Children To Run Computers and Robots at Rice Groundbreaking

Contact: Philip Montgomery
Phone: (713) 831-4792

Children To Run Computers and Robots at Rice Groundbreaking

In a gesture reflecting the future of
computer science, grade school students from The Rice School/La
Escuela Rice will use computers and robots to break ground in
November for Rice University’s new Computational Engineering
Building.

The children and the robots are symbolic of the march of
technology into ever younger classrooms, said Keith Cooper, a Rice
associate professor of computer science and the school of
engineering’s representative on the building design team. He said
these children represent future computer engineering students at
Rice, and this new building will encourage the interdisciplinary
research that Rice needs to be a leader in computational
engineering.

"Computational engineering is vital to the future of Rice and
the nation," said Ken Kennedy, the director of the Center for
Research on Parallel Computation (CRPC). "An interdisciplinary
approach is critical if computational engineering is to succeed
because single-discipline investigations are too narrow to deal with
complex engineering problems. The Computational Engineering Building
will encourage interdisciplinary research by putting related
departments under the same roof and by providing space for visitors
from other engineering disciplines on campus, in the community and
across the nation."

Anita K. Jones ’64, the director of defense research and
engineering for the Department of Defense, will be the featured
speaker at the groundbreaking.

The groundbreaking for the $16.5 million, 112,000-square-foot
Computational Engineering Building will be held on Friday, Nov. 4,
at 2 p.m. near the former site of the Bonner Nuclear Laboratory
north of Lovett Hall.

Construction is scheduled to begin in December. The structure
should be ready for occupancy by the beginning of the 1996 academic
year.

The new building will house the Center for Research on Parallel
Computation (CRPC), the Computer and Information Technology
Institute (CITI), and the Departments of Computational and Applied
Mathematics, Computer and Electrical Engineering, Computer Science
and Statistics.

The Computation Engineering Building will have a tile roof and
an exterior of brick similar to the traditional St. Joe brick used
on Lovett Hall. Although the building will adhere somewhat to
traditional Rice architecture, it is designed with computers in
mind.

"We’re building a structure to encourage interdisciplinary
interaction," said Cooper.

To encourage interaction, the new building has wide staircases
and open spaces that will allow people to stop and talk. There will
also be several public work posts, called out-working areas, each
with a table, chairs and computer network outlets. The work areas
will be conveniently placed throughout the building.

"You can see your colleague on the open staircase and run out
there and grab him, sit down at an out-working area, plug in a
computer and go to work," said Cooper.

For members of the news media wishing to cover the
groundbreaking ceromonies on Nov. 4, please notify Philip Montgomery
in the Rice University News Office at 713-831-4792. Parking for the
event is available at Entrance 16 in Lot C.

Rice University is an independent, coeducational, nonsectarian
private university dedicated to undergraduate teaching and graduate
studies, research and professional training in selected disciplines.

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