TMCNet: Robotics award winner rings NYSE closing bell

[January 16, 2013]

Robotics award winner rings NYSE closing bell

Jan 16, 2013 (The Eagle - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- About a month after a local 17-year-old was awarded a $100,000 scholarship for his work in robot navigation, the College Station A&M Consolidated senior missed classes Tuesday so he could ring the New York Stock Exchange's closing bell.


Kensen Shi received the award from the Siemens Foundation -- which provides more than $7 million annually in educational support across the nation -- after submitting his robotics project into the Siemens Competition in math, science and technology.

In honor of his efforts and award, Shi was invited to New York City to ring the bell alongside the CFO of Siemens Corp. and the board chair and the president of the Siemens Foundation.

Shi focused his project on creating an algorithm that would increase a robot's ability to get around obstacles more efficiently.

The algorithm Shi developed is called the "Lazy Toggle Probabilistic Roadmap Method." It's the combination of two previously computed algorithms into a more efficient one that eliminates steps used in the other formulas, Shi told The Eagle after receiving the award in December.

During the interview, Shi attempted to break down the development process he used: "We randomized approaches with some heuristics that I developed and some techniques that prevent unnecessary computation. Parts of [the roadmap] need to be validated. I save unnecessary computation by delaying the checking of this roadmap. That really gives the name 'Lazy,' because we delay the checking." Nancy Amato, a professor in the department of computer science and engineering at Texas A&M, and Jory Denny, a Ph.D. student, assisted Shi, but the project was largely done individually.

Shi was joined in ringing the closing bell by three seniors from George W. Hewlett High School in Hewlett, N.J., who also received a $100,000 award. For their project, the team studied a key protein that acts as a tumor suppressor in humans and also is found in plants.

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