College of Engineering

Gayatri Mehta, an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, has received a nearly $500,000 National Science Foundation grant to continue research on how human intuition can help engineers find ways to design smaller electronic devices that use less battery power.

Mehta and a group of researchers in UNT's College of Engineering developed the computer game Untangled in early 2012. The game features a series of blocks inlaid on a graph, and is open for the public to play. Players are asked to arrange the blocks more efficiently while adhering to certain constraints, which mimics the challenge of efficiently organizing components within electronic devices.

"Untangled lets us discover human strategies for mapping and opportunities for new architecture designs that can be employed to develop next-generation electronic devices," Mehta said. "These devices will be smaller, low power, and have longer battery life, which in turn will affect all of us in areas including health, safety and security, as well as personal convenience and comfort."

Mehta and her team of researchers visually and mathematically analyze the game strategies of top scoring players. Their research will help to develop the next generation of cell phones, medical devices and other electronics.