Four students from Tennessee and West Virginia, as part of the HITES11 program, came to work with our software group. Advised by Dr. Plank, and helped greatly by John Reynolds, Alex Klibisz, Grant Bruer and Adam Disney, the students installed our software suite onto their computers, and using evolutionary optimization, developed networks for the Pole Balancer and for Flappy Bird.

Following that, they modified the Pole Balancing application so that the x value was split into five bins rather than three, and reran evolutionary optimization. Within an hour, they had a new network that successfully balanced the pole for over 24 hours!

They gave a nice 8-minute presentation as part of the HITES final presentations, and did a great job of communicating what DANNA is, what EO is, and what they did!

HITES 2016 students with Dr. Plank Left to right: Riley from Madisonville, Bryson from Murfreesboro, Dr. Plank, Rebecca from Hurricane, WV, and Divya from Germantown. All are entering their junior year of high school this fall.