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4 Newstuesday, april 12, 2011 The Daily Tar Heel

dth/Cameron Brown

Ju Sp Z pss sc gsu cgb usg n w p c p sks.

by Jeanna Smialek

aSSiStant UniverSity editor

Junior Bethany Corbin findshonor killings fascinating.

And at the Celebration ofUndergraduate Research onMonday, she was able to share herpassion and hard-researched thesison the politics and minority rightsissues associated with honor killingsamong Turkish Kurds and GermanMuslims.

Corbins was one of 105 poster-presentations that filled the GreatHall of the Student Union. Another

35 students gave speeches on theirresearch projects during the event.Pat Pukkila, director of the

Office of Undergraduate Research,said the symposium was the largestin the 12-year history of the event,with a 17 percent participationincrease from last year.

Im sensing a lot of positiveenergy in the room, she said.

Pukilla said Alice Pilo, AllisonHoward, Alicia Mullis and MattWaters won a close vote for the bestposters, which will be displayed inthe Undergraduate Library.

The thing is, there were no los-ers, she said, urging the rest of theresearchers to ask their depart-ments to display their work.

Bobbi Owen, senior associatedean of undergraduate education,said undergraduate research hasbeen expanding at the University.

Look at this room, Owensaid, gestur ing around theUnions poster-filled Great Hall.She said the projects used to beshown in the Johnston Center forUndergraduate Excellence, but theevent has outgrown that venue.

Its not going to be long beforetheyre on the floor of the SmithCenter.

Junior Denise Mitchell, whohelped at the event, said the exhi-bitions primary purpose was tointerest students in researching.

The big stigma about researchis, Its not fun, Mitchell said.But she said her own experienceresearching discrimination andthe projects at the fair disprovethat perception.

Bruce Carney, executive vicechancellor and provost, said

undergraduate research offers theUniversity opportunities for col-laboration.

Its beneficial to both facultyand students, he said.

Owen said researchers movepast the high school mentality ofreading and regurgitating infor-mation and engage in academics.

Its a place to be original and cre-ative entrepreneurial, she said.

Owen said the Off ice of Undergraduate Research has takenand will continue to take fundingcuts in the face of systemwide bud-

get reductions.But she said faculty commitmenthas contributed to undergraduateresearchs continued growth.

Weve planted this one deep,she said. Its got really deep roots.

Owen and Pukkila said outsidegrants coming from groupslike the Howard Hughes MedicalInstitute and the Atlantic CoastConference have helped theoffice flourish.

Contact the University Editorat university@dailytarheel.com.

sn how o ch

pie a Butterfly

Daniele Dickerson, a member of Theta

Nu Xi Multicultural Sorority, is pied

as part of Pie a Butterfly in the Pit

on Monday to raise money for Students For

Students International, an organization that

helps raise money for womens secondary

education in Tanzania. S4Si will hold its 7 th

annual Auction for Education on Sunday at

4 p.m. The silent auction will feature exotic,

internationally themed items.

dth/roByn elliSon

sn chnn owo W cono o hby John CaiSon

Staff writer

A game system most associate

with couch potatoes and killingtime could soon be the latest phys-ical therapy tool on the market.

And its all courtesy of oneUniversity student.

Stephanie Zolayvar, a juniorcomputer sci-ence major whopresented herwork Monday atthe Celebration

of Undergraduate Research,designed a program for the Wiigame system that recognizes spe-cific movements.

The program, her faculty advisersaid, would make the daily rigor ofphysical therapy more enjoyable.

In physical therapy, kids areasked to make movements that aredifficult and painful, said comput-er science professor Gary Bishop,

Zolayvars adviser.I thought it would be cool if we

could somehow reward these kidsfor making the movements.

Those rewards might includeblowing up a zombie on a TVscreen or moving along a race-track, he said.

I presented a problem, andStephanie worked on coming upwith a solution, he said.

Zolayvar worked with a Wiiremote, or Wiimote, programingit to recognize 12 different move-ments. She said her program rangesin accuracy from 78 to 95 percent indifferentiating between intentionalgestures and random fidgets.

But it wasnt as accurate in tell-ing the difference between the spe-cific gestures, a feature Zolayvar iscurrently working to fine-tune.

It would be awesome to actu-ally replace the Wiimote with the(XBox) Kinect or just a webcam sothe kid doesnt have to hold onto

the Wiimote, she said, and so youhave more absolute control overwhat you see, whereas with theWiimote everythings relative andits really hard to get exact results.

Zolayvar said while she ultimate-ly wants to market her product,she doesnt expect to make a lot ofmoney initially given a low demandfor such products.

The project is funded bya stipend from Bishop and aSummer Undergraduate ResearchFellowship.

Zolayvar said her interest incomputer science was sparked by a

class she took in high school, as wellas by Bishop, whom she describesas an enthusiastic adviser.

What I love about computer

science is that you can make thecomputer do whatever you want.Theres not really any limits or rulesabout what you can make it do.

Bishop wasnt the only oneimpressed by Zolayvars potential.

I think its a really good idea, andit looks like she has some really goodpreliminary results, so she needs tokeep working on it, said KatarinaHaley, an allied health sciencesprofessor who attended the sympo-sium.

Her presentation is really prac-tical. It was easy to get why shedid what she did immediately. She

strikes me as very knowledgeable.

Contact the University Editorat university@dailytarheel.com.

RESEARCH

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