The Canisius College Computer Science Department has a number of pieces of equipment to support course work as well as student and faculty research.  The department has a main file server and a departmental web server.  There is a microcomputer laboratory with six computers running Microsoft Windows.  Students have 24 hour access to this laboratory starting in their sophomore year.  There is an advanced laboratory that has eight computers running the Linux operating system and six computers running Microsoft Windows.  This laboratory supports upper-level computer classes and students have 24 hour access to this laboratory starting in their junior year.  There is an advanced research laboratory that has computer systems to support research into memory management and data locality, cluster computing, and graphics and three-dimensional visualization.  Students working on these research projects have 24 hour access to this laboratory.  Lastly, there is a robotics laboratory that includes three types of robots

In 2005, a major NASA brought $270,000 in new equipment to the Computer Science Department.  This grant also supplied new equipment for the Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, and Physics Departments.  The wide range of high quality research equipment purchased under this grant is not typically found in undergraduate institutions.  Big universities may have this type of equipment, but typically its use is restricted to professors and graduate students.  Computer Science majors at Canisius College have a unique opportunity to do research and coursework on this equipment.  In their junior and senior year, all Computer Science majors will take a seminar that will have them work closely with a faculty member on a research project most of which will use this new equipment.  This grant supplied new types of equipment for the department:

Super computers are expensive, so many research groups are instead building computer clusters to get high speed computing power without the high cost of a super computer.  The Canisius College Computer Science Department has a new cluster computer that has 24 Dell processors running Linux.  These nodes are controlled by a headnode computer that provides the individual nodes with their work.  The headnode is a Dell PowerEdge 1850 with dual Xeon processors. Our cluster also has a total of 4 terabytes of hard disk. The cluster gives our department greater opportunities to engage in collaborative work with the other sciences at Canisius.  Currently, Dr. Meyer is working with two students on an avian migration project with Dr. Sara Morris of the Biology Department and Dr. Dave Sheets of the Physics Deparment.  Future projects planned for the cluster also include Dr. Matthew Hertz's compiler research, Dr. Jeffrey McConnell's parallel rendering projects.  Additionall, students in  Dr. Mark Meyer's distributed computing class will also be using the cluster.

Another new item is the Immersadesk, which displays three-dimensional images.  People see things in three-dimensions in part because of the separation of our eyes.  The immersadesk rapidly switches between two images (one for the left eye and the other for the right eye) while special glasses block each eye in sychronization with the images.  This fools the human visual system into thinking that the image displayed is actually a three-dimensional object. Dr. McConnell will be utilizing this in scientific visualization projects and his graphics class and research.

The new robotics laboratory will support student/faculty research into robotics along with course work.  Students in early computer science courses will get the chance to program some of these robots as they learn computer concepts.  In addition to research projects involving just Canisius students faculty, University of Buffalo Computer Science faculty and graduate students will be working with Canisius faculty and students in our robotics laboratory. Robotics work is being done by Dr. Patricia Van Verth, Dr. Mark Meyer, and Dr. Debra Burhans.
The new robotics laboratory will support student/faculty research into robotics along with course work.  The first type of robot is the LEGO Mindstorms.  These robots are based on the LEGO blocks and include a large yellow programmable block that can control motors and check the status of sensors.
The second type of robot is the Sony AIBO robotic dogs.  We have six robotic dogs.  These dogs have built in actions and can respond to both spoken commands as well as touch.  Petting these dogs on the head or back can cause a reaction.  The dogs can play with toys and each other.  The real power is in the ability to program these dogs.  User written programs can change how the dogs move and the types of things they can do.  One international competition has teams of dogs playing soccer against each other.
The Evolution  Robotics ER-1 robot includes a camera and a gripper arm, and is controlled by a laptop computer that is mounted on the robot.  The camera allows the program running on the laptop to control the robot's motions based on what is being "seen" by the robot.  There are competitions where these robots attempt to complete some task in the shortest time.  A recent competition required robots to move around a space, avoiding pits while trying to pick up an object.

Dr. Matthew Hertz does research into memory managment and data locality within running computer program.  His work is important to the efficient use and reclamation of memory while programs run.