Sophie Edgar: Voices of Penn Engineering Master’s Alumni
Sophie Edgar graduated with a master’s in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics (MEAM) in December 2015. Sophie is currently working as Manager, Engineered Solutions at Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc., a consumer division of Johnson & Johnson based in Skillman, NJ, developing medical devices for the consumer marketplace.
Y-Prize 2018: Embodied Logic and Surface Wrinkle Printing
Each year, Engineering, Wharton and the Penn Center for Innovation come together for an invention competition known as the Y-Prize. Unlike the XPRIZE, where competitors come up with novel technologies to solve a particular problem, the Y-Prize starts with the technologies and challenges entrants to find commercial applications they are particularly suited for. At stake: $10,000 to […]
Mapping the Ocean With Marine Robots
M. Ani Hsieh’s robotics lab investigates how to use ocean currents as a natural energy source for marine robots, which would enable widespread exploration.
Guinness Recognizes Piccolissimo as World’s Smallest Self-Powered Flying Robot
Guinness World Records has officially recognized Piccolissimo as the World’s Smallest Self-Powered Flying Robot. Italian for “tiniest,” Piccolissimo is the brain child of Matt Piccoli, a graduate student in professor Mark Yim’s ModLab.
New GRASP Project Aims to Leverage ‘Embodied Intelligence’ via a Robotic Squirrel
It takes about a year before human infants master their own motor skills well enough to walk. Legged robots don’t have it so easy. Only the most advanced can walk with a smooth, natural gait, and even those can be stymied by a small pile of rubble or sand. A team of researchers, led from […]
Paris Perdikaris Predicts Complex Outcomes of Physical Systems
Since the days of Isaac Newton, scientists have been monitoring and predicting the movements of falling apples, heavenly bodies, ocean currents and just about anything that can go from point A to point B. These models have grown increasingly complex, but so have the physical phenomena they depict. Now the mechanisms behind cutting-edge technology, in […]
Penn Engineering Featured at Philly’s First Mini Maker Faire
Penn Engineering’s GRASP Lab robots, aerial vehicles and art all came together on Sunday, June 24, as one of the main attractions at the first Philadelphia Mini Maker Faire.
Quartz: GRASP Lab Spin-Off Exyn Takes Flight Underground
Exyn Technologies, a spin-off of Penn Engineering’s GRASP lab, makes software that can turn your average-joe drone into a fully autonomous flying robot, sensing, exploring, and navigating its environment without the aid of a human pilot or GPS navigation. Quartz’s Erik Olsen covered Exyn’s drone system in a story and video, showing drones exploring old […]
Ting Yue Receives ECOS Best Paper Award
Ting Yue, a 2017 doctoral graduate in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, is the recipient of a Best Paper Award (Second Place) from the International Conference on Efficiency, Cost, Optimization, Simulation and Environmental Impact of Energy Systems (ECOS). The paper, “Thermodynamic Analysis of Hybrid Power Cycles using Multiple Heat Sources of Different Temperatures,” was co-authored […]
ModLab’s ‘SMORES’ Modify Their Environment to Get the Job Done
Given the exact parameters of the task at hand, a robot can assemble a car door or pack a box faster and more efficiently than any human, but such purpose-built machines aren’t good for much else. With that in mind, the history of robotics research is marked by devising ways of giving machines more and […]