Research and Presentation Topics

Here is a list of suggested topics.  I’d also be happy to talk to you about any others in which you’re interested.  Please have a look at them and identify the ones on which you’re like to present.  Make yourself a ranked list so you can choose your highest ranked one when your turn comes.

1. The history of robotics
2. Intelligence and learning in simple organisms (e.g., snails)
3. Machine learning.  What is it, and what’s the state of the art?
4. The Turing test for intelligence (can you tell whether you’re communicating with a person or a machine?)
5. ELIZA and other programs that appear intelligent (look for chatterbots)
6. Chess- and Go-playing computers as artificial intelligence
7. Robots as toys and companions for children
8. Robots as companions and helpers for the elderly
9. Industrial robotics
10. Robots in space
11. Robots in the military
12. Medical robotics
13. Robots in popular culture
14. Human intelligence: how it is measured, what it means
15. Ethical and cultural implications of artificial intelligence
16. Artificial and natural senses
17. Autonomous cars (and the DARPA Grand Challenge)
18. Speech recognition(history, technologies, and state of the art)
19. The effects of robots on the workforce
20. Haptics (force feedback)
21. Humanoid robotics and the Uncanny Valley (also in video and virtual reality).  Have you watched movies like Polar Express where the “human” characters were creepy?
22. Augmented reality
23. End effectors (robotic hands)
24. Computer vision.  How do you make a 3D model of the environment and recognize things using only cameras?

Computer topics that are not related to robotics are also welcome.  For example, you could look into the phenomenon of open source software, or into computer animation.