To the every day homeowner, folding towels may seem an uncomplicated if not tedious task, but to 22-year-old Colfax-Mingo alum Colorado Reed it represents his future.

“It’s a new industry right there in a robot,” Reed said. “Folding socks, you’re looking at hundreds of equations.”

The Youtube video featuring UC Berkeley’s PR2 robot folding laundry has gone viral and has nearly 1 million views. But it’s the algorithms that make up the unit’s artificial intelligence (AI) that fascinates Reed. The University of Iowa senior graduating in applied physics explains that the science of machine learning is what makes it all possible, and it is his research on the subject that has earned Reed a high honor.