News & EventsDepartment Events
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Jan17
EVENT DETAILS
lessSuspension of classes for observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day
TIME Monday, January 17, 2022
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar
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Feb4
EVENT DETAILSmore info
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Speaker: Dr. Herb Shea, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Soft Transducers Lab (EPFL-LMTS) at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland
Date and Time: Friday, February 4 at 3:00 p.m. CT
Location: Hybrid Seminar in Tech LR3 and Zoom
Zoom Link: https://tinyurl.com/CRBSeminar
• NU-authenticated attendees will be automatically admitted. Others, please email Amy Nedoss at amy.nedoss@northwestern.edu to be admitted from the waiting room.
Abstract:
Soft robots require efficient, fast, and strong actuators. Pneumatic actuation is effective, but needs a compressor or pump, which is a major impediment to untethered, quiet and portable operation. Dr. Herb Shea will present his lab’s work on wearable haptics and soft robots driven by electrostatic actuators, which offer system-level advantages for a wide range of applications, especially when dozens of actuators are needed, for instance to convincingly create a sense of touch in VR.
The lab works at the mm to cm scale, combining soft elastomers with high permittivity and high electrical breakdown strength films, to create compliant transducers with high energy density. He will discuss the design and materials challenges in making soft machines generate high forces, showing examples such as sub-20 µm thick on-skin arrays of actuators for cutaneous haptics, sub-mm thick high force textile-based clutches for kinesthetic haptics, and compliant grippers able to hold 1000x their weight.
Bio:
Herbert Shea is a professor of mechanical engineering at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, where he leads the Soft Transducers Lab (EPFL-LMTS). Herb holds a PhD in physics from Harvard University (1997). He was as a postdoctoral fellow at IBM Research in Yorktown Heights for two years, and then worked for four years at Bell Labs (then part of Lucent Technologies) on the reliability of MEMS. Since 2004, Herb is a faculty member at EPFL, where his research is centered on electrically driven elastomer-based actuators for wearables, haptics and soft robotics. Herb and his team address the fabrication, design and materials challenges that must be solved to develop high force density and high energy density soft actuators on the mm to cm scale. They then apply their research to ultra-thin wearable haptics and to the dexterous manipulations of delicate objects.
PlanIt Purple Link: https://planitpurple.northwestern.edu/event/583293
TIME Friday, February 4, 2022 at 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
LOCATION LR3/151, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Amy Nedoss amy.nedoss@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Center for Robotics and Biosystems
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Mar12
EVENT DETAILS
lessWinter Classes End
TIME Saturday, March 12, 2022
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar
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Mar19
EVENT DETAILS
lessSpring Break Begins
TIME Saturday, March 19, 2022
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar
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Mar28
EVENT DETAILS
lessSpring Break Ends
TIME Monday, March 28, 2022
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar
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Mar29
EVENT DETAILS
lessSpring Classes Begin 8 a.m.
TIME Tuesday, March 29, 2022
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar