Westminster Computer Science Majors Present Capstones
Posted on Monday, May 7, 2007
Westminster computer science majors Jeremy Alberth, Colin Dean, and Ryan Moore recently participated in the 16th annual Penn State Behrend-Sigma Xi Undergraduate Research and Creative Accomplishment Conference.
The conference provides an opportunity for students to present their research and creative accomplishment results, either by poster presentation or in speech format, in a public setting.
Alberth won first place in the category of Computer Science Oral Presentations, and Moore won second place in the same category. Dr. John Bonomo and Dr. C. David Shaffer, Westminster College associate professors of computer science, accompanied the students.
Cranberry Township, PA
Jeremy Alberth is a son of David and VellaRuth Alberth. Alberth, a senior computer science major, is a graduate of Seneca Valley Hign School. His presentation is titled "Creation and Analysis of Artificial Intelligence Solvers for the Game Quoridor."
"The board game Quoridor is an abstract strategy game whose layout begins with two pawns on opposite sides of a 9x9 board with an objective of reaching the opposite side. A player may move his pawn to make progress on a path that leads to his goal side of the board or place a wall to impede the progress of his opponent's pawn. The first player to reach his goal side of the board wins the game. We will describe the creation of several artificially intelligent players for the game as well as an analysis of the performance of these players against each other. The computer players involved make use of the minimax strategy with alpha-beta pruning and aa depth cutoff, employing varying heuristics to determine the value of a board to the player. Since the Quoridor game tree has a large branching factor, we explored techniques to restrict the moves considered and thus increase the depth searched by computer players."
Darlington, PA
Ryan Moore is a son of Robert and Linda Moore. Moore, a senior computer science major, is a graduate of Blackhawk High School. His presentation is titled "SEED: A Scriptable Extensible Emulator and Debugger for RISC-like Architectures."
"Software based microprocessor simulators are becoming increasingly accurate (in terms of timing) and faster. Retargetable simulators provide a base set of tools upon which simulators for other architectures can be built. These retargetable simulators are interesting because they allow for developed tools, testing software, and performance measurements for one architecture to be relatively easily integrated into the simulation of another architecture. This reduces the impact of switching architectures on the developer. However, retargetable simulators have varying levels of flexibility on their scripting capabilities and support (if it exists at all) for the simulation of hardware external to the main processor being simulated. In this presentation I will describe SEED, a retargetable simulator for RISC architectures, which is designed to be flexible with its scripting language, and which provides an API for the simulation of arbitrary hardware that interfaces with the main processor. Furthermore, a temperature monitoring and alarm project will also be discussed, which is simulated using SEED."
Volant, PA
Colin Dean is a son of Charles and Jane Dean. Dean, a senior computer science major, is a graduate of Wilmington Area High School. His presentation is titled "Vojisto: A Linux-based router for flash party networks."
"Vojisto is a Linux-based router operating system. It loads entirely into a computer's RAM from a removable storage medium. It then provides network services to connected hosts to facilitate communication between the hosts. Services it provides include, but are not limited to DHCP, DNS, and NAT/Masquerading."
The capstone is the final component in a Liberal Studies education at Westminster College and is designed to provide an opportunity for students to evaluate and assess the strengths and limitations of their major field. In addition, the capstone permits structured reflection on the value of education in and beyond the major and provides a chance to strengthen communication and problem-solving skills.
Contact Bonomo at (724) 946-7287 or e-mail bonomojp@westminster.edu, or contact Shaffer at (724) 946-7292 or e-mail shaffecd@westminster.edu for more information.
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