Eric Baumer
Position: Programmer
Beginning 2nd yr. Graduate student
Email: ebaumer [at] uci.edu
What do you do on the project? I put together the sound system and coded a couple of things. I've been working a little bit on stuff with the plants, like when you move plants to another island, rather than having the seeds jump in a straight line, they jump in arcs, and stuff on the hummingbirds' behavior. So basically a little bit of everything.
How long have you been with the group? I started working with Bill [Tomlinson] last fall, but I started working on the EcoRaft project in early April.
Why are you working on the project? Partly because it's a summer job, partly because there are some really interesting coding problems, and partly because it's related to some of my research interests, like synthetic social interaction, and I want to try to find some interesting way for the hummingbirds to interact with one another, [in relation to] their social behavior.
What do you think is the overall goal of the project? I don't think there is a single unified goal--one of the goals is to explore the limits of technology, one of the goals is to create an engaging [environment], and one of the goals is definitely education, trying to educate people about how restoration ecology works, why it's difficult, why it's beneficial, and why it's worth doing. I think that's the most important goal, with the educational aspects.
What was your favorite part of [or working on] the project? Probably working on the hummingbird behavior.
What are your career goals/interests? If and when I finish my Ph.D, I'd like to become a professor, probably of informatics, not computer science, because I like incorporating the human factor into my work, and do research and teach--that may change in the next five years as I finish my Ph.D, but that's pretty much where I see myself going.
What are the other projects you've worked on? I worked a little bit on the VirtualRaft project, but when I came here, they had pretty much finished most of it. I worked a little bit on the social behavior in it. I also worked on an emotion-like state generator for a robotic office assistant before.
Have you gotten any awards and/or publications? I've had two workshop publications, one at CHI and AAAI, mostly about behavior and social interactions.
Any other questions and/or statements would you like on your site? Anyone who likes playing Ultimate Frisbee, talk to me, because we need more people on the team. Shameless self-promotion.
Last updated: October 18, 2005