Stephanie Stark

October 17, 2014

Body-and-CAD Rigidity Theory in the Plane: Theoretical Mathematics in Application to Computer Science and Engineering

Contemporary constraint-based computer-aided design software cannot detect what are called “special positions,” where the framework being made with the software is detected as rigid when it is in fact flexible. The research, conducted at the Mount Holyoke College Department of Mathematics and Statistics, was focused on creating examples of rigid frameworks and detecting special positions of these frameworks. This was done by analyzing them using the pure conditions of graphs in projective space.  This work could further be applied to robotics and biology.