Erik Komendera

Teaching

At Virginia Tech, I have made it a major priority to be a versatile and effective educator. I have adjusted and improved my teaching style with each offering, taking advantage of internal workshops along with my own studies to try implementing Flipped Classroom and Equitable Grading. I make frequent use of digital resources and capabilities to record my lectures, to provide my students with a wide variety of useful materials.

In anonymous surveys, students have shared their widespread appreciation for a number of things, including sharing pre-lecture notes and post-lecture recordings of my live handwriting, providing dozens of supplemental lecture videos per course, giving lectures spanning theory and implementation, and solving countless example problems. My “Overall Effectiveness” metric, as scored anonymously by my students, is 5.02 on a scale of 6. To be fair, I have also been told I go too quickly, which is an area for improvement.

I designed every ME 5000+ course entirely by myself, including lectures, software, and assessments. I designed my section of ME 3524 using only a textbook chapter list as a guideline. I adapted existing lecture notes and designed all of the assessments for ME 3534. I am currently planning my ME 2004 section.

Courses

ME 2004 Engineering Analysis Using Numerical Methods. Summer II 2026.

  • Covers numerical methods applied to engineering analysis with a design/lab studio. Numerical techniques including root finding, linear algebra, integration, ordinary differential equations, curve fitting, discrete Fourier transforms, optimization.

ME 3524 Mechanical Vibrations. Fall 2023.

  • Covers the development and application of mathematical methods, physical understanding, and computational tools for modeling, analysis, and design of vibrating systems. Free and forced vibration of single and multiple degree-of-freedom systems, particularly systems experiencing sinusoidal excitation.

ME 3534 Controls Engineering I. Spring 2025, Spring 2026.

  • Covers fundamentals of feedback control theory, time-domain and frequency-domain analysis, automatic control system design synthesis to meet performance and stability requirements, numerical simulation and discrete real-time implementation on microcontrollers.

ME 5524 Bayesian Robotics. Spring 2023, Fall 2024, Fall 2025.

  • At the conclusion of the course, students are expected to: understand probability and Bayesian networks, model robot and sensor behaviors in a form that is suitable for Bayesian inference, use filters for inference on Dynamic Bayesian Networks, use graph methods for inference on general Bayesian Networks, model and solve vision-based mapping and estimation problems, and implement methods to plan motions in possibly unknown environments.

ME 5984 Applied Machine Learning. Spring 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022.

  • Covers machine learning from an applications perspective, intended for non-computer science students and professionals looking to use machine learning in their vocations. It introduces machine learning and common uses and issues, and motivates treating machine learning through the lenses of statistics, probability, decision theory, and information theory. The course then covers the broad spectrum of supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning motivated by examples and applications. Specific topics will include classification, regression, cluster analysis, principal component analysis, kernel machines, neural networks, mixture models, hidden Markov models, sampling and inference, and dynamic Bayesian networks. Lessons will alternate between concepts-centric lessons and walkthroughs through applications in Python.

ME 5984 Robotic Systems Simulation and Analysis. Spring 2021.

  • After a fast-paced introduction/review of elementary robotics concepts such as rigid body kinematics and statistics and probability, the course covers open and closed chain kinematics/dynamics/control for collaborative actions; trajectory and motion planning; environment-aware state estimation methods incorporating simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) and structure error growth and mitigation techniques; and methods to optimize task and action planning and execution over metrics such as probability of completion and time to completion.

ME 5984 Robotic Interaction, Manipulation, and Assembly. Fall 2018.

  • Covers methods for robotic interaction, manipulation, and assembly in environments with uncertainty in the system and components. Begins with foundation and review of rigid body motions, kinematics for serial and parallel manipulators, and dynamics and controls. Then covers perception for interaction tasks, state estimation using e.g. the Extended Kalman Filter, and visual servoing. Advanced content includes contact modeling, manipulation, grasping, motion planning, and cooperative manipulation and assembly.

ME 5984 Physical Simulation Concepts for Robotics. Spring 2022.

  • Covers concepts utilized in real-time physics engines for robotics simulation, which are often employed as real-world approximations and as digital twins. This course also treats simulating uncertainty in the environment and in the actions taken by the simulated systems.

Senior Design

  • 2023-2024: Robotic Automation for Small Oyster Aquaculture Farms, sponsored by Annapolis Aquaculture.
  • 2022-2023: Crossed Dipole Antenna CubeSat Deployment Mechanism, sponsored by Aerospace Corporation.
  • 2021-2022: Vacuum-Rated Robot Arm, sponsored by Northrop Grumman Corporation.
  • 2021-2022: Unpowered 3U Cubesat with Passive Pointing and Payload Deployment, sponsored by Aerospace Corporation.
  • 2020-2021: Robotic Tool-Exchanging Caddy and End-Effector Adapter, sponsored by FASER Lab.
  • 2020-2021: Habitat Scale Polar Coordinate 3D Printer, sponsored by FASER Lab.
  • 2020-2021: In-Space Robotic Assembly Infrastructure Development, sponsored by FASER Lab.
  • 2020-2021: Low SWaP, Low Cost, Coarse Pointing, Acquisition and Tracking Subsystem for a Space Laser Communications Terminal, sponsored by Aerospace Corporation.
  • 2019-2020: CubeSat Sunshield, sponsored by Aerospace Corporation.
  • 2019-2020: Acquisition and Tracking Subsystem for a Space Laser Communications Terminal, sponsored by Aerospace Corporation.