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Some 120 presenters with a total of 64 projects crowded three floors in Cornell’s Upson Hall on March 3 to take part in the eighth annual expo hosted this year by Computing and Information Science at Cornell University. “We have this expo every year for two reasons,” said Emin Gun Sirer, assistant professor of computer science and faculty coordinator for BOOM. “We want to reach out to undecided majors and to people who are not in college yet to show them the opportunities computer science holds. We also do it as a teach-in, to show colleagues what the cutting-edge research is.” Irene Chung’s project is an example. Chung ’04, college scholar, displayed her web concept-managing tool, a program that allows the user to generate many different web-site styles for the same information. Chung already has sold her program to Production IG, a prominent animation firm in Japan. “I have a lot of work to still do with this program,” Chung said. “But I think what is going on right now with the project is awesome, and I’m glad a company likes it.” Not all projects came from the computer science school of thought. Lindsay Lyman-Clarke, a graduate student in textiles and apparel, displayed her project, which uses body scan data to design clothing sizing systems. She uses lasers to acquire body scan data, in conjunction with computer patterning programs, to design clothing. “It is wonderful to see what students are doing,” said Kathy Okun, wife of President Jeffrey Lehman. “There are lots of interesting things going on in computer science, and it’s so great that students have the opportunity to do these things.” BOOM was sponsored by Bloomberg and Credit Suisse First Boston, which now has sponsored BOOM for three years in a row. —Rachel Einschlag ’04, Cornell News Service |
