Contributors

 

Randell    Grayson Randall

(IEEE Senior Member since 2001) is the Founder and Overall Team Leader for the ENCS Humanoid Robotics Project. Grayson holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from Parks College of St. Louis University (1976). He has received numerous awards and commendations over his career, including the 2009 IEEE Eastern North Carolina Section – Outstanding Engineering Award, the 2009 IEEE Region 3 Outstanding Engineer Award, the 2007 IEEE-USE Citation of Honor Winner for mentoring students in Science and Technology, and a 2007 appointment to the IEEE Computer Society Distinguished Visitor Program. Past educational and outreach projects include mentoring FIRST Team 435 from 2000 until 2004; mentoring the FIRST National Championship Team in 2004; serving as Team Leader for DARPA Grand Challenge Team Insight Racing and DARPA Urban Challenge Team Insight Racing; and serving as the IEEE ENCS Robotics and Automation chapter chair from 2003 until 2013. With the ENCS Humanoid Robotics Project, Grayson is looking to pull together skills from many different areas to create a robot that is state of the art.  He hopes to use this humanoid robot to educate the public on engineering technologies and to encourage students to enter fields of engineering.

Lixiao Huang

(IEEE Student Member, 2015) is a project coordinator and a member of the Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) research team for the ENCS Humanoid Robotics Project. She entered the doctoral program in Human Factors and Applied Cognition in Psychology Department at NC State University in 2011. Her research interests include human emotional, behavioral, and cognitive responses to robots, including LEGO™ MINDSTORM® robots, FIRST robotics tournaments robots, the humanoid robot KEN, and collaborative industrial robot Baxter. She has presented her HRI research at national and international conferences and workshops, including HFES (2013, 2014), HRI 2015, RSS 2015, and Humanoids 2015. She hopes to use her doctoral training in Human Factors to improve HRI research, robotics education, and robot design for the humanoid robot project.

Daniel  Daniel McDonald

(IEEE Senior Member since 2013) is the Artificial Intelligence Team Lead for the ENCS Humanoid Robotics Project. Daniel holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Applied Mathematics from Asbury University and the Master of Arts degree in Mathematics from the University of Kentucky. He is interested in collaborating with other engineers on a challenging robotics project where he can pursue solutions to the problem of how to build a thinking machine.

Daniel’s contributions to the KEN v1 humanoid include the software architecture, the design of the boot node, implementation and enhancement of many of the other software nodes, and the face learning and recognition algorithm.  Daniel currently leads the development of the KEN v2 robot.

  Rodney Radford

(IEEE Senior Member since 2012) is a contributing member of the ENCS Humanoid Robotics Project, specializing in the embedded control and communications on the robot. Rodney holds a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from NCSU and a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from NCSU.  Past and present IEEE outreaches include chapter chair of the ENCS Robotics and Automation chapter at the time the humanoid robot was started (2014-2015), ENCS Student Activities chair (2014-present), and IEEE North Carolina council secretary (2016-present).  Rodney is also responsible for the student hardware competition at the 2017 SoutheastCon in Charlotte. Rodney’s primary interests involve the building and control of complex embedded systems.

Rodney’s contributions include the design of the KEN v1 servo control system, porting the KEN v1 system to more powerful computer hardware, a rebuild of the KEN v1 neck mechanism, and the design of the KEN v2 servo control subsystem in addition to numerous ideas and suggestions incorporated throughout the robot.

2016-Piedrahita-Daniel-Carnegie Mellon University-MS candidate-Mechanical EngineeringDaniel Piedrahita

Daniel Piedrahita did mechatronics design and prototyping work to develop the hardware platform for the V1 KEN humanoid robot currently in use, including the design and implementation of KEN’s eyes, articulated neck, head, torso, and base box.  He entered the mechanical engineering masters program at Carnegie Mellon University in Fall of 2016, where he focused his studies and research on robotics. Daniel’s research interests include biorobotics, robomechanics, embedded systems, smart product design, and developing new strategies for the design and control of mobile robots.
Daniel’s contributions to the KEN v1 humanoid included designing and putting together the hardware platform.  This included the design for the laser cut carrying and storage box (originally intended to hold the the robot’s computers), the 3D printed eyes with embedded cameras,  and development of the pan/tilt articulated neck.

Bedell Kristin Bedell

(IEEE Student Member, 2014) is a member of the outreach and communications team for the ENCS Humanoid Robotics Project. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and Speech from the College of William and Mary (1997) and a Bachelor of Arts in Education from North Carolina Central University (2004). Kristin is the recipient of the 2014 IEEE Educational Activities Board Award at the Pre-University level and is a two-time state finalist for the National Science Foundation’s Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching. She is looking forward to building partnerships through this project in order to expose a wide diversity of students to engineering.

McBride Todd McBride, PE

(IEEE Senior Member, 1984) holds a BSEE from NCSU (1986) and has worked as an Electrical and Electronics Engineer for quite awhile. He started in Avionics design and test, progressed through EMC/EMI design and test, and eventually ended up in the Cellular Industry just as it was taking off. Todd was hired to create a Research and Development Lab for what was then Sprint Cellular. He has worked in RF, Cellular and Telephone Networking, and Internet Networking. Eventually he was promoted to manager of the Lab and recently seperated from Verizon Wireless after decommissioning the Raleigh Lab and helping to design a new Lab for Verizon Wireless in Dallas TX.
Todd contributed on the Project management Team by setting up our presence on the internet and organizing many team meetings.

There are many more people who have contributed to the project.  If you would like to be recognized publicly as a contributor, send us a note through the form on the CONTACT US page, and we’ll get you added here.