Our team would not be complete with out our sponsors! They were the ones behind
the scenes that helped the team to quickly learn and provide us with insightful guidance as we work
towards achieving our goals!The design team had a great deal of help from facilitator Dr. Xiaobo Tan and sponsor
Dr. Kay Holekamp. Dr. Tan’s expertise in engineering design and his background in robotics has been an invaluable asset.
Dr. Tan guided the team to achieve the goals of creating robust electrical designs and durable mechanical structures to be
controlled inside the hyena. Dr. Holekamp’s vast knowledge of hyena behavior has allowed the team to accurately replicate
the spotted hyena behaviors with the robot. The team could not have achieved the success it has without the help of these
two generous and knowledgeable MSU faculty members.
  | Team Facilitator: Our faculty for our senior design project
is Xiaobo Tan. Dr. Tan is an associate professor at MSU and specializes in robotics and control systems.
Professor Tan's projects include designing robotic fish that can be controlled remotely and can be used for
measuring pollution and contamination levels in water. Xiaobo's expertise in robotics has been especially useful
in aiding the team in our robotic design. Team Sponsor: The sponsor for our senior
design project is Dr. Kay Holekamp from the MSU Zoology Department. The inspiration for this project is
her research on spotted hyenas in Africa. Dr. Holekamp focuses on the behavioral tendencies of
mammals. Hyena interactions are particularly interesting because they live in
clans with very complex social structure and display interesting physical communications.
Our goal was to create a robotic hyena that will allow Dr. Holekamp and her research team to use the hyena
to conduct various experiments for research.
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