About I AM AI

Our Senior Capstone project addresses the following combination of challenges:

1. Providing an extensive introduction to Artificial Intelligence (AI), via research and implementation, to a group of senior undergraduate students with no prior experience in the field.

2. Incorporating hands-on learning of the highly-popular, commercial-level Unreal Engine development framework.

3. Focusing on interactive story-telling and character-behavior modeling, applications of Artificial Intelligence that are current, challenging, and of considerable practical and intellectual interest.

4. Allowing students to gain experience in both thinking pedagogically and producing educational value by creating software with educational purposes.

 

We have conducted research on AI techniques and are using Unreal Engine to implement a character-driven, non-combat-centric game-like environment populated by multiple NPCs, the behavior of which is modeled using different AI techniques. The system is being designed so as to be attractive to a varied target audience. As we strongly wish to avoid alienating potential users who do not identify as avid “gamers”, we are opting for a non-combat-centric game-like environment.