Computer center now in play at UW

In the middle of a tiny, carpeted soccer field on the fifth floor of the University of Washington's new computer sciences center, the robot dog looked stunned -- irritated, even.

The dog's home is the six-story, $72 million Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering, a building funded mostly by private backers such as Microsoft Corp. co-founders Allen and Bill Gates and 250 other donors to help keep the UW at the cutting edge in the field.

Allen will speak at today's dedication of the new facility. He credited his unofficial access to UW computers while in high school as a key impetus for Microsoft, and said his donation is "an opportunity to give back to the university."

The software-driven dog, meanwhile, was practicing for its public debut today. It had made an approach down the field and was about to take a shot on goal. Suddenly, UW grad student Cody Kwok scooped up the Jack Russell-sized droid and moved it farther away from the goal.

With a quick glance toward Kwok that seemed very much an expression of frustration, the dog returned to dribbling the ball and advancing again on goal. The robot's plodding play is a far cry from David Beckham's. But the autonomous, responsive and collaborative behavior it and three other dogged teammates display during a robot soccer match is regarded as one of the world's leading demonstrations of artificial intelligence.

"Computers playing chess used to be considered the best test of artificial intelligence," UW professor Dieter Fox said. "But that's much too simple. We need to have computers that can interact with their environment in real time."

Fox, Kwok and their UW colleagues recently competed in RoboCup 2003 in Padova, Italy -- the world cup of robot soccer. They won three out of five games but were eliminated by Italy before the quarterfinals. Where Kwok and his fellow students really scored, however, was in their introduction of a new type of software program for tracking the ball.

"That amazed the other teams," Fox said. The human brain and the computer "brain" still operate according to very different methods, he noted, and Kwok's program was a big hit at RoboCup because it more closely mimicked how humans anticipate ball movement.

"He computed a probable distribution over possible ball locations," Fox said.

The point is the UW team is clearly competitive when it comes to artificial intelligence.

"We're consistently regarded as one of the top programs in the country by all sorts of measures," said Ed Lazowska, the former UW computer sciences department chairman who was one of the leaders on the building project.

Ranked No. 1 for graduate computer science by the Sloan Foundation, the UW program for undergraduates is also routinely hailed as one of the top 10 nationwide by the National Research Council and in other surveys.

Despite the accolades, computer science at the UW had until now been housed in a cramped and crumbling building. Chunks of metal and concrete had been falling off Sieg Hall, the department's former home, built in 1960. After the Nisqually earthquake in February 2001, some faculty jokingly said they were disappointed the building didn't collapse.

The new six-story, 85,000square-foot building nearly triples the office and laboratory space for computer science. Private donors gave $42 million, with Allen donating $14 million, followed by $7.2 million from Microsoft and $6.5 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The UW and the state gave $30 million to build the new facility.

David Notkin, chairman of UW computer science and engineering, said the private support is in recognition that information technology is critical not just to the region's economy but to many other disciplines in higher education and scientific research.

Even biology is heavily dependent upon computers today, Notkin noted, as has long been the case for physics, engineering and the other data-heavy fields. Computers are a necessary tool for almost every endeavor, he said, and the UW intends to be one of the leading institutions in this field.

"We have a history of pushing the boundaries here," he said. "Our secret sauce is having great people and no boundaries."

Allen agreed, noting it was that very openness that led him, as a high school student, to sneak onto campus and use the UW computers in the graduate lab in the basement of Sieg Hall without permission. He contended it was not technically unauthorized use.

"The door was unlocked," Allen said.

He said that once discovered by a professor as a non-student but technically proficient, he was allowed to explore as long as he agreed to help the college students. Bill Gates and other classmates from Lakeside joined him. It soon got too crowded and they all got the boot. But the stage was set.

"I had some pretty formative experiences there," Allen said. He said he hopes by helping provide a new facility for the UW, there will be more opportunities for others to have such critical learning experiences.

DEDICATION EVENTS

WHAT: Dedication of the Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering followed by an open house and demonstrations in artificial intelligence, robotics, animation and other novel computing research.

WHEN: 1:30 -- 4 p.m. today

WHERE: UW campus on Stevens Way east of Rainier Vista

MORE INFORMATION: www.cs.washington.edu/building

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