[UWF HMCSE Intelligent Systems & Robotics Lab graphic]

[Robotic house music playing]

[Hunter Ayers speaking]
So we are here in the ISR Lab, the Intelligence and Systems Robotics lab, at UWF, Pensacola, Florida. In here, this is where we... essentially this is where the robotic magic happens.

[Stephane Lee speaking]
In the ISR Lab, it's mostly connected as well to IHMC with the research team and development. We just basically take those three parts of the engineering and we apply them to real-life situations or on research project for things like aerial drones or anything biomechanical that can be applied to real life.

[Terrance Williams speaking]
I’ve learned a lot about autonomous robots and just learning how robots move, how we're able to use science and math and physics and things like that to like simulate and emulate real-life motion and things like that.

[Hunter Ayers speaking]
Here, what I'm working on in the ISR Lab is, I’m working on a simulation that is dealing with a quad-rotor, a UAV — the acronym that stands for unmanned aerial vehicle — and from there, I am supposed to simulate the UAV to target a specific object.

[Terrance Williams speaking]
So right now, I’m working on a project with a robot called the JetHexa. I’m using the robot to detect tennis balls. So it sees a ball, if it's a circular shape, it's yellow, it says it's a tennis ball. And then you have to run algorithms and stuff to make sure it actually is a tennis ball, and then the robot will move to align itself with it.

[Stephane Lee speaking]
So right now, I'm working on a quadruped robot. It essentially, it has a lidar sensor and then a webcam in front of it. It essentially maps out an entire room, and then I can plan either a single path or a couple of waypoints and the robot will generate a simulation to where it finds the quickest and most efficient route to get there without running into any obstacles.

[Terrance Williams speaking]
It can be intimidating at first. So for me, I had no experience with robotics coming in.

[Stephane Lee speaking]
It definitely makes you think differently, because you’re applying all these courses into one singular action. So you have all the math, you have all the data analytics, you have the mechanical and electrical aspects of it, and then you have to think and then make your thought process go into fixing this problem and solving it rather than just putting all these pieces together and hoping that the outcome comes out perfectly.

[Hunter Ayers speaking]
And you just have to take time, and you have patience, and you have to a bunch of trial and error. And no matter how many errors you get, you just have to keep going.

[Terrance Williams speaking]
And there's a lot of useful resources and helpful staff and students who are willing to help you. 

[Stephane Lee speaking]
We have each other to ask questions, because all of use are going through the same thing or have been struggling with the same problems. So have each other is definitely the number one, like, resource for each other.

[Terrance Williams speaking]
So when I think about who I was as a freshman, I was someone who didn't really like branching out or reaching out for opportunities. But I found, as I got older, that the best opportunities for me — the ones where I grew the most — were the opportunities I sought after myself. So reaching out to faculty members, talking to different people, to different classmates, those were the times when I had to really stretch and grow and develop skills that made me a better student, a better person, and a better roboticist, all the above. So I would definitely recommend reaching out and trying to find your own opportunities.