Intelligent User Interfaces
CS 525U - Spring 2008

Task-Based User Interface Project

Miracle Worker

Robert W. Martin


Training crewmen to operate and perform maintenance the complex equipment aboard Starships can be hazardous to the trainee. Examples of these hazardous tasks involve realigning the Dilithium Matrix inside the Starship’s Warp Core, powering down Starship systems such as Impulse Engines and the Warp Drive for diagnostic purposes, and especially operating the Transporter Beam, which has the capacity to vaporize away team members if operating incorrectly. While most Starfleet training simulations and exercises are performed inside the holodeck to prevent harm to the trainees or the Starship itself, there are still situations where a novice operator needs to operate a piece of equipment, and doesn’t have sufficient experience on that particular hardware to complete his task without asking a superior officer for assistance. It is situations like these that the Starfleet Department of Starship User Interaction Research (SDoSUIR) would like to avoid. Our solution to the problem is Miracle Worker, an intelligent interface enhancement to the standard shipboard computer interface, which will provide assistance to low-ranking and novice crewmen so they do not have to request assistance from superior officers.

ANSI/CEA-2018 Task Model:

Executable Jar File (java 1.5)
("java -Xmx512m -jar MiracleWorker.jar")

Executable Jar File (no Speech--see Java console for system output) (java 1.5)
("java -jar MiracleWorker_nospeech.jar")

Source Code (Eclipse project file)

Detailed Description:

  • Instructions for a typical interaction
  • What worked
  • What didn't
  • Future directions
Speech-Recognition Script

For more information about this project and/or the CEA-2018 standard, contact Professor Charles Rich.