ACC 2017 Workshop

The Power, Beauty and Excitement of the Cross-Boundaries Nature of Control, a Field that Spans Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM)

Wednesday, May 24, 2017
9:00 am - 12:30 pm
Sheraton Seattle Hotel
Seattle, WA

In conjunction with the 2017 American Control Conference 
May 24-26, 2017

Sponsors: American Automatic Control Council (AACC) Technical Committee on Education and IEEE Control Systems Society (CSS) Technical Committee on Control Education.

Co-Organizers: Bozenna Pasik-Duncan (University of Kansas) and Linda Bushnell (University of Washington) and Sebastian Dormido, UNED, Madrid, Spain.

Purpose: This outreach event is designed to increase the general awareness of the importance of systems and control technology and its cross-disciplinary nature among high school students and teachers. Control is used in many common devices and systems: cell phones, computer hard drives, automobiles, and aircraft, but is usually hidden from view. The control field spans science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The success of all STEM disciplines depends on attracting the most gifted young people to science and engineering professions. Early exposure to middle and high school students and their teachers is a key factor. The goal of these outreach efforts is to promote an increased awareness of the importance and cross-disciplinary nature of control and systems technology.

The workshop activities include presentations by control systems experts from our technical community, informal discussions, and the opportunity for teachers and students to meet passionate researchers and educators from academia and industry. The talks are designed to be educational, inspirational and entertaining showing the excitement of controls.

Lunch will be provided. Participants will receive certificates of participation.

Program: 

  • 9:00 – 9: 05 Arrival & Welcome, Bozenna Pasik-Duncan, University of Kansas and Linda Bushnell, University of Washington
  • 9:05 - 9:25 Bio-inspired Control Engineering - What Animals Teach, John Baillieul, Boston University
  • 9:25– 9:45 Control of Complex Systems, Andrew Clark, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
  • 9:45– 10:05 Predicting epilepsy after traumatic brain injuries and exploring MRI data in virtual reality, Dominique Duncan, University of Southern California
  • 10:05– 10:25 Synthetic biology: how to program a bacterium, Richard Murray, California Institute of Technology
  • 10:25- 10:45 Swimming and Flying in Engineering and Biology, Kristi Morgansen, University of Washington
  • 10:45 - 11:05 Universal Laws and Architectures in Brains and Nets, John Doyle, California Institute of Technology
  • 11:05– 11:25 How to build a self-driving car, Richard Murray, California Institute of Technology
  • 11:25– 11:45 Imagining the Robots of Science Fiction, Aaron D. Ames,
  • 11:45 – 12:15 Lunch
  • 12:15 – 12:30 Discussion, Evaluation and Closing Remarks