TECHNICIAN
wednesday august
28 2013
Raleigh, North Carolina
technicianonline.com
THE
OF A
SEE PAGE 3 insidetechnician FEATURES Museum continues to archive city’s past
Students learn to live in the digital world Travis Toth Correspondent
COR Museum has changed operations following new ownership. See page 4.
FEATURES Quad Bikes provides new bike sharing option New bike sharing program allows students to rent bikes at the Quad. See page 5.
Technology is a fixture of everyday life, and digital and media literacy have gained importance in recent years, especially at research universities like N.C. State. Hiller Spires and her colleagues at the Friday Institute have been working with teachers around the world to increase the emphasis on technology in the classroom. The goal is to help both the teachers and the students they teach. The institute is currently targeting two main areas of digital literacy. First, because the Internet offers an endless stream of information– some of it sound, and
some of it dubious, at best both teachers and students must be able to determine a given source’s credibility Spires said. Second, teachers must help students develop “a critical perspective for online research,” which Spires called the biggest challenge teachers face in the classroom today. To build these skills in future generations of students, Spires said the institute prioritizes teaching education majors what it means to be literate in today’s technological society. She and her colleagues also teach them how to provide a more globally oriented learning environment. The Friday Institute’s New Literacies Collaborative has worked with other institutes nationally and worldwide— including ones in Massachu-
BRETT MORRIS/TECHNICIAN
setts and Beijing, China—to increase digital literacy and technological efficiency in classrooms on a larger scale. In Beijing, at the Beijing Royal School, the goal of
the partnership has been to develop a more innovative teaching strategy, Spires said. The program at the Beijing Royal School is conducted primarily in English and of-
fers an eye-opening, technologically focused exchange opportunity for College of Education graduate students.
DIGITAL continued page 2
SPORTS
Remote-controlled roach research expands to moths
New assistants to play integral role this season
Sasha Afanasieva
Dave Doeren’s squad is poised for success in upcoming season. See page 10.
SPORTS Sports spotlight: Fencing club Fencing club gears up for another year. See page 9.
Correspondent
Bionic insects were once the stuff of science fiction movies–but no more. Alper Bozkurt, an assistant professor in computer and electrical engineering at N.C. State, has developed a way to remotely control insects similarly to an RC car. Currently, his main research subject is the Madagascar hissing cockroach, which can be kept as a pet and can reach a length of up to 3 inches. When equipped with electronics, it becomes a biobot. “We implant electrodes in the muscles and the sensory organs of the insects,” Bozkurt said. “We then send very tiny electrical pulses, depending on where the implant is, if it
is in the muscle, it creates an actuation of the insect.” Bozkurt went on to explain how the project researchers could tell the cockroaches where to go. “If the implant is in the sensor organ, it sort of simulates environmental signals and makes the insect think it’s sensing something,” Bozkurt said. “A cockroach navigates by using the antenna to understand the physical environment–like a blind person using fingers to understand the surroundings to get a feel of the 3D environment around them. The implant simulates that.” The biobots research project also recently expanded to include hawk moths in a partnership with Tyson L. Hedrick of the UNC Chapel Hill biology department. Bozkurt said the biobots research with hawk moths was
coming along relatively well. “We were able to initiate the flight and stop flight,” Bozkurt said. “We were also able to make it go right or left. We basically override the natural movement of the insect. Our ultimate aim is to have them controlled like an RC plane.” In addition to working with biobots, Bozkurt also served as a consultant for the 2009 “spy-fi” movie G-Force and contributed to the creation of the Agent Mooch character, a housefly with surveillance equipment. “They invited me to Hollywood while they were shooting the movie,” Bozkurt said. “I saw them while they were recording the pictures, and I have a couple of pictures from the movie set.” The biobot cockroaches may ultimately be used for search and rescue missions. One of the researchers’ goals
is to leave the insects with some degree of autonomy so they can navigate through more difficult environments. “We want to benefit from their natural instincts to find their way under such unknown and dynamic conditions,” Bozkurt said. “Like, if it gets trapped in a hole, the insect can find its way out. If it’s under your control all the time, then you need to know the environment well.” The insects have tiny electronic backpacks that send and receive signals as well as control it. Currently, the researchers use radios with tiny microphones attached. One of the research group’s ultimate goals is to incorporate so-called “swarm dynamics.” “There is this concept of sensor networks where they can form a chain of information from one insect to an-
other,” Bozkurt said. “You can build that link with a group of insects, sending it from one to another rather than the direct transmission to the first responder. This actually helps us miniaturize our backpacks, since otherwise we would need really strong radios to transmit under the rubble all the way to the responder outside. Last year, Bozkurt and his team received a million-dollar grant from the National Science Foundation for the project. The two other people at N.C. State working on this are Edgar Lobaton and Mihail Sichitiu. Lobaton is working on search-and-rescue algorithms and Mihail works on establishing sensor networks using tiny radios. There are plans to expand the use of the biobots beyond search and rescue.