{"id":217285,"date":"2022-02-08T16:30:40","date_gmt":"2022-02-08T21:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/?p=217285"},"modified":"2022-02-14T14:32:37","modified_gmt":"2022-02-14T19:32:37","slug":"a-new-club-goes-high-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/2022\/02\/08\/a-new-club-goes-high-tech\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Club Goes High Tech"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Omar Obidat credits a summer research position in getting him hooked on robotics. A senior Computer Science major, he was assisting with research on how comfortable people are around a robotic arm. Now as president of a new student Robotics Club, he\u2019s hoping to share his passion in this futuristic field. <\/p>\n<p>The Robotics Club is an outgrowth of the University\u2019s Collaborative Robotics and Smart Systems Laboratory (CRoSS Lab), where Assistant Professor Weitian Wang, the lab\u2019s director, inspires STEM education and organizes education and outreach programs.<\/p>\n<p>Last summer, Obidat contributed to Wang\u2019s study on how comfortable people are when interacting with a robot. \u201cFor example, if the robot gives an object to someone at a particular speed, would they feel comfortable or would they feel uncomfortable because our robot is approaching them in their safe space? It was fun to see how the robot works and how people feel about it,\u201d Obidat says.<\/p>\n<p>Interest on campus for a student club has grown since Obidat and other founding members \u2013 including other members of the executive board, Laury Rodr\u00edguez, Jesse Parron, and Jean-Jacques N\u2019dri \u2013 presented a showcase set up as an interactive experience. There were multiple robots and smart systems to choose from including a collaborative robot platform SmaRC, an immersive virtual reality system, rover, smart armband and flat-screen TV rigged with four sensors turning it into a touch-screen display.<\/p>\n<p>In February, the club is conducting a series of workshops on robotics innovation, which received grant support from the National Science Foundation as well as the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund. A goal of these academic events is to attract more women and underrepresented minorities to the STEM field, Wang says. With students across all academic disciplines working in groups, it will be interesting to see what the future holds. <\/p>\n<p><em><br \/>\nThe Robotics Club is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. CNS-2104742 and Grant No. CNS-2117308.<\/em><\/p>\n<figure class=\"responsive-image-holder wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"mlt-responsive-image\" data-original-image=\"\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2022\/02\/120821_4022_CSAM-Robotics-Club-scaled.jpeg\" src=\"\/responsive-media\/cache\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2022\/02\/120821_4022_CSAM-Robotics-Club-scaled.jpeg.0.1x.generic.jpg\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jean-Jacques N\u2019dri and Laury Rodr\u00edguez connect the battery pack to an autonomous robotic car.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"responsive-image-holder wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"mlt-responsive-image\" data-original-image=\"\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2022\/02\/120821_4061_CSAM-Robotics-Club-scaled.jpeg\" src=\"\/responsive-media\/cache\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2022\/02\/120821_4061_CSAM-Robotics-Club-scaled.jpeg.0.1x.generic.jpg\" alt=\"Weitian Wang, Omar Obidat and Jesse Parron\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Advisor Weitian Wang assists Omar Obidat and Jesse Parron with their real-time kernel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Photos by University Photographer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/profilepages\/view_profile.php?username=petersm\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Mike Peters<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You May Also Like:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/csam\/2021\/11\/22\/meet-the-robotics-club\/\">Meet The Robotics Club<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/2021\/09\/30\/red-hawk-robot\/\">Red Hawk Robot: National Science Foundation grant helps build robot system connecting research throughout campus<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n\/\/ Output tags as a list for Google Analytics custom dimension\nwindow.MSU_TagList = [];\n<\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Robotics innovates the ways students can get involved on campus<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":273,"featured_media":217286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[123,8,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-homepage-news","category-science-and-technology","category-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/273"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217285"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":217341,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217285\/revisions\/217341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}