Consider the following game. I have a word in my mind that I cannot say, but that I must get you to say. I give you multiple clues: "it is a white liquid," "it comes from cows," "we drink it for breakfast." Eventually, you guess "milk". Now imagine that I need to make you say milk without being able to say "milk," "cow," "white," or "liquid" myself. I probably give you clues such as "it has to be kept in the refrigerator," "it comes in a carton," etc. This is the game of TABOO. The amazing thing about this game is that I must say several "common sense" things about "milk" that a computer might not know.

The proposed project will investigate collecting common sense knowledge by having people play this game online. The REU student will help to build prototype games, as well as think about the different components the game should have. The most important prerequisite is strong experience in programming JAVA.