About Me

Hi, I'm a Ph.D. student in Computer Science at the Cornell Creative Machines Lab, where I research artificial intelligence, robotics, and machine learning. Recent projects:

Endless Forms shapes

EndlessForms.com

Watch the two minute intro video. Users on EndlessForms.com collaborate to produce interesting crowdsourced designs. Since launch, over 3,000,000 shapes have been seen and evaluated by human eyes. This volume of user input has produced some really cool shapes. EndlessForms has received some favorable press. Evolve your own shape »

Aracna

Aracna

(read the paper) Many labs work on gait learning research, but since they each use different robotic platforms to test out their ideas, it is hard to compare results between these teams. To encourage greater collaboration between scientists, we have developed Aracna, an open-source, 3D printed platform that anyone can use for robotic experiments.

Cornell Chatbots

AI vs. AI

As part of a class project, Igor Labutov and I cobbled together a speech-to-text + chatbot + text-to-speech system that could converse with a user. We then hooked up two such systems, gave them names (Alan and Sruthi), and let them talk together, producing endless robotic comedy. Somehow the video became popular. There was an XKCD about it, and Sruthi even told Robert Siegel to “be afraid” on NPR. Dress appropriately for the coming robot uprising with one of our fashionable t-shirts.

QuadraTot

Gait Learning on QuadraTot

(read the paper) Getting robots to walk is tricky. We compared many algorithms for automating the creation of quadruped gaits, with all the learning done in hardware (read: very time consuming). The best gaits we found were nearly 9 times faster than a hand-designed gait and exhibited complex motion patterns that contained multiple frequencies, yet showed coordinated leg movement. More recent work (publication in preparation) blends learning in simulation and reality to create even faster gaits.

For more information, see the project website (with video), project Trac, and code on GitHub.

Nevermind all this, just show me the videos!
Or, if you prefer, here's my slightly outdated CV.

Recent Papers more »

  1. Nick Cheney, Jeff Clune, Jason Yosinski, and Hod Lipson. “ Hands-free Evolution of 3D-printable Objects via Eye Tracking” arXiv:1304.4889. 19 April 2013.
    pdf | abstract▾ | bib▾
  2. Nick Cheney, Jeff Clune, Jason Yosinski, and Hod Lipson. “ Hands-free Evolution of 3D-printable Objects via Eye Tracking” arXiv:1304.4889. 19 April 2013.
    pdf | abstract▾ | bib▾
  3. Nick Cheney, Jeff Clune, Jason Yosinski, and Hod Lipson. “ Hands-free Evolution of 3D-printable Objects via Eye Tracking” arXiv:1304.4889. 19 April 2013.
    pdf | abstract▾ | bib▾
  4. Sara Lohmann, Jason Yosinski, Eric Gold, Jeff Clune, Jeremy Blum and Hod Lipson. “Aracna: An Open-Source Quadruped Platform for Evolutionary Robotics” Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems (to appear). 19 July 2012.
    pdf | abstract▾ | bib▾
more »

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