Hello Everyone!
I am Robert Lucas. I am a graduate of the University of Northern British Columbia Computer Science Department with a masters degree in Artificial Intelligence. As you can tell from my website I am studying Neuroevolutionary Algorithms. Those are fancy words for throwing a whole bunch of small dumb “agents” at a problem and hoping that one of them will stumble on a solution. Then whichever agents perform the best (from my perspective) get to breed into a new generation and I simply kill off the remainder. Repeat this process and you hopefully find a relatively optimal solution for whatever your problem is.
It is loads of fun! I hope I can share some of the fun with you as you read my site. I want to talk about the various problems and discoveries that happen along the way as well as the various systems I employ to solve these problems.
I suppose I should also talk about the other things I do. I received my BSc. in Computer Science from UNBC in 2002. I also was an employee there. In late 2001 I was hired as the Computer Systems Support Specialist for the Computer Science department. I was responsible for their student labs, research labs, desktop support, research support and various other tasks. In 2006 I changed positions to become a System Administrator 2 for ITS. Without getting deep into it, I was responsible for large portions of the server infrastructure at UNBC from Administration to Faculty and Research. I have recently moved to Edmonton Alberta and I am the System Administrator for the faculty of science. I am hoping to attend U of A next year to start my work on a PhD.
In my spare time I like to get involved in research projects, which were collaborative with local and regional business. I have been a project manager as well as a developer and researcher.
This website is an experiment for me. I want to share my research with others and hopefully help them work towards similar goals. By sharing ideas and methods, problems and solutions, or even just thoughts on a topic I can help to evolve this interest in others.