Contact:
Chriss Swaney
412-268-5776

For immediate release:
November 5, 2002

Carnegie Mellon Students Build Robots to Find School Officials in a Mock Search and Rescue Drill

WHAT: More than a dozen Carnegie Mellon University students are making robots for rescue efforts in collapsed buildings. The Lego robot designs will be deployed in a class competition designed to test the robot's search and rescue capabilities.

Howie Choset, associate professor in mechanical engineering, said the students also have made a series of collapsed model buildings and placed doll-like figures of Carnegie Mellon President Jared L. Cohon and several university professors into the hand-crafted building debris to make the mock rescues more realistic. The general robotics class draws students from a variety of disciplines, including engineering, computer science and robotics.

WHEN: 10:30 a.m., Wednesday, Nov. 6

WHERE: The Singleton Room, Roberts Engineering Hall, Carnegie Mellon University