Haptics at Penn: A Class of Touch
Inside the Towne Building’s Haptics Lab, members of Team Kuchenbecker are bent over their work stations, completely absorbed in individual projects. A question is raised from one of the benches and soon the dynamic changes: a diverse and interesting mix of doctoral, master’s, undergraduate, and high school students gather around a central work table to […]
Ritesh Agarwal: Accelerating Advances in Electronic Memory
The race to create next-generation computer memory devices that are off-the-charts smaller, faster and more stable than current memory technologies has entered promising new territory thanks to recent innovations in Ritesh Agarwal’s lab. Agarwal, Assistant Professor in Materials Science and Engineering, has pioneered a technique for fabricating self-assembled nanowires. His breakthrough was published in October […]
Studying Animals to Build a Better Robot
Land animals use a precise combination of good body design and behavioral smarts to run, hop, climb, adapt quickly to icy conditions, and walk with ease over sand or gravel. Daniel Koditschek, professor in the departments of Electrical and Systems Engineering, Computer and Information Science, and Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics looks to these animals […]
Producing Nanoscale Patterns, In One Step
Shu Yang’s latest discovery in the field of nanoscale polymer science may be her most significant yet. It was also something of an accident. Yang, an associate professor of materials science and engineering, initially set out with her students to study the intrinsic properties of a flexible polymer membrane called polydimethylsiloxane, or PDMS. The silicone […]