One sampling scheme is a logarithmic sampling scheme. This has the nice property that objects at which you are looking can be recognised from the same model regardless of their size. Of course you have to foveate on the object first. This project would be concerned with learning the eye movements required to track moving objects using reinforcement learning. It will involve using our robot arm.
Humans are very good at identifying patterns in their interaction with the world.
This project would be concerned with discovering natural regularities in an agent's interaction with it's environment. These need not be relevant to any particular task. I'd be happy for the project to use a robot as the data source. This is a very open ended project and would require considerable initiative and good mathematical skills on the sensory senquences. In fact the world champion backgammon player is currently a reinforcement learner.