NSF-Funded Robotic System Excites Capitol Hill Attendees at the 2015 CNSF Exhibition

By Brian Mosley

On April 29th, the Coalition for National Science Funding (CNSF), an alliance of more than 140 professional organizations, universities, and businesses, held their 21st Annual Capitol Hill Exhibition. CNSF supports the goal of increasing the Federal investment in the National Science Foundation’s research and education programs, and the exhibition itself is a great way to show members of Congress and their staff what research the American people have funded.

This year the Computing Research Association, a member of CNSF, sponsored three students--two Ph.D. candidates and a defended Ph.D. candidate--from Johns Hopkins University to come to Washington to demonstrate their work. Kelleher Guerin (the defended Ph.D. candidate) and Amanda Edwards demonstrated their collaborative robot for manufacturing, called CoSTAR; while Colin Lea demonstrated a virtual reality interface that can be used to more easily program robots by novice, non-technical users. All three young researchers are advised by Greg Hager, professor and chair of the Department of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University and Chair of the Computing Community Consortium; Hager was also in attendance at the event and fielded questions.