Erik Andersen

Welcome

I am a Ph.D. student in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. I am also a developer at a non-profit startup, Engaged Learning. I work with Zoran Popović and Sumit Gulwani and belong to the Center for Game Science. I did my undergrad at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

My research focuses on computational education: fully-automated tools that synthesize pragmatic, principled learning pathways for target concepts, maximizing engagement and adaptivity. I am a co-creator of the award-winning learning game Refraction, which has received over one million players. My previous work has focused on large-scale studies of engagement in video games, visual data mining, character animation, and path planning.

Games

$Refraction$

Refraction

Erik Andersen, Yun-En Liu, Marianne Lee, Eric Butler, Brian Britigan, Stephen Sievers, Roy Szeto, Mai Dang, Christian Lee, Ethan Apter, Emma Lynch, Happy Dong, Justin Irwen, Seth Cooper, François Boucher-Genesse, Carmen Petrick, Zoran Popović, Taylor Martin

[website] [play] [Kongregate]

Best Work in the Primary School Category, 38th NHK Japan Prize, 2011

Grand Prize: Best in Show Award, Disney Learning Challenge, SIGGRAPH 2010

Top 25, Kongregate Summer Mobile Game Contest 2011

$Refraction$

Picard

Kathleen Tuite, Tim Pavlik, Sandra B. Fan, Tyler Robison, Alexander Jaffe, Yun-En Liu, Erik Andersen, Steven Tanimoto

[website] [pdf] [play]

Experimental and Research Games Festival, FDG 2012

Treefrog Treasure

Zoran Popović, Travis Mandel, Tim Pavlik, Marianne Lee, François Boucher-Genesse, Eleanor O'Rourke, Brian Britigan, Yun-En Liu, Seth Cooper, Barbara Krug, Fernando Labarthe, Erik Andersen, Atanas Kirilov

[play]

Over 5 million plays

Papers

	Predicting Player Moves in an Educational Game: A Hybrid Approach Yun-En Liu, Travis Mandel, Eric Butler, Erik Andersen, Eleanor O'Rourke, Emma Brunskill, Zoran Popović Educational Data Mining (EDM) 2013 [pdf]
	A Trace-based Framework for Analyzing and Synthesizing Educational Progressions Erik Andersen, Sumit Gulwani, Zoran Popović CHI 2013 [pdf]
	Evaluating Competitive Game Balance with Restricted Play Alexander Jaffe, Alex Miller, Erik Andersen, Yun-En Liu, Anna Karlin, Zoran Popović Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE) 2012 [pdf] Best Student Paper Award
	A Case Study of Expressively Constrainable Level Design Automation Tools for a Puzzle Game Adam M. Smith, Erik Andersen, Michael Mateas, Zoran Popović Foundations of Digital Games (FDG) 2012 [pdf]
	The Impact of Tutorials on Games of Varying Complexity Erik Andersen, Eleanor O'Rourke, Yun-En Liu, Richard Snider, Jeff Lowdermilk, David Truong, Seth Cooper, Zoran Popović CHI 2012 [website] [pdf] [related papers] Best Paper Nomination
	On the Harmfulness of Secondary Game Objectives Erik Andersen, Yun-En Liu, Richard Snider, Roy Szeto, Seth Cooper, Zoran Popović Foundations of Digital Games (FDG) 2011 [website] [pdf] [related papers]
	Feature-Based Projections for Effective Playtrace Analysis Yun-En Liu, Erik Andersen, Richard Snider, Seth Cooper, Zoran Popović Foundations of Digital Games (FDG) 2011 [website] [pdf] [related papers]
	Placing a Value on Aesthetics in Online Casual Games Erik Andersen, Yun-En Liu, Richard Snider, Roy Szeto, Zoran Popović CHI 2011 [website] [pdf] [related papers] Best Short Paper Nomination
	Character Animation in Two-player Adversarial Games Kevin Wampler, Erik Andersen, Evan Herbst, Yongjoon Lee, Zoran Popović ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), Vol. 29, Num. 3, 2010 Presented at SIGGRAPH 2011 [website] [pdf]
	Gameplay Analysis through State Projection Erik Andersen, Yun-En Liu, Ethan Apter, François Boucher-Genesse, Zoran Popović Foundations of Digital Games (FDG) 2010 [website] [pdf] [related papers]
	Interactive Navigation of Heterogeneous Agents Using Adaptive Roadmaps Russell Gayle, Avneesh Sud, Erik Andersen, Stephen Guy, Ming Lin, Dinesh Manocha IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG), Vol. 15, Num. 1, Jan/Feb 2009 [website]
	Real-time Path Planning in Dynamic Virtual Environments Using Multi-agent Navigation Graphs Avneesh Sud, Erik Andersen, Sean Curtis, Ming Lin, Dinesh Manocha IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG), Vol. 14, Num. 3, May/Jun 2008 [website] [pdf]
	Real-time Navigation of Independent Agents Using Adaptive Roadmaps Avneesh Sud, Russell Gayle, Erik Andersen, Stephen Guy, Ming Lin, Dinesh Manocha ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology (VRST) 2007 [website] [pdf] Best Paper Award
	Surface Distance Maps Avneesh Sud, Naga Govindaraju, Russell Gayle, Erik Andersen, Dinesh Manocha Graphics Interface 2007 [website] [pdf]
	Real-time Path Planning for Virtual Agents in Dynamic Environments Avneesh Sud, Erik Andersen, Sean Curtis, Ming Lin, Dinesh Manocha IEEE Virtual Reality 2007 [website] [pdf]

Presentations and Posters

$Refraction$	Learning Fractions Through Splitting in an Online Game Stephanie Baker Peacock, Carmen Petrick Smith, Taylor Martin, Ani Aghababyan, Zoran Popović, Erik Andersen, Yun-En Liu American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting (AERA) 2013
	Optimizing Adaptivity in Educational Games Erik Andersen Doctoral Consortium, Foundations of Digital Games (FDG) 2012 [pdf]
$Refraction$	Game Optimization through Large-Scale Experimentation Erik Andersen Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2012 [powerpoint with script] [pdf]
$Refraction$	Refraction Time: Making Split Decisions in an Online Fraction Game Taylor Martin, Carmen Petrick Smith, Erik Andersen, Yun-En Liu, Zoran Popović American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting (AERA) 2012
	FractionSketch: An Electronic Whiteboard for Teaching Fractions Erik Andersen, Kazutaka Kurihara, Takeo Igarashi, Zoran Popović Next Generation of HCI and Education Workshop, CHI 2010 [pdf]

Personal

My Photography

[Flickr]