Machines Like Us – Science News

Two Northern Michigan University students landed a rare invitation to a prestigious faculty-dominated conference overseas. NMU students Brian Krent and Correy Kowall -- as sole authors submitted a paper on evolutionary robotics to the 2007 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO) in London, England, and had it accepted.

“It is rare for undergraduate students to make it into GECCO as co-authors with others, and almost unheard of for a GECCO paper to be solely authored by undergraduates,” said Jeff Horn, an NMU mathematics and computer science professor and advisor to the students.

What idea did their paper present? The short version: A supercomputer that simulates the process of evolution using thinking robots.

Read the author's paper here (PDF).

Read full story in The Mining Journal.