Tyler Shaddix’s house looks like most of the other houses on his block in a subdivision not far from the UC Merced campus.
It’s what’s inside that’s different – the home office of a startup company offering a web service that has, in less than a year, become very popular with government agencies, large companies and universities across the country and around the world.
A collaboration between a dean and a professor and a grant from the National Science Foundation have made UC Merced part of a national nanotechnology-biology hub that will expand both knowledge and opportunities for students in Merced.
Peek in the windows at the Mechatronics, Embedded Systems and Automation (MESA) Lab sometime. You’ll probably see students flying small remote-controlled vehicles at all hours of the day and night.
Sometimes the students are having so much fun they have to be pushed to go home and sleep.
But what seems like a hobby or diversion is actually serious research.
The tougher a problem, the more creative a solution it needs, from the increasing power in orbiting satellites and saving tigers to saving state parks and catching thieves.
And when a problem seems absolutely impossible?
“That’s when you call me,” said Professor Erik Rolland. “I love modeling problems people haven’t been able to model or solve before.”
Sometimes, all you need is a little push, even if it comes from a mechanical arm.
That was the case with the UC Merced Robotics Society, which began in 2008 but languished after its founders graduated. This past year, though, the club’s newer members got a jump start from dedicated leadership and the programming and creativity of one of their colleagues.
Mapping what is where on the earth’s surface is currently done primarily through overhead aerial and satellite images. This is useful in many ways but is limited in terms of portraying things like land-use classifications or public sentiment about a given location or landmark.
Engineering Professor Ming-Hsuan Yang of the University of California, Merced, has been named a recipient of the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award to further his work on improving visual tracking abilities in machines.
UC Merced's computer graphics lab, with body sensors, motion-capture cameras, and a giant movie screen is straight out of Hollywood. But instead of producing blockbusters, a group of UC Merced researchers are working to create more realistic human motions for virtual reality avatars. The movements are analyzed to create more lifelike virtual characters, which will have multiple applications.
Professor 
The tougher a problem, the more creative a solution it needs, from the increasing power in orbiting satellites and saving tigers to saving state parks and catching thieves.
Siblings Erin, Justin and Dylan Ray don’t agree on everything. But they do see eye-to-eye on the top choice for a college education: UC Merced.
