July 7, 2006

NC State Computer Science Team Wins International Competition

  — NC State becomes only university to garner consecutive wins

  — Team creates tool to model solar radiation exposure of 3-D objects

First place winners in the IEEE Computer Society International Design Competition include (l to r) team mentor Robert Fornaro, Blake Lucas, Josiah Gore, team mentor John Streicher, Eric Helms, Hunter Davis and team mentor Margaret Heil. (Photo: IEEE Computer Society)
SunRay has 3-D visualization capabilities. (Graphic: NC State SunRay Team)

For the North Carolina State University Computer Science Senior Design Team it was an honor just to make it to the finals of the 2006 IEEE Computer Society International Design Competition (CSIDC).  Ranked as one of the top 10 teams in a field of 133 entries from 28 countries, the NC State team set its sights on the top prize — and won.  The win has the added honor of making NC State the only university to garner back-to-back wins in consecutive years and the only university in the United States to ever win the international competition.   In addition, the NC State team won the Microsoft Software Engineering Award during the competition.

Sponsored by Microsoft Corp., the CSIDC provides a theme for the competition.  Teams are judged based on how they represent the contest theme and how thoroughly they cover the topics of software engineering.  The theme for the 2006 competition was "Preserving, Protecting and Enhancing the Environment."

The NC State team created "Sunray," which uses ray-tracing combined with a numerical model of solar radiation to calculate UV exposure for an arbitrary 3-D model, in particular a graphic representation of a human form.  The SunRay system collects atmospheric data from a pyranometer to provide real-time input to model calculation.  (A pyranometer is an instrument that measures the combined intensity of direct solar radiation and diffuse sky radiation.)  SunRay is a research tool that provides detailed simulated solar exposure data that is accurate and easy for a scientist to use.  The goal of the tool is to assist the scientific community so that it can more effectively provide a convincing rationale to encourage the need for societal and environmental changes.

The NC State Computer Science Senior Design Team members are Hunter Davis, a computer science major; Josiah Gore, a computer science and mathematics double major; Eric Helms, a computer science and physics double major; and Blake Lucas, a computer science and electrical and computer engineering double major.  The team’s mentors are Dr. Robert Fornaro, professor of computer science; Margaret Heil, associate director of the Computer Science Senior Design Center; and John Streicher of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Computer Society is the world’s oldest and largest membership association of computer professionals and is the largest of the 38 societies that make up the IEEE. 

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See related story at http://www.csc.ncsu.edu/news/news_item.php?id=378.

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