Headlines at Hopkins: news releases from across
the 
university Headlines
@Hopkins
News by Topic: news releases organized by subject News by Topic
News by School: news releases organized by the 
university's 9 schools & divisions News by School
Events Open to the Public (campus-wide) Events Open
to the Public
Blue Jay Sports: Hopkins Athletic Center Blue Jay Sports
Search News Site Search the Site

Contacting the News Staff: directory of university 
press officers Contacting
News Staff
Receive News Via Email (listservs) Receive News
Via Email
Resources for Journalists Resources for Journalists

Virtually Live@Hopkins: audio and video news Virtually
Live@Hopkins
Hopkins in the News: news clips about Hopkins Hopkins in
the News

Faculty Experts: searchable resource organized by 
topic Faculty Experts
Faculty and Administrator Photos Faculty and
Administrator
Photos
Faculty with Homepages Faculty with Homepages

JHUNIVERSE Homepage JHUniverse Homepage
Headlines at Hopkins
Media Alert

Office of News and Information
Johns Hopkins University
3003 N. Charles Street, Suite 100
Baltimore, Maryland 21218-3843
Phone: (410) 516-7160 | Fax (410) 516-5251

November 15, 2001
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Phil Sneiderman
prs@jhu.edu


Lego Surgery Contest
High School Teams Will Build Robotic Arms
to 'Operate' by Remote Control

Johns Hopkins Engineering Students will Supervise the Event

WHEN: 3 to 5 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 18.

WHERE: The Great Hall, located inside Levering Hall, The Johns Hopkins University Homewood campus, 3400 N. Charles St., Baltimore, Md.

WHAT: Students from 12 Baltimore area public high schools will learn about tele-medicine, in which a doctor in one location supervises robotic surgery on a patient many miles away. In the Johns Hopkins event, each school's team of three students will receive two $200 Lego Mindstorm kits to build a robotic arm that can manipulate a surgical instrument. Then, a video camera will be trained on the student "surgeon." A computer connected to the camera will translate the surgeon's body movements into commands that move the robotic arm in the same way. Each robotic arm will be scored according to how well it follows the surgeon's moves and how accurately it touches a target, representing the patient. While building and programming these robots over a four-day period, the teams will be guided by Johns Hopkins University undergraduates and graduate students affiliated with the Engineering Research Center in Computer Integrated Surgical Systems and Technology. The finished devices will be tested on Sunday afternoon. The event is funded by a National Science Foundation grant.

PARTICIPATING HIGH SCHOOLS: Carver Center, Catonsville, Baltimore City College, Eastern Technical, Forest Park, Loch Raven, Parkville, Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, Southern, Southwestern, Woodlawn and Wootton.

JOHNS HOPKINS CONTEST COORDINATORS: Ian Donn and Oleg Gerovichev, Johns Hopkins engineering graduate students, will be available for interviews Sunday afternoon.


Johns Hopkins University news releases can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/
   Information on automatic e-mail delivery of science and medical news releases is available at the same address.


Go to Headlines@HopkinsHome Page