Students from 91亚色鈥檚 entertained the group of more than two dozen聽children and 200 adults, giving them a chance to learn more about space robotics and exploration, along with science and engineering programs at 91亚色.

91亚色 Rover Team representatives with their Mars Rover

Curiosity touched down on the Red Planet at 1:32am EST on Monday, Aug. 6. The Toronto event, held at the Hotel Ocho, was one of many worldwide, featuring a live feed of NASA鈥檚 control room, and a virtual visit from Bill Nye the Science Guy, along with 1500 attendees of PlanetFest 2012 in Pasadena, California.

鈥淚t was amazing to see all the kids and see how interested they are in science. We told them that everything you do at 91亚色 can lead you somewhere 鈥� it doesn鈥檛 matter which field you鈥檙e in, you can develop your skills and learn more,鈥� said Carla Mejia, one of the YURT team members.

Event coordinator Jonathan Moneta credited 91亚色鈥檚 rover team for making the events unfolding on Mars relatable to attendees 鈥� especially kids.

鈥淚t was really good to have an actual rover that kids could play with 鈥� it helped them broaden their understanding a bit,鈥� Moneta said.

Several media outlets were on-site at the event. Rover team members were interviewed live on CP24 and also received mentions on CTV Toronto and in the .

A future 91亚色 student (and space scientist) tries out the rover

The members of YURT who attended were: Carla Mejia, fourth-year biomedical science; Carina Hoang, second-year聽master of science in聽biology; Manjeet Kaur, fourth-year computer engineering; Oyinda Daramola, third-year computer engineering; Pablo Saldarriaga, fourth-year computer science; and Vaibhav Kapoor, fourth-year computer engineering.

Earlier this year, 91亚色鈥檚 rover team took first place in the 2012 University Rover Challenge at the Mars Desert Research Station, outperforming major American universities, including Brigham Young University in Utah, which placed second, and Cornell University in New 91亚色, which took third. The team also placed first at the university level of the Canadian Innovation Nation (CSii) Robotics Competition in Muskoka, Ontario.

For more photos of YURT in action at Mars Party TO, .

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"We try to touch on everyone's area of study in vision research, from brain and visual-motor plasticity to computer models and robotics," says 91亚色 psychology Professor Jennifer Steeves (right).

The conference will take place June 15 to 18 in the Computer Science & Engineering Building (CSEB), Keele campus. Registration will take place in the CSEB lobby and speaker presentations will be held in CSEB Lecture Hall C. It is hosted by 91亚色's in the .

One of the speakers, professor of biological sciences and neuroscience of Mt. Holyoke College, will discuss her own experiences and research with the extent of the brain's plasticity. At one time it was believed that the brain was only malleable during a "critical period" in early childhood, but then, at the age of 48, Barry overcame the stereoblindness she'd had since infancy through optometric vision therapy. She realized at that point there was no absolute "critical period" and that the brain could change and adapt well into adulthood.

Left: Susan Barry

Barry will review the natural history of infantile esotropia聽鈥� where one or both eyes turn in 鈥� demonstrate several rehabilitation procedures that promote stereovision and describe possible mechanisms for wiring changes in the brain. She is the author of Fixing My Gaze: A Scientist's Journey into Seeing in Three Dimensions (2009).

Professor of the University of California, San Francisco, will discuss brain plasticity across the human lifespan and how all plasticity mechanisms are, by their fundamental nature, reversible. A large body of behavioural, electrophysiological and neuroimaging studies have documented the progressive neurological changes that arise as a function of normal aging and as expressions of chronic neurological and psychiatric diseases.

"I shall argue that a number of these illnesses represent failure modes of our self-organizing neurological machinery," says Merzenich. These studies of the neurological distortions recorded in patient populations provide "roadmaps" for potentially addressing plasticity-induced changes therapeutically. "I shall illustrate this therapeutic potential by discussing our early progress in developing treatments designed to prevent and/or ameliorate the expressions of chronic neurological and psychiatric illness."

Professor (right) of Georgetown University will present his talk on "Functional Specialization in the Visual Cortex of the Blind", which looks at how the modules in the brain responsible for sight retain their functional specialization in people blind from birth. The difference is that these modules are "hijacked" by input from a non-visual modality, such as audition or touch.

Professor of the University of Montreal will discuss "Cross-Modal Plasticity in Blind and Deaf Subjects: Results on Cortical Reorganization and Performance Do Not Seem to Always Point in the Same Direction".

Left: Franco Lepore

"Numerous results obtained in our laboratory on blind individuals consistently indicate that when tested on behavioural tasks, such as tone discrimination, sound localization in far and near space, navigation on a tactile labyrinth or in angle discrimination, they generally outperform the sighted," says Lepore. "At the cortical level, it appears that this supra-performance rests on the recruitment of visual areas." However, the same does not seem to hold true for deaf individuals, who show somewhat poorer visual abilities for even low-level functions.

Registration information, including a compete and abstracts, is available online. For more information or to download the conference program, visit the website or contact Teresa Manini, Centre for Vision Research administrative assistant, at manini@cvr.yorku.ca.

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Above: Members of the 91亚色 Rover Team pose for a group photo in the cool of the evening at the Mars Research Station, Hanksville, Utah

91亚色 first entered the challenge, sponsored by TASC (The Analytic Sciences Corporation) Inc., four years ago and has finished in the top three every year, including a first-place finish in 2009. The challenge: "Design and build the next generation of Mars rovers that will one day work alongside human explorers in the field."

Above: EVE travels the hostile clime of the Utah desert

The closest race came between the second and third place teams, and Oregon State University, who were separated by only 16 points.聽 All together, the top three teams of 2011 were the same top three from 2010, but with different results.

鈥淭he level of sophistication shown by these teams was overwhelming,鈥� remarked URC director Kevin Sloan.聽 鈥淭hese teams poured themselves into their rover projects over the past year, and it clearly showed.聽 The level of competition was taken to an entirely new level this year.鈥�

Above: EVE (Enhanced Vehicle Explorer)

The 91亚色 team left Toronto with its EVE (Enhanced Vehicle Explorer) on May 27 and drove for three days to Hanksville, Utah, arriving early to ensure they could put in some field test time in the environment.

鈥淭he past few days have been intense with emotional highs and lows,鈥� said team member Shailja Sahani. 鈥淓very team member has been putting in at least 20-hour days to make the competition a success, with some sleeping only five hours in the last three days.

鈥淓veryone came together as a team with no prodding from the leadership; they simply picked up tools and got to work. Although we were well prepared before the competition, the desert environment and harsh operating conditions required many last-minute repairs and alterations.

"Our success came from our ability to fix the rover in situ and get back to the task, while other teams were left stranded,鈥� said team member Jordan Bailey.

Bailey, one of two students responsible for the team's finances and marketing, told CBC News he thinks the current rover is the team's "best one yet." Last year, the team faced multiple equipment failures as a result of the record temperatures, which soared to 38 C in the shade. This year's model has a more robust suspension, a finer control system and better temperature regulation than its predecessor, Bailey said.

Above: Jordan Bailey & Isaac DeSouza work into the night to get EVE ready

The rover cost about $13,000 to build, slightly below the $15,000 maximum allowed. The YURT is sponsored by 91亚色, and . The faculty advisers from 91亚色鈥檚 Department of Earth & Space Science & Engineering, Faculty of Science & Engineering were Professor Michael Daly and Professor . The engineering adviser was graduate student Mark Post.

The participants included three teams from Poland, three from the United States and two from Canada. By the end of the competition, one team from each country had placed in the top three.聽 The Magma2 team from the Bialystok University of Technology in Poland pulled away from the other two teams to an impressive victory.

Magma2 was the first European team to win URC.聽 They also were the first team to ever deploy an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) as part of the competition.

For more information, visit聽the website.

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Seven teams of students from the capstone senior design project course displayed their work in the lobby of the Science & Engineering Building for the sixth consecutive year.

Right: The first place team of Sriyan Wisnarama (left), Shahroukh Sotodeh and Gowry Sinnathamby, with聽an unmanned remote controlled plane with their聽stabilization system

Prizes of $500, $300 and $200 were given to the first, second and third聽ranked team project, donated by . The project involves the design of complex engineering solutions to a real world problem.

Left: Second place winners, from left, Niken Goswami, Stephen Low, Chris Carmichael and Yan Ying Fang. Insert: Stephen Low showing the e-Glove to the judges.

The whole point of it is to come up with a marriage between the idea and the practical outcome, said one of the judges, Michael Sasarman (MBA 鈥�05), director, strategic partnering and sourcing at Ericsson Inc.

鈥淭his is very good. It鈥檚 better than previous years,鈥� said聽capstone project course instructor聽Professor George Zhu, director of the Space Engineering Undergraduate Program and the Space Engineering Design Laboratory. 鈥淭here is more wireless technology on display this time.鈥�

The project involves specifying the requirements of a suitable solution, selecting and designing a solution, implementing the design, and then testing, evaluating and documenting the chosen solution.

Right: From left, students Thaslim Ghani, Sowmiya Rajagopalan and Tamara Tanurdzic, with their smartphone remote controlled vehicle, which placed third in the competition

The group of students who took first place for their project had a remote controlled plane on display with an installed stabilization system. The Design and Implementation of a Stabilization System for a Remote Controlled Fixed-Wing Model (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) project would help prevent the plane from crashing out of control.

鈥淲hatever orientation the plane has when the stabilization button is hit, it will return to level fight,鈥� said student Gowry Sinnathamby. He was joined by his teammates Sriyan Wisnarama and Shahroukh Sotodeh.

In second place was the Sync Engineering Entertainment Glove with students Stephen Low, Yan Ying Fang, Niken Goswami and Chris Carmichael. The intent behind the e-Glove was to design a remotely controlled single system that is able to universally control functions across a range of electronic devices. That means there would be one device instead of several. The e-Glove would use universal infrared technology with finger gestures, rather than buttons, to control and switch between items such as televisions, stereo systems and clock radios.

Above:聽From left, Professor George Zhu and Sunil Chavda, director of corporate development for Com Dev International, pose with first-place winners Shahroukh Sotodeh, Sriyan Wisnarama and Gowry Sinnathamby, along with Professor Richard Hornsey, associate dean of science &聽engineering.

The project that won third 鈥� Smartphone Control of an Unmanned Robotic Vehicle 鈥� was designed by students Thaslim Ghani, Sowmiya Rajagopalan and Tamara Tanurdzic. The team took remote control technology to a smartphone. Phone rotation would control direction and speed depending on the angle or tilt of the phone, said Ghani. Through a GPS system, the vehicle could also be tracked. The students had mounted a laptop to the top of a small vehicle so the user can see either on their smartphone, or from another laptop, exactly what the camera on the mounted laptop is seeing.

Right: From left, Dan Reynolds, Calvin Midwinter, Patrick Irvin and Bay Ming Jian with the mock-up of their satellite

The practical advantages of this technology, says Ghani, is it can go where a human can鈥檛, such as inside the damaged nuclear plant in Japan or perhaps Mars.

Some of the other projects included a mock-up of a microsatellite (QuickSat) body that is designed by the (CSA) and is licensed to 91亚色聽for educational purposes. 91亚色 is the first university in Canada to use it in the training of microsatellite technology where students not only design the satellite on paper, but also build a functional prototype. Students聽Dan Reynolds, Calvin Midwinter, Bay Ming Jian and Patrick Irvin worked on the design and fabrication of a solar panel assembly and its release mechanism under CSA's CAD model and technical specifications.

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The team, led by , a computer science professor in 91亚色鈥檚 Faculty of Science & Engineering, is working together with teams from McGill University and Dalhousie University to build the highly advanced AQUA robot, which resembles an otter and uses flippers to propel itself around underwater. Despite its cute, toy-like appearance, AQUA is intelligent enough to understand visual commands and perform complex under water manoeuvres.

Jenkin's team recently created an underwater control tablet that lets an operator interact with AQUA directly and much more quickly 鈥� a crucial feature when investigating dangerous, unknown environments like shipwrecks. 鈥淲e want to make vehicles that are more intelligent, that understand their world better and can interact with the world better. The underlying goal is to enhance our understanding of how to build intelligent, autonomous systems,鈥� Jenkin said.

Jenkin, a member of the , is one of the researchers based in 91亚色鈥檚 new state-of-the-art Sherman Health Science Research Centre, which officially opened on Sept. 14. He leads the Canadian Centre for Field Robotics laboratory, which is based on the building鈥檚 main level.

The centre is supported by a grant from the . The AQUA project is funded in part by the .

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Tier 1 CRCs were renewed for professors ,听 and . Professor was awarded an Advancement Chair, taking her from a Tier 2 to a Tier 1 CRC. Each Tier 1 CRC attracts $200,000 annually in federal funding, over a seven-year period, for a total of $1.4 million per chair.

The funding will allow Flett, Hessels, Tsotsos聽and Vosko to continue their respective research in personality and health, computational vision, atomic physics, and the political economy of gender and work.

鈥淔ederal government investment in research is crucial for Canadian universities because we are competing with the rest of the world to attract top researchers,鈥� said Stan Shapson, vice-president research & innovation at 91亚色. 鈥淭hrough these investments, researchers at 91亚色 are able to contribute significantly to new discoveries, public policy and economic development, and national and international dialogue across the full range of disciplines.鈥�

91亚色鈥檚 renewals were part of $275.6 million announced by聽Tony Clement, federal minister of Industry,听to fund 310 new or renewed CRCs at 53 Canadian universities. 鈥淭he Harper government is continuing its longstanding commitment to invest in science and technology to create jobs, strengthen the economy and improve the quality of life of Canadians,鈥� said Clement. 鈥淔or the past 10 years, the Canada Research Chairs Program has brought breakthroughs in clean energy, the control of infectious disease, business management, and digital technologies.This funding will help strengthen Canada鈥檚 capacity for leading-edge research while, at the same time, building economic opportunities for Canadians.鈥�

Clement made the announcement at the start of a conference to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the CRC program. The conference, which began yesterday at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, continues today.聽Vosko took part in the 鈥淭hinking Ahead: A look at what the future holds for Canada鈥� panel discussion on Wednesday. 91亚色 Professor (right), Canada Research Chair in Art, Digital Media聽& Globalization, will participate in today's聽Art, Technology and Society panel.

91亚色 has 28 research chairs, including the four renewals announced yesterday.聽Here are details on the work of the four:

Gordon Flett (left), CRC in Personality and Health (Tier 1), examines personality as the key to many health problems stemming from chronic stress exposure. Certain aspects of the personality trait of perfectionism can be particularly harmful. His team studies risk and resilience factors across the lifespan. He and Paul Hewitt co-developed the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale, a model reconstruction of both the personal and interpersonal components of perfectionism. Research based on the model has firmly established that perfectionism has personal and interpersonal components and is associated with various forms of maladjustment, including health problems, depression, anxiety and suicidal tendencies. His research agenda also explores the relationship between perfectionism and psychological disorders, including eating disorders, postpartum depression and recovery from physical illnesses. A professor of psychology, Flett is associate dean, research and graduate education, in 91亚色鈥檚 Faculty of Health.

Eric Hessels (right), CRC in Atomic Physics (Tier 1), is researching the difference between matter and antimatter. His 91亚色 team is working with researchers from Harvard University on a method to trap the antiatoms long enough to conduct experiments. This work is being done in conjunction with the international ATRAP (Antihydrogen Trap) collaboration. Hessels鈥� research also involves measuring the energies and orbits of helium atoms to provide the most accurate measurement of the 鈥渇ine structure constant,鈥� which determines the strength of electric and magnetic forces between charged objects. He is a Distinguished Research Professor of Physics at 91亚色.

John Tsotsos (left), CRC in Computational Vision (Tier 1), integrates the fields of visual psychology, computer vision, robotics and visual neuroscience to investigate new models of human visual mechanisms and how they may lead to intelligent seeing machines. His research falls into three main themes: visual attention in humans and computer systems, visually guided mobile robotics, and computer vision. He designed the first computerized motion recognition system, used in cardiology, and developed the Selective Tuning Model for visual attention, widely considered the leading model for consolidating current understanding of the process of visual attention. He has also designed an intelligent, visually guided wheelchair intended for physically disabled children. A past director of 91亚色鈥檚 internationally recognized , Tsotsos is the Distinguished Research Professor of Vision Science in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at 91亚色.

Leah F. Vosko (right), CRC in the Political Economy of Gender and Work, examines the contours of precarious employment to foster new statistical, legal, political and economic understandings of this phenomenon. Two of the chair鈥檚 principal projects involve constructing a research database on gender, work and labour market insecurity in Canada in comparative perspective 鈥� the 鈥� and overseeing a research alliance comprised of community and university researchers studying employment standards modernization in Canada and internationally. A professor of political science and a co-director of 91亚色鈥檚 Centre for Research on Work and Society, Vosko also teaches and supervises students in women鈥檚 studies, sociology, public policy administration and law, socio-legal studies, social and political thought, health equity, and communications & culture.聽Her most recent book, Managing the Margins: Gender, Citizenship and the International Regulation of Precarious Employment, was published earlier this year by Oxford University Press, UK.

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This marine robot is called , and its creators believe it will help researchers better explore and collect data in the planets' oceans.

Equipped with an array of sensors and cameras, the robot is designed for use in dangerous places where human divers would be at risk.

AQUA's greatest asset is its ability to interact with a human controller.

Jenkin believes his robot will open new vistas for deep-sea exploration. 鈥淒iving gets more dangerous the deeper you go. It gets more dangerous if you are in an overhead environment. So you can remain a reasonable distance from the robot and in reasonable safety and have the robot and have the robot do the more dangerous thing. And so that allows you to have the robot go into shipwrecks or explore partially collapsed environments instead of putting the operator at risk.鈥�

More details about the are available in the .

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AQUA, an amphibious, otter-like robot, is small and nimble, with flippers rather than propellers, designed for intricate data collection from shipwrecks and reefs.

The robot, a joint project of 91亚色, McGill and Dalhousie universities, can now be controlled wirelessly using a waterproof tablet built at 91亚色. While underwater, divers can program the tablet to display tags onscreen, similar to bar codes read by smartphones. The robot鈥檚 on-board camera then scans these two-dimensional tags to receive and carry out commands.

Cutting the cord on underwater robots has been a long-standing challenge for scientists; water interferes with radio signals, hindering traditional wireless communication via modem. Tethered communication is cumbersome and can create safety issues for divers.

鈥淗aving a robot tethered to a vehicle above water creates a scenario where communication between the diver, robot, and surface operator becomes quite complicated,鈥� says (right), professor in 91亚色鈥檚 Department of Computer Science & Engineering in the Faculty of Science & Engineering and co-author of the forthcoming paper, "Swimming with Robots: Human Robot Communication at Depth".

鈥淚nvestigating a shipwreck, for example, is a very delicate operation and the diver and robot need to be able to react quickly to changes in the environment. An error or a lag in communication could be dangerous,鈥� Jenkin says.

Realizing there was no device on the market that fit the bill, Jenkin and his team at 91亚色鈥檚 Centre for Vision Research, including the paper鈥檚 lead author,听master in computer science聽student , set to work constructing a prototype. The resulting device, fittingly dubbed AQUATablet, is watertight to a depth of 60 feet. Aluminum housing with a clear acrylic cover protects the tablet computer, which can be controlled by a diver using toggle-switches and on-screen prompts.

鈥淎 diver at 60 feet can actually teleoperate AQUA 30 to 40 feet deeper. Needless to say this is much easier on the diver, physically and much safer,鈥� Jenkin says.

The tablet also allows divers to command the robot much as if they were using a video game joystick; turn the tablet right and AQUA turns right, too. In this mode, the robot is connected to the tablet by a slim length of optical cable, circumventing many of the issues of a robot-to-surface tether. The optical cable also allows AQUA to provide video feedback from its camera to the operator. In a totally wireless mode, the robot acknowledges prompts by flashing its on-board light. Its cameras can be used to build 3-D models of the environment which can then be used to guide the robot to particular tasks.

鈥淭his is a huge improvement on [a robot] having to travel to the surface to communicate with its operators,鈥� Jenkin says.

In the past, divers have used laminated flashcards to visually communicate with robots while underwater. However, these limit the diver to a pre-set sequence of commands.

鈥淚t鈥檚 impossible to anticipate everything you鈥檙e going to want the robot to do once you get underwater. We wanted to develop a system where we could create commands on the fly, in response to the environment,鈥� he says.

Jenkin and Verzijlenberg鈥檚 paper will be presented at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) in Taiwan.

Jenkin and Verzijlenberg are two of the researchers based in 91亚色鈥檚 new state-of-the-art Sherman Health Science Research Centre, which officially opened on Sept. 14. Jenkin leads the Canadian Centre for Field Robotics, which is based on the building鈥檚 main level. The centre is supported by a grant from the . The AQUA project is funded in part by the . 91亚色's Centre for Vision Research is part of the Faculty of Health.

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Last week, 91亚色 the Sherman Health Science Research Centre, a facility for research in brain and vision, biomechanics, virtual reality and robotics. Planning for the facility, which was completed in December 2009, started in 2007.

The $11.5-million centre, which was converted from an old hockey arena, was named after Honey Sherman, a 91亚色 Foundation board member, and her husband, Barry Sherman, president and CEO of the聽 pharmaceutical company Apotex Inc., who donated $5 million to the project. 鈥淓verybody who gives donations has to pick and choose as to where the need is greatest,鈥� Barry Sherman said.

鈥淚t鈥檚 91亚色, an important Canadian university for teaching and research鈥e tend to concentrate our gifts towards health care. It鈥檚 good for the scientists, the public and the eventual patients who will benefit. It鈥檚 a gift to the City of Toronto.鈥�

Sherman sees the facility鈥檚 potential for interdisciplinary research as an asset to the University. 鈥淚t鈥檚 very impressive, and it makes a lot of sense. [These fields] are interrelated. To make significant progress in any area you need people of various [fields],鈥� he said, adding that he was particularly impressed with the neuroimaging lab.

鈥淭o try to understand the workings of the brain, you need that equipment,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檒l be very useful in developing that understanding when it comes to brain impairment and issues like dementia.鈥�

Stan Shapson, 91亚色鈥檚 vice-president, research & innovation, said the facility will provide an ideal work environment for both staff and graduate students. 鈥淲e didn鈥檛 have these kinds of facilities for them yet, so they were doing great work, but you鈥檙e doing work in a lab that鈥檚 in the basement of a building. There鈥檚 potential for interference when you鈥檙e collecting data. It slows down your work and you鈥檙e always adjusting equipment,鈥� Shapson said. 鈥淣ow you have state-of-the-art labs鈥The students and researchers] will be able to do better quality work more quickly.鈥�

Some of this research includes studying loss of vision in the elderly, developing a robot-guided wheelchair and building robots that can function underwater.

Shapson hopes the facility will help the University forge connections with local hospitals. 鈥淚 think we had four presidents of regional hospitals at [the official opening]. That鈥檚 wonderful. They鈥檙e looking at this facility as something that could help them,鈥� he said.

With the new facilities and 91亚色鈥檚 existing , which is internationally renowned, Shapson sees the potential to attract new researchers and students, as well as to apply existing research to the health care sector. 鈥淚 think [this centre] is going to drive new ideas, innovations and treatments. At the end of the day, the hope is to deliver better health outcomes to Canadians,鈥� he said.

The Sherman Centre includes space for 13 laboratories and accommodates over 150 researchers, graduate students, research associates and staff.

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Professor and graduate student of 91亚色鈥檚 Department of Computer Science & Engineering have created an underwater casing for tablet computers so that divers can control underwater robots. Motion sensors detect when the waterproofed computer is tilted, and instruct the robot to move in the same direction [].

鈥淲hat makes what we are doing unique is the idea of deploying the robot and the diver as part of a team to solve various problems,鈥� says Jenkin. 鈥淭he diver operator can remain outside dangerous environments and operate the vehicle, while the vehicle itself extends the diver鈥檚 capabilities.鈥�

The vehicle in question is called Aqua, a small submersible robot that swims using paddle legs and carries cameras and position sensors that relay information back to the screen of the tablet computer via an optical fibre.

The team is now working on signals to help robot and tablet communicate with each other even without the fibre. 鈥淎t the moment in autonomous operation the robot only communicates back to the tablet through flashing lights on the vehicle. We want to look at having the robot perform certain motions 鈥� essentially, have the robot 鈥榙ance鈥�, and use this dance to communicate from the robot to the tablet,鈥� says Jenkin.

Jenkin and Verzijlenberg are just two of the researchers based in 91亚色's state-of-the-art Sherman Health Science Research Centre, which . Jenkin leads the Canadian Centre for Field Robotics, which is based on the building's main level. The AQUA project is funded in part by the .

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