Issue date: 11/30/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Rebeca Martinez One of the robots programmed by students in the Electrical Systems Engineering Devices class that performed at their first annual dance recital. [Click to enlarge]

One did a Napoleon Dynamite-inspired dance to Jamiroquai's "Canned Heat."

Another busted out the same moves as Justin Timberlake in "Sexyback."

No, not at a Saturday-night fraternity party - at an Engineering class.

Freshmen in the Electrical Systems Engineering introductory lab course ESE 112 showcased their talent yesterday through biologically inspired hexapedal robots in the First Annual ESE 112 Dance Recital.

Ten groups of three or four students each used their newly acquired programming knowledge to choreograph fully-autonomous robot dances.

Each dance was set to contemporary music and consisted of up to 2,000 leg movements, lasting 90 to 120 seconds.

Engineering freshman Ivan Levcovitz's robot danced to "Canned Heat" while wearing a "Vote for Pedro" T-shirt. His group tried to make the robot replicate the actual moves from the movie.

"I've always liked robots, so a project like this was a lot of fun for me," Levcovitz said.

Another group tried to get their robot to imitate Justin Timberlake's performance in the "Sexyback" music video.

"These robots are the world's most sophisticated autonomous robots to date using the most cutting edge technology available," said Joel Weingarten, the course's instructor.

"The six-legged robots are modeled from cockroaches because of the speed and agility that we observed in the cockroach," he said.

This recital "showcases the dedication of the instructors and the imagination of the students," ESE department chairman Daniel Koditschek said.

The recital's winners were Engineering freshmen Seth Levine, Matthew Byrne and Eric Lamb, who choreographed the robot dance to Spoon's "I Turn My Camera On."

"You have to be so creative because if we were in any other Engineering class, we probably wouldn't do something like this," Lamb said.

The three students won a trip to New York and the opportunity to showcase their robot in a dancing competition in December.

"As an introductory course, it shows freshmen that there are many exciting things to accomplish in ESE," Koditschek said. "This is just the tip of the iceberg."

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