Background to Empirical Modelling projects

The Empirical Modelling ("EM") project, directed by Meurig Beynon and Steve Russ, has been the focus for some of the most imaginative - and in our view potentially significant - achievements of students based in Computer Science at Warwick over the last 20 years or so. Most of the tools and many of the models described on the EM website (as well as much of the website itself) are the product of student input at graduate and undergraduate level. Several outstanding graduate students in EM have been recruited through final year project work or through the CS405 Introduction to EM module. Many of the EM publications have had significant input from students - for instance, the EM research students Simon Yung, Richard Cartwright, Ashley Ward, Allan Wong, Antony Harfield, Charlie Care, Eric Chan, J-P Dupont, Karl King and Nicolas Pope were all undergraduates in the department. The final year projects of Daniel Keer (2005) and Richard Myers (2008), both of which won departmental project prizes, have also featured in recent EM publications (see EM papers #106, #108 and #110).

Meurig took early retirement in 2010 in order to devote his time exclusively to EM research but retains a presence in the department and is keen to continue to supervise project students. Steve retired in 2012, but still keeps in touch with the department and is actively pursuing interest in EM research. In the interests of maintaining the established traditions of the research group, and addressing the new promise - and challenge! - that has been exposed by recent developments (such as Nick Pope's remarkable new programming medium CADENCE, and the JavaScript-based JS-EDEN interpreter conceived by Tim Monks, a former president of the Computer Science Society), we are keen to recruit students to carry the EM project forward. There are many different ways in which students can potentially contribute, through individual and group project work, dissertations and graduate studies (e.g. Masters-by-research). There is also room for a wide range of project activities, catering for many different skill sets, levels of expertise, and alternative ways of thinking about computers.

Choosing a project

In addition to providing a list of project ideas from which you may wish to take inspiration, we encourage students interested in participating in the EM project to consult Meurig directly (wmb@dcs.warwick.ac.uk) and consider how they may engage with EM in their own individual ways. For this purpose, according to what themes motivate you most, you should consult the many other resources available on the EM website. These relate (in no particular order) to:

• A radically different view of Computer Science
• Related developments in commercial software practice
  
• Original research papers and models on EM themes developed by CS405 students
• EM tools:
  • The JS-EDEN interpreter, designed to offer new levels of support for EM online
    
  • EDEN and Web EDEN - see e.g. the Sudoku Experience workshops for an EM/EDEN tutorial, the Web EDEN "Further Examples" page for a variety of other applications
  • CADENCE - see for instance the Stargate model
  • The agent-oriented parser
  • The dependency modelling tool
  • LSD and the Abstract Definitive Machine
    
• The EM project archive
• Working with schools (see e.g. the Sudoku Experience workshops, a Venn diagram puzzle, Peter Beattie's Equals Sign project from 2009-10)
  
• An alternative philosophical perspective
• PhD and MSc-by-research theses from EM students
• Computing with a cognitive (see e.g. oxoGardner1999) and constructivist (see e.g. EM paper #107) orientation
• Computing for learning, modelling and collaboration
  
• Case studies in discrete mathematics (e.g. mbf4Beynon2003) , business (e.g. projecttimetableKeen2000) and AI (e.g. antnavigationKeer2005)

Organisation of EM project supervision - and a 4th year group project proposal

Each year, Meurig Beynon has organised regular meetings of EM project students to introduce and discuss topical ideas and techniques. For 2013-14, we would like - if possible - to establish a core group of undergraduate 'research students' who can help us to organise such seminars and associated regular practical laboratory sessions (possibly to be held in the evening to avoid timetabling constraints). The constitution for such a core group might ideally be a fourth year MEng group project team dedicated to applying, critiquing and/or consolidating on EM principles and tools.