Alexander Burka

Alexander L. Burka
aburka (at) seas (dot) upenn (dot) edu
[projects] [pubs] [people]

University of Pennsylvania
ESE Ph.D. student under Dan Lee
IGERT fellow in Complex Scene Perception
Swarthmore College
B.S. in Engineering, May 2012
Major: Engineering
Minor: Cognitive Science, Mathematics
CV
LinkedIn
Projects: [top]
- Robotics research in the GRASP Lab
  My research under Dan Lee involves robots that use computer vision to understand the properties of objects in their environment.
  - Manip
    The Manip project is kinematic learning for robots: from 3D camera input, our algorithm will discover the structure of objects with moving parts.
- Swarthmore
  - Senior Design Project: Quadcopter
    With David Saltzman, I built and programmed a quadcopter from scratch for my engineering senior design project. It almost worked, too! Our inspiration was the Quidditch Snitch.
    
    I did a related project on simulated quadcopters in an Adaptive Robotics class.
  - Trashmower (temporary name)
    Android app for Swarthmore students
  - IEEE Micromouse
    student robotics project to be completed for March 2012 competition (more info)
  - Diagramr (source)
    web development project for Prof. Siddiqui's Mechanics of Solids class
    fall 2011
  - VEP online auction
    web development to support fundraising for the Village Education Project
  - Concierge, an online reservation system
    project for the Swarthmore College Computing Society
Publications: [top]
- Vision-Based Localization for Mobile Robots
  research performed in Prof. Matt Zucker's mobile robotics lab at Swarthmore College
  summer 2011
- Non-linear transmittance properties of dielectric slab waveguides
  research performed in Prof. Lynne Molter's laser lab at Swarthmore College
  summer 2009
- Numerical simulation of loosely coupled circular waveguide arrays
  research performed in Prof. Lynne Molter's laser lab at Swarthmore College
  summer 2009
People: [top]
These are some people who I've gotten to know personally and academically, and they're awesome.
- Andy Bastian - engineer, artist, and additive manufacturing wizard, currently at Makerbot Industries - website, tumblr.
- Julian Leland - mechanical engineer, musician, rugby player, currently at Barrett Technology - website.
- Seth Foster - electromechanical engineer, rugby player, senior at Swarthmore College - blog.