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Dec2
EVENT DETAILSmore info
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Join the Center for Robotics and Biosystems December Seminar
Speaker: Robert Shepherd, Associate Professor at Sibley School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering and the Organics Matter Lab at Cornell University
Date and Time: Friday, December 2 at 12:00 p.m. CT
Location: Mechanical Engineering Conference Room, B211 and Zoom
Zoom Link: https://tinyurl.com/CRBSeminar
• NU-authenticated attendees will be automatically admitted. Others, please email amy.nedoss@northwestern.edu to be admitted from the waiting room.
Abstract:
Animals are semi-discretized. Systems of organs that perform multiple functions and are spatially discrete from each other, yet interconnected chemically and electrically. The complexity of animals such as vertebrate mammals allow for adaptation within a single generation that has allowed many examples of species that have thrived without genetic modification even during periods of significant environmental change. In the search for generally adaptive robots, useful for far field exploration missions, we believe that a similar model of complex, multifunctional, and interconnected organ systems of animals should be embraced, rather than avoided. Of course, it is not yet that simple to be complex, but we will present approaches we have used to distribute sensing, actuation, energy, and computation in soft robots. The framework we use for guiding our design evolution is Autonomous Materials, where we push the manufacturing of robots towards forming processes, and multifunctional use of material chemistry. The resulting machinery presented will be organic both in chemical makeup and subsystem analogy to organisms.
Bio:
Rob Shepherd is an associate professor at Cornell University in the Sibley School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering. He received his B.S. (Material Science & Engineering), Ph.D. (Material Science & Engineering), and M.B.A. from the University of Illinois in Material Science & Engineering. At Cornell, he runs the Organic Robotics Lab (ORL), which focuses on using methods of invention, including bioinspired design approaches, in combination with material science to improve machine function and autonomy. We rely on new and old synthetic approaches for soft material composites that create new design opportunities in the field of robotics. Our research spans three primary areas: bioinspired robotics, advanced manufacturing, and human-robot interactions. He is the recipient of an Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Award, an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, and his lab’s work has been featured in popular media outlets such as the BBC, Discovery Channel, and PBS’s NOVA documentary series. He is an advisor to the American Bionics Project (americanbionics.org) which aims to make wheelchairs obsolete. He is also the co-founder of the Organic Robotics Corporation (ORC; lightlace.io), which aims to digitally record the tactile interactions of humans and machines with their environment.
TIME Friday, December 2, 2022 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
LOCATION ME B211, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Amy Nedoss amy.nedoss@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Center for Robotics and Biosystems (CRB)
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Dec5
EVENT DETAILS
lessFall examinations begin
TIME Monday, December 5, 2022
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar
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Dec9
EVENT DETAILSmore info
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Join the Center for Robotics and Biosystems Seminar
Speaker: Wenzhen Yuan, Assistant Professor of the Robotics Institute and Director of the RoboTouch Lab at Carnegie Mellon University
Title: Making Sense of the Physical World with High-Resolution Tactile Sensing
Date and Time: Friday, December 9 at 12:00 p.m. CT
Location: Tech L211 and Zoom
Zoom Link: https://tinyurl.com/CRBSeminar
• NU-authenticated attendees will be automatically admitted. Others, please email amy.nedoss@northwestern.edu to be admitted from the waiting room.Abstract:
Wenzhen Yuan will introduce the development of a high-resolution robotic tactile sensor GelSight, and how it can help robots understand and interact with the physical world. GelSight is a vision-based tactile sensor that measures the geometry of the contact surface with a spatial resolution of around 25 micrometers, and it also measures the shear forces and torques at the contact surface. With the help of high-resolution information, a robot could easily detect the precise shape and texture of the object surfaces and therefore recognize them. But it can help robots get more information from contact, such as understanding different physical properties of the objects and assisting with manipulation tasks. The talk will cover our work on using GelSight to detect slip during grasping and perceiving object properties such as hardness and viscosity of the liquid. Dr. Yuan will also present our work in simulating the tactile sensor and using the simulated sensor input to boost the robot’s capability to perform perception and grasping tasks in reality. These simulation tools can also help us to rethink the sensor design challenge and how tactile sensors can be used for various types of robots.Bios:
WenZhen Yuan is an assistant professor at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University and the director of the CMU RoboTouch Lab. She is a pioneer in high-resolution tactile sensing for robots, and she also works in multi-modal robot perception, soft robots, robot manipulation, and haptics. Yuan received her Master of Science and PhD degrees from MIT and her Bachelor of Engineering degree from Tsinghua University. She also worked as a Postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University.TIME Friday, December 9, 2022 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
LOCATION L211, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Amy Nedoss amy.nedoss@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Center for Robotics and Biosystems (CRB)
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Dec10
EVENT DETAILS
lessFall examinations end
TIME Saturday, December 10, 2022
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar
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Dec10
EVENT DETAILS
lessThe ceremony will take place at 4 p.m. on Saturday, December 10 in Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, 50 Arts Circle Drive.
*No tickets requiredTIME Saturday, December 10, 2022 at 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
LOCATION Pick-Staiger Concert Hall map it
CONTACT Northwestern Engineering Events northwestern-engineering-events@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
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Dec16
EVENT DETAILS
lessFall Degrees Conferred
TIME Friday, December 16, 2022
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar