• How to build your career path - role models and examples
• Sixty is the new twelve
• Techniques for Project Based Learning with Low Cost Hardware Support
• IEEE CSS Video Clip Contest Session
• Workshop for High School Students and Teachers

Special Sessions

Abstract: Following the success of the special session in the last CDC on "How to give a good talk", the Long Range Planning Committee presents a special session on "Career Building". As the title suggests, the session is targeted for young people who are starting their career in academia or in industry.
In the course of our careers, we are often encountered with various decisions to be made. For example: what kind of job or career track one should pursue? What kind of research? Where is a good opportunity? One also wants to find a role model, but it is not always easy. Such things are not usually taught during the course of a Ph. D. program, and one has to find his/her own way.
It should be very helpful to learn from the experience of successful predecessors. This session invites two panelists, and asks them to present

• how they got into this field,
• how they made their careers,
• how they became successful in building up their careers.

Preamble:
    There is a tide in the affairs of men.
    Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
    Omitted, all the voyage of their life
    Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
    On such a full sea are we now afloat,
    And we must take the current when it serves,
    Or lose our ventures.
             Julius Caesar, Act 4, Scene 3, 218-224

Abstract: War is hell in the trenches! And now we find that the IEEE Control Systems Society is turning 60. Come eavesdrop as two old non-commissioned infantrymen of the imperial forces relive their heroics, confront the tactical blunders of the toffey-nosed leadership, confront the enemy, and share battle stories both real and imagined from their time at the front and from earlier quieter days, when guaranteed stochastic consensus formation control to a manifold described by quaternions was just a vague embryonic notion and Graf Laplacian was an Alsatian Count. Expect a wide ranging discourse on the major events, strategic and tactical, which have brought us to this juncture in time. As Brutus says, where we float from here is in the hands of the new recruits rushing so fresh faced into the battle. They deserve to understand that this is their heritage, like it or not.

Abstract: Low-cost hardware solutions are used in many applications such as quadcopters and mobile robots. These low-cost solutions provide an effective platform to give students hand-on experience through project based learning and competitions. A tutorial walkthrough of model-based design applied to project based learning will be presented. We will demonstrate each step of the process for developing an embedded control system for a mobile robot using the LEGO MINDSTORM hardware. We show how to model and analyze the robot through simulation as well as design and validate a feedback controller using the simulated model. Finally we deploy the control algorithm to the robot and validate its performance. We will conclude with a discussion of how student competitions are using this approach.

Abstract: At the beginning of 2014, the IEEE Control Systems Society decided to launch for the first time a public video clip contest (http://www.ieeecss.org/video-contest). Participants were asked to create short video clips explaining or promoting the field of automatic control in some or all of its aspects, including theory and applications. Out of 53 submissions a jury selected seven finalists, from which a winner, a 2nd and a 3rd place have been chosen, that were awarded US$ 1,000, US$ 500 and US$ 250 respectively. The selection criteria included video quality, creativity and the potential to promote the field. During this lunch time session, the finalists and winning video clips will be shown to the audience in a moderated way and all CDC participants are cordially invited to attend this entertaining session.

Purpose: This outreach event is designed to increase the general awareness of the importance of systems and control technology and its cross-disciplinary nature among middle and high school students and teachers. Control is used in many common devices and systems: cell phones, computer hard drives, automobiles, and aircraft, but is usually hidden from view. The control field spans science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The success of all STEM disciplines depends on attracting the most gifted young people to science and engineering profession. Early exposure to middle and high school students and their teachers is a key factor. The goal of these outreach efforts is to promote an increased awareness of the importance and cross- disciplinary nature of control and systems technology.

The workshop activities include presentations by control systems experts from our technical community, informal discussions, and the opportunity for teachers and students to meet passionate researchers and educators from academia and industry. The talks are designed to be educational, inspirational and entertaining showing the excitement of controls.

Webpage:
http://www.math.ku.edu/ksacg/workshops/CDC_2014/cdc2014workshop.html