Ben Mann

I graduated from the Department of Computer Science at Columbia University in 2011.
In summer 2010 I worked at Google on their spreadsheets product.
In fall 2008 I was affiliated with the Robotics Group at Columbia University where I worked as a research assistant.

Past research included:

A Chinese dictionary app for Android that tries to copy MDBG's functionality offline.
An offline Chinese character recognition system built from scratch for Android
A music generation language written in OCAML and Java
A spoken dialogue interface to Google Calendar
An automatic recipe review summarizer for allrecipes.com written in Python
iRobot Create
The Player Stage Project
Optical refractometer-gradiometer to measure ocean salinity as a competing technology with traditional CTD's
Optical modem for wireless transmission of data underwater
3D vision system for bipedal robot obstacle avoidance written in MATLAB at JHU's APL for NASA
Image similarity exercises for Visual Interfaces to Computers
Gesture based lock for Visual Interfaces to Computers

Code samples:

A computerized version of the GHOST game (description)
You can try the other GHOST version which will force you to choose the longest word possible in order to win. This version follows the specifications on ITA Software's website (though not in implementation details like using Javascript's HTTPRequestObject).
An automated screen capture program that takes a screenshot once per hour and saves it to the directory from which you ran the program. To use it, right click, save target as. Unzip. Then navigate to where you saved it using a terminal or command prompt and type "java ScreenCap" To stop it, hit ctrl+C, otherwise, leave the terminal open. You can specify how many pictures it will take by typing "java ScreenCap 48" for instance. Use any number you want. Case sensitive!

Miscellaneous:

Tutorial I wrote for using Player/Stage with the iRobot Create.
javax.comm
Wide angle stitch of Low Library @ Columbia made with autostitch
Pretend to be a hacker, stolen from HackerTyper.net when it was still new.