CSC News

Google DROID Donation to Aid Research & Teaching Efforts

Google has donated 120 Motorola DROID smartphones to the Department of Computer Science at NC State to be used for research and teaching. The equipment donation, valued in excess of $50,000, is a great example of how NC State partners with industry leaders to develop innovative real-world applications and solutions with cutting-edge technology.

Dr. Rudra Dutta, associate professor of computer science, has received 80 telephones to support his research and teaching efforts in Android mobile development in his CSC 573 Internet Protocols class.  His research students are also working to integrate the DROID phones into wireless mesh networks for mobile and pervasive computing applications. 

Dr. Sarah Heckman, teaching assistant professor, received 30 phones and has been using them in her CSC216 Programming Concepts class where they are exploring the use of real-world, socially-relevant mobile application development to promote student learning of class objectives.  The DROID phones provide additional resources to explore applications that take advantage of communication between devices over a Wifi network (e.g. multiplayer games) and applications in the emerging mobile development paradigm (e.g. using GPS location services).

Dr. Frank Mueller, associate professor of computer science, received 10 phones.  He and his students have been exploring the capabilities of ad-hoc networking between Android phones.  They are also exploring virtualization capabilities that would significantly improve security of Android phones.  This is not the first time Google has made gifts to help the department’s teaching mission; Mueller previously received several first generation Android phones from Google.

Google made a similar gift of 60 MotoDroids to the ECE department recently to support several senior level classes. Click here to read their news story.

For more information on Dr. Dutta, click here.

For more information on Dr. Heckman, click here.

For more information on Dr. Mueller, click here.

~coates~