-dimension games on education' and ‘Ants and Robots: Learning from nature how to build robots that cooperate’. Both demonstrations attracted many visitors of the event who joined Dr Dimopoulos with his teams and watched and played with the robots.
Mr Liassides talked about ‘Online, Offline Product Placement’A very informative presentation was also delivered by Mr. Chris Liassides, Director of Postgraduate Studies at our Business Administration and Economics Department. Mr Liassides talked about ‘Online, Offline Product Placement’ presenting the new trends of online and offline marketing.
The Thessaloniki Science Festival presented one more opportunity for CITY College to distribute knowledge and connect to the wider community.
30 MARCH 2015 MATHS FESTIVAL - On the last day of the event, Mr. Konstantinos Dimopoulos, Lecturer at our Computer Science Department held a robotics demonstration entitled “Design and Build a Robotic Ant Colony” with a group of students. Simple robots would search their environments looking for two things: food and their nest. Once a new nest was discovered by an ant, the ant would communicate the information to the other ants. In a similar manner, when an ant located food that it could not pick up, it would also communicate this to the other ants. The aim was for the ants to forage their food. The demonstration attracted a lot of visitors who had a lot of fun watching the ant-robots!
The International Faculty acted at sponsor at the 7th International Week Dedicated to Maths 2015.
COLLEGE CONTACTS
Admissions Office: 3, Leontos Sofou Street, 546 26 Thessaloniki, Greece.
Telephone: (+30)2310 224026
Administration Offices: 24, Proxenou Koromila Street, 546 22 Thessaloniki, Greece.
Telephone: (+30) 2310 224186, 275575
Fax: (+30)2310 287564
Email: acadreg@city.academic.gr
LEGO
MINDSTORM - Based on components from the well know range from Lego, this
project shows what is possible when you put your mind to something.
LINKS
mailto:k.dimopoulos@city.academic.gr
mailto:acadreg@city.academic.gr
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwM9P-pdf7k
http://citycollege.sheffield.eu/frontend/article.php?aid=1790&cid=180&t=3rd-Robotics-Challenge-by-our-Computer-Science-Department
http://citycollege.sheffield.eu/frontend/article.php?aid=1855&cid=12&t=The-International-Faculty-at-the-7th-International-Week-Dedicated-to-Maths-2015
http://www.trl.co.uk/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Research_Laboratory
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