Virtual Worlds - Ideas for Term Projects
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Gamification for Health and Fitness – add mini-games working with Chad Richards
<cer001@email.uark.edu>
Model an Archaeology Site – working with James Wesolowski <jwesolow@uark.edu>
Mirror World Application – the RFID Center has a Real Time Location System that can
provide xyz coordinates for tagged apparel. Make a parallel virtual store and when a real world
object is moved, move it in SL. Or when a SL object is moved, send a real robot/human
directions to move the object. Experiment w perimeter management and changing room
scenarios. Aim is a retail store command post.
Model Warehouse – model warehouse forklifts, conveyor belts, carousel, and the workflow
connecting them. Move objects through the warehouse. Can make it a Lego warehouse so you
can snap together sections of the conveyor belt. Can model after Marshalltown’s warehouse.
Workflow via Avatarbots or Robots – continuing projects from previous semesters adding: (a)
more workflows, (b) more/richer Prolog rule base, (c) multi-agent workflow specification, (d)
steps that fail (randomly) may require replanning, (e) exceptional workflows if steps fail, (e)
scheduling multiple operations, (f) workflow recognition (parsing) from traces
Tie Workflow to Supply Chain DBMS – record every workflow operation in remote DBMS;
develop queries to search for “interesting” situations
Ontology for Second Life – Consider how to attach/build ontologies for SL. (a) Wordnet, (b)
sku-base, (c) Protégé, (d) eBay. Or mine a database we collected to find statistical connections
between kitchens, refrigerators, etc so try to represent probabilistic place templates.
My Immortal Avatar – team builds an immortal avatar, preferably me - (a) model the avatar’s
face (at different ages), (b) voice (and translate to text representation), (c) track where the avatar
goes, (d) record what it sees and hears, (e) organize its info, (f) index info, (g) add chatbot
(keyword query elicits a story.
Kinect projects – work with Harry Scott in the RFID lab who has a Kinect object recognizer.
Review Akihiro’s project. Consider what happens if we recognize a sequence of primitive
animations and identify higher level actions. See workflow (f).
Google glasses – project tbd
Smart Devices – build realistic models of smart devices and export their APIs to a soft controller.
Soft Controller – (a) use iPhone or other smart phone to control real or virtual objects – read
object ID, get its interface from cloud, enables person to use interface; (b) consider ways to scale
up to control collections of objects (‘lights in the dining room: turn off’)
Smart Object Communication – (a) what can smart object talk about and how do they
communicate with each other, mix and match. (b) associate grammar with each. (c) build
realistic demos. Associate grammar with (some) things that translates to queries or commands.
Nursing Dummies – develop avatar mannequin with removable parts (incl artificial hearts) for
training nurses – talk to nursing college to understand requirements – see nursing dummies on
Google. Avatar may be conversational. Oh, you removed my spleen!
Stutterbot – Chatbot that stutters – work with Dr. Fran Hagstrom
Term Paper – (a) common sense workflow representation, parsing and generation. (b) compare
and contrast the architecture of several virtual worlds
Other – talk to instructor