UAA AI & Robotics Club

RJ’s early love for video games grew into a passion for technology. RJ was introduced to computer science, opening the door to fields like AI and machine learning. His discovery to how these tools could not only power games but solve real-world challenges in healthcare, elder care, and beyond.

Current Project

RJ leads meetings and organizes projects. In Spring 2024, the club hosted a DeepRacer competition and created Seawolf Run, a computer vision game that responds to hand gestures.

As Spencer learned more about deep reinforcement, it made him reflect on how both humans and machines learn from experience. That curiosity drove him to explore its concepts further, especially its use in robotics training through simulation.

Current Project

Spencer leads students to explore deep reinforcement learning through the AWS DeepRacer platform: virtual models control small AI-powered cars. Afterwards, students test models on real tracks using the car’s front camera for navigation.

Lars is interested in AI for its potential to create positive change in Alaska’s communities. He sees it as a way to turn passion into action through real-world solutions, finding inspiration in its impact on healthcare, transportation, and environmental science.

Current Project

Lars is currently developing AI based models to predict car crash fatalities using Python-based machine learning models such as XGBoost, LightGBM, and CatBoost. Ultimately, he is trying to find the differences in the physically impaired and mentally impaired individuals to provide actionable recommendations. Using the data he collects, he will develop a GIS risk map to assist our Alaskan community.

Destiny is drawn to AI because it’s a rapidly expanding field she hopes to contribute to in any way possible. She is fascinated by the wide range of subfields within AI that she hadn’t fully realized before. Destiny has been particularly interested in computer vision, its diverse fields have inspired her to explore further.

Current Project

Destiny is currently working on the Petoi Nybble Q: A robotic cat with embedded systems and AI properties. Nybble has many different types of functions like joint movements, sound, touch sensing on its back, and the ability to listen to voice commands. She is preparing Nybble for outreach events, specifically for children to learn coding through block code (in mind+).

Iain is interested in AI because it enables autonomous agents to mimic human and other complex behaviors. He is fascinated by how AI can be used to create believable agents in simulated environments or develop robots capable of performing complex and dangerous tasks in the real world.

Current Project

Iain is building the AIR Lab website. His game designing background facilitates working in WordPress, which is what he is using to design the AIR Lab website. To ensure in the website’s success, he has used “WordPress Local” to practice and test his website designs.

“Star Trek” first sparked Elisa’s fascination with AI as a child. She sees AI not as a shortcut, but as a personalized tool that empowers. Elisa hopes to harness AI to support her passion for environmental conservation and the protection of our planet.

Current Project

Elisa is working on building the AIR Lab website. She’s been gathering information to showcase the team’s work, projects, and personal data for the website launch. Although Elisa didn’t have web design or coding experience when she first started, she was able to quickly catch on to “WordPress” – an easy tool used to build websites.

Ben’s interest in AI comes from a fascination of what it can do and how easy it is to start. Along his journey with AI, Ben has come to learn how difficult it can be to train a model and really master techniques for teaching a machine. 

Current Project

Ben is currently working on the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) Diabetes/Depression project where he takes data from the CDC’s survey to find which factors contribute to diabetes, depression, or both. In the past, Ben has worked with the NAO robot to instruct younger students on programming knowledge.

Zong’s interest in AI was sparked by his love for science fiction films. While the genre is often viewed as purely imaginative, he’s inspired by the idea that many of its futuristic concepts can become reality through AI. His goal is to harness AI to enhance his daily life and free up more time for meaningful pursuits.

Current Project

Zong is currently training a model to estimate face temperature, respiration and heartbeat simply from thermal images. Zong is using python language to code the model. For now, he plans to use his model for the lab education, but eventually he wants to publicly launch the research for health science purposes in AI.

Amine is fascinated by artificial intelligence because he sees it as a defining force in the future of technology and innovation. He believes AI will become an everyday tool that enhances productivity, creativity, and decision-making in transformative ways.

Current Project

Amine is focused on outreach initiatives and expanding the club’s presence within the UAA community. His goal is to meet new members and create opportunities for students with no experience to explore and engage with AI in fun ways.

Aaron is interested in AI because he believes that the clumsy nature of its creation is an art that reflects us as human beings.

Current Project

Aaron is currently designing experiments to find relationship between eye gaze patterns of individuals and their cognitive loads while reading texts with different difficulty levels. The eventual goal is to measure reading comprehension difficulties of individuals with hearing loss.

 AI interests Barry because it’s the most powerful tool we’ve yet created and he has a deep interest in wanting to understand it better.

Current Project

Barry is working on presentation material for the OLE Lecture Series. This series contains four lectures intended for locals over 50 who want to learn more on AI. Based on the lecture, a different topic is covered. For our most recent lecture given, Barry researched AI in healthcare. For example our attendees were informed on “ADA”, an app where you can note symptoms and will be given a diagnosis.

Brenden is interested in AI because he recognizes it as a powerful tool to perceive information and trends that would be incredibly time consuming for a human being to do.

Current Project

Brenden is currently working on a data analysis project which reviews anonymized student data and will use it to create predictive models for graduation rates, find significant features in the data that result in changes in outcome, create models of our student population, and the trends that occur in it.