Student Capstone Projects Receive Awards and Special Recognition

Congratulations to all of the Computer Science Seniors who presented their Capstone Projects at the School of Science, Engineering and Technology’s 2015 Penn State Harrisburg Capstone Design Conference.  Sixty three student groups presented their capstone projects at the conference

Three Computer Science groups received special recognition.  The team of Austin Barket, Steven Erb, and Randall Hudson received Third Place out of all projects at the conference for their Bot!Battle! system.   The team of Zachary Schultz, Michael Toole, and Yasmine Williams and the team of Matthew Houseman, Sujay Kallamadi, and Kyle Melton received special recognition from Governor Tom Wolf for their projects developed in collaboration with the Office of Administration, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Descriptions of these projects are below.

Project name: Bot!Battle!
Team Members: Austin Barket, Randall Hudson, Steven Erb

Bot!Battle! is an application designed to support and encourage students to gain an early enthusiasm for computer science and programming. Students write small “bots”, or simple programs that are designed to play a game. Bot!Battle! will host tournaments in which the students’ bots will compete for the title of most awesome bot.   Also, Bot!Battle! is extensible in that it allows new games to be developed and then uploaded for use in new tournaments.

Project Name: Book a Space
External Organizations: Office of the Budget, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; Office of Administration, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
External Advisors: Sandra Mateer, Director
Team Members: Zach Schultz, Michael Toole, Yasmine Williams

Yearly leases are incredibly expensive, renting employee workspace as needed is an opportunity for huge savings. The Book a Space application allows employees to reserve workspaces including cubicles, offices, and conference rooms. The application handles workspace scheduling, reservation confirmation, billing and receipt generation. Book a Space features calendar views for workspaces, easy administration, and usage reports.


Project Name: Blueplate
External Organizations: Department of General Services, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; Office of Administration, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
External Advisors: Sarah Shaffer, IT Project Manager
Team Members: Matt Houseman, Sujay Kallamadi, Kyle Melton

The focus of the project is to provide a reliable and easy-to-use software solution to fit the needs of the Pennsylvania Commonwealth. The application seeks to provide simple and accessible location services for Pennsylvania state employees to locate nearby Vehicle Services (eg. gas stations, rental facilities, and service stations). The application will provide driving distance and relevant information about individual services, as well as providing directions based on the user's GPS location.

Spring 2015 Bot!Battle! Tournament Results

The Spring 2015 Penn State Harrisburg Bot!Battle! Tournament was held on May 1, 2015.  Twenty seven people developed bots, and 23 bots were entered into the tournament.  The tournament consisted of two rounds.   In the first round, each bot played every other bot twice, once as player 1 and once as player 2.  The top 8 teams from the first round then advanced to a single elimination tournament which determined the first, second, and third place finishers.

Here were the results after the first round:

Place	Bot Name	Bot Creator	Record
1 (tie)	Bob	Tamara Epelbaum	30-16
1 (tie)	SiddiqueBot	Taha Siddique	30-16
1 (tie)	WilfordBot	Joshua Wilford	30-16
4	PavoncelloBot	Joshua Pavoncello	29-17
5	DuddingBot	Nathan Dudding	27-9
6 (tie)	LoBot	Wei Hsien Lo	26-10
6 (tie)	Enma	Jack Lee McFann	26-10
8 (tie)	NguyenBot	Ngan Nguyen	25-11
8 (tie)	SingletonBot	Thomas Singleton	25-11

There was a play-in match between the Nguyen Bot and the SingletonBot to determine the last seed in the second round.  SingletonBot won this match 2 games to zero.

In the second round, each match consisted of six games, in which each bot played as player 1 three times.  If there was a tie after the six games, additional rounds consisting of a pair of games would be played (with each bot playing as player 1 and player 2) until the tie was broken.

In the single elimination tournament round of 8, LoBot prevailed in a match over Bob by a score of 5 games to 3.  PavoncelloBot prevailed over DuddingBob 5 to 1, SiddiqueBot prevailed over Enma 4 games to 2, and WilfordBot beat SingletonBot 4 games to 2.

In the round of 4, PavoncelloBot beat LoBot 5 to 1, and SiddiqueBot beat WilfordBot 5 games to 3.

For the third place game, after numerous tie breakers, WilfordBot prevailed over LoBot 7 games to 5.

In the championship game, PavoncelloBot continued its roll, beating SiddiqueBot by a score of 4 games to 2.

The top three finishers, who won prizes based on their bots, were:

First Place:  Joshua Pavoncello

Second Place:  Taha Siddique

Third Place:  Joshua Wilford

The bracket for the second round is below:

Congratulations to everyone who participated!  A special thanks to Austin Barket, Steven Erb, and Randall Hudson for their work in creating the Bot!Battle! arena.