The Louisiana Construction Education Trust Fund recently presented a gift in support of the Construction Management
Mechanical Engineering student team finalist in OpenCV AI competition among 12 universities across the Nation
Thu, 04/29/2021 - 9:17pm
Congratulations to the “Ragin’ Cajuns Team.” Mechanical Engineering students who were selected as finalist in Phase I of the Open Source Computer Vision (OpenCV) Artificial Intelligence (AI) Competition Region One: North America. Directed by Associate Professor, Dr. Joshua Vaughan with assistance from Instructor, Yasmeen Qudsi, faculty in Mechanical Engineering, the members of the Ragin’ Cajuns included their leader Brennan Moeller along with Nathan Madsen, Joseph Stevens, and Benjamin Willis.
“I am so proud of our “Ragin’ Cajuns” team. Our students are well-prepared and this is one more example of the unique opportunities that our college offers to our students to utilize their innovative, critical thinking skills to solve real-world problems,” states Dean Ahmed Khattab.
The OpenCV AI competition is the world’s largest artificial intelligence competition. As finalists, the Ragin’ Cajuns Team is now working on Phase 2 of the competition where the team will build solutions to solve their challenge areas. Part of the OpenCV mission is to spread AI knowledge and usage globally.
The Ragin’ Cajuns’ proposal was based on previous autonomous maritime systems work on the UL Lafayette 2016 Maritime RobotX, pictured below. They will leverage Oak-D devices to enhance object detection and identification, using it for obstacle avoidance, path planning, and mission awareness.
Photo Credit: Dr. Joshua Vaughan, lead research facilitator in the C.R.A.W.LAB (Controls, Robotics, and Automation, With respect for human interaction)