Faculty

Jayaram and team win IROS Best Paper Award on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics

Anonymous — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 15:04:48 +0000

Jayaram and team win IROS Best Paper Award on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/31/2023 - 09:04

Assistant Professor Kaushik Jayaram’s Animal Inspired Movement and Robotics Laboratory recently won the IROS Best Paper Award on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics, rising above around 3,000 other academic papers that were submitted to the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Along with Jayaram as the PI of the lab, PhD student Heiko Kabutz was the lead researcher of the paper, and PhD students Alex Hedrick and Parker McDonnell were coauthors, as well.

Their paper titled mCLARI: a shape-morphing insect-scale robot capable of omnidirectional terrain-adaptive locomotion in laterally confined spaces, improves upon their previous miniature shape-morphing robot to demonstrate the ability to passively change its shape to squeeze through narrow gaps in multiple directions. This is a new capability for legged robots, let alone insect-scale systems, that enables significantly enhanced maneuverability in cluttered environments, and has the potential to aid first responders after major disasters.

Kabutz and Jayaram’s latest version is scaled down 60% in length and 38% in mass, while maintaining 80% of the actuation power. The robot weighs less than a gram but can support over three times its body weight as an additional payload. It is also over three times as fast as its predecessor reaching running speeds of 60 millimeters per second, or three of its body lengths per second.

Check out their video of mCLARI here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbMi6ezXf-Y.

With the latest breakthrough that Jayaram and Kabutz have now achieved with their research, they are able to scale down (or up), their design without sacrificing design integrity bringing such robots closer in size to real-world application needs.

“Since these robots can deform, you can still have slightly larger sizes,” Jayaram said. “If you have a slightly larger size, you can carry more weight, you can have more sensors, you'll have a longer lifetime and be more stable. But when you need to be, you can squish through and go through those specific gaps.”

Kabutz, who leads the design of the mClari, has surgeon-like hands that allow him to build and fold the tiny legs of the robot. Kabutz grew up fascinated by robots and competed in robotic competitions in high school.

“Initially, I was interested in building bigger robots,” said Kabutz, “but when I came to Jayaram’s lab, he really got me interested in building bioinspired robots at the insect scale.”

Jayaram’s research team studies concepts from biology and applies them to the design of real-world engineered systems. In his lab, you can find robots modeled after the body morphologies of various arthropods including cockroaches and spiders.

“We are fundamentally interested in understanding why animals are the way they are and move the way they do,” said Jayaram, “and how we can build bioinspired robots that can address social needs, like search and rescue, environmental monitoring, or even use them during surgery.”

Assistant Professor Kaushik Jayaram’s Animal Inspired Movement and Robotics Laboratory recently won the IROS Best Paper Award on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics.

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New Frequency Comb Can Identify Molecules in 20-Nanosecond Snapshots

Anonymous — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 01:11:41 +0000

New Frequency Comb Can Identify Molecules in 20-Nanosecond Snapshots Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/30/2023 - 19:11

The laser-based system now has the ability to capture moment-to-moment details of high-speed processes such as hypersonic propulsion and protein folding.

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Ranked #14 among U.S. universities by National Academy of Inventors, CU leads in translating innovation into impact

Anonymous — Tue, 24 Oct 2023 00:02:54 +0000

Ranked #14 among U.S. universities by National Academy of Inventors, CU leads in translating innovation into impact Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/23/2023 - 18:02

The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) has ranked the CU system 14th among the “Top 100” institutions nationwide for recent patent activity.

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Ruzzene and Rieker discuss Colorado's federal desgination as quantum hub

Anonymous — Mon, 23 Oct 2023 23:07:50 +0000

Ruzzene and Rieker discuss Colorado's federal desgination as quantum hub Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/23/2023 - 17:07

The designation positions Colorado to apply for and secure federal funding opportunities to advance the industry.

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Mechanical's Ruzzene delivers a speech on the state of research at ��񱦵�

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 21:24:57 +0000

Mechanical's Ruzzene delivers a speech on the state of research at ��񱦵� Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/17/2023 - 15:24

Commercialization of innovations from the ��񱦵� has had an $8 billion impact on the U.S. economy and a $5.2 billion impact on the Colorado economy — and the university doesn't plan to slow down anytime soon.

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New Partnership Aims to Revolutionize Sensor Technology for Indoor Growing

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 16:39:17 +0000

New Partnership Aims to Revolutionize Sensor Technology for Indoor Growing Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/17/2023 - 10:39

AGEYE Technologies (AGEYE) is partnering with Professor Whiting at the University of Colorado at Boulder on an innovative project titled “Novel Sensors for Efficient and Scalable Production of Indoor Crops.

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Faculty, staff and students celebrate diversity at the ME Fall Festival

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Oct 2023 15:17:27 +0000

Faculty, staff and students celebrate diversity at the ME Fall Festival Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/16/2023 - 09:17

Michael Lock Swingen

The Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering hosted its third-annual ME Fall Festival on Oct. 12. The event, sponsored by the department’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Working Group, celebrates the diversity of cultures within the department.

ME faculty, staff and students gathered to share their own traditions, learn about their peers’ backgrounds and build community. The event also highlighted the holidays and observances that student groups and faculty recognize during the fall season.

Janet Tsai, associate teaching professor and chair of the DEI Working Group, explained the origins of the ME Fall Festival.

"The ME Fall Festival was inspired by the idea that there are lots of ways our students, staff and faculty mark the Fall season from Diwali and the Mid-Autumn Festival to Día de los Muertos and Halloween," Tsai said. "Timing the Fall Festival close to Indigenous People's Day also offers a chance to discuss ��񱦵�'s Land Acknowledgment and reconcile our local history with our current campus. The ME DEI Working Group has sponsored the Fall Festival for three years now, and it has become a highlight of our Fall semester here in Mechanical Engineering."

“After the summer of 2020, a lot of members of our department felt like we should be doing more in the area of diversity and inclusion,” said Tsai. “It was just people who wanted to start talking more and really trying to think about how we can make our department more welcoming and hospitable to everybody.”

The event had a land acknowledgment poster placed in the courtyard where the event was held and included a statement from the Center of Native American and Indigenous Studies suggesting action to address continuing inequities.

“These are great conversations for us to be having to make sure that people don't just read the land acknowledgement and feel like they're done, but actually try to engage,” said Tsai.

Event attendees participated in activities and games, including a raffle with a chance to win prizes and a cricket station where you could practice batting, which was hosted by The American Association of Engineers of Indian Origin (AAEIO). There was also homemade salsa made by lecturer Carmen Pacheco-Borden’s company Carmen’s Salsa, as well as coffee made from beans from around the world and brewed by students in the Design of Coffee course.

The ME Fall Festival offered student affinity groups an opportunity to increase their visibility across the department. Here’s what students had to say about their experiences in these organizations:

Jerry Nguyen, The Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers (SASE): “Our main goal is to build community with Asian scientists and engineers. But we also offer professional development opportunities. Students get to go to national conferences and meet other people from other chapters and employers from all over the world. We also invite employers to our club meetings to talk to students and do professional development.”

Angelina Miller, Women of Aeronautics & Astronautics (WoAA) : “The club was created in spring of 2019 and was basically designed to help marginalized genders in the aerospace community to find a place where they can help meet other people and bring more of a community to them so that they don't feel alone. And we also try to offer a bunch of professional and technical opportunities for them to grow.”

--Pradyumna Rao, The American Association of Engineers of Indian Origin (AAEIO): “When I arrived in the United States from India, I made some mistakes as an undergraduate that I felt were unnecessary. With a little bit of guidance, with a little bit of support, I felt like I could have made more out of my academic experience. Our organization's aim is quite simple. We want to make sure that our members, when they come here, they can make the most inside the classroom as well as outside.”

--Isaac Chavarria,The Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE): “We’re trying to help Hispanics have a connection to the professional world through either older students, alumni or professors. It’s proven that having a community helps you do better in school. Being able to offer that to other Hispanics and being the person who guides this society is such a blessing.”

The ME Fall Festival, sponsored by the department’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Working Group, celebrates the diversity of cultures within the department.

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Segil's new company Afference could change how you interact with your PC

Anonymous — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 15:54:46 +0000

Segil's new company Afference could change how you interact with your PC Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/10/2023 - 09:54

The problem Afference has set out to solve with its Phantom glove is simple: How can we create synchronized tactile sensations with what the user sees visually?

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Neu tapped as new Director of Biomedical Engineering Program at ��񱦵�

Anonymous — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 22:37:53 +0000

Neu tapped as new Director of Biomedical Engineering Program at ��񱦵� Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/09/2023 - 16:37

Director Mark Borden, who helped grow the program into a thriving community of interdisciplinary researchers and students since its inception in 2018, has passed off the reins to Professor Corey Neu.

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The flow of nature inspires 2023 Experimental Physics Investigator Nathalie Vriend

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Oct 2023 20:30:22 +0000

The flow of nature inspires 2023 Experimental Physics Investigator Nathalie Vriend Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/03/2023 - 14:30

Michael Lock Swingen

When Associate Professor Nathalie Vriend was named a 2023 Experimental Physics Investigator by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, a highly prestigious award in the experimental physics community, the foundation invited her to attend their annual conference. But she had to decline – she was in the middle of hiking the 567-mile Colorado Trail with her family.

She’ll be there next year, though. The funding provides five years of support for her research, which is itself inspired by her love of nature.

The Moore Foundation’s Experimental Physics Investigators Initiative supports experimental physicists to tackle their most creative research ideas. Vriend will receive $1.25 million from the foundation to further her innovative research in granular flows in the natural environment.

In her laboratory experiments, Vriend uses a technique called photoelasticity that analyzes how patterns of light within particles change according to the magnitude and direction of forces exerted upon them. The changing patterns of light can give Vriend a picture of the stress distribution between particles in situations like rockslides or cereals flowing out of a grain silo.

“We can measure how these tiny particles flow,” Vriend said, “and understand their acceleration and velocity and create models of their movement.”

With the funding from the Moore Foundation, Vriend plans to take her research to another level. So far, Vriend has focused on dry granular flows, like sand or snow, but now she wants to introduce fluid between the particles. In addition to the solid contact forces already exerted onto the particles, this would add hydrodynamic stresses as well.

“If you think about fluids like water, they behave in a certain way. We call it Newtonian. If you stress it harder, then it will resist harder, and it's very linear,” Vriend said. “But if you insert particles, it changes the fluids in a nonlinear way. And it makes it very difficult to model.”

The scientific community is completely in the dark about how particles function within particle-fluid states of matter, which are called “suspensions,” like mudslides or lava flows. Vriend’s research presents a unique opportunity to characterize suspensions by quantitatively measuring and modeling their interactions.

Ultimately, Vriend’s work has the potential to advance the analysis, modeling, and predicting of natural hazards like landslides, avalanches or ice formations.

“I love to work from nature,” said Vriend, who considers herself chiefly a mechanical engineer but versed in geophysics as well. At Cambridge University, Vriend spent nine years in the applied math department, where she worked on fluid dynamics before moving to the earth science department for three years.

For someone like Vriend who enjoys nature, Colorado is good place to be.

Since relocating to ��񱦵� last year, Vriend has been named a 2023 Experimental Physics Investigator by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, a highly prestigious award in the experimental physics community.

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Faculty

Jayaram and team win IROS Best Paper Award on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics

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New Frequency Comb Can Identify Molecules in 20-Nanosecond Snapshots

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Ranked #14 among U.S. universities by National Academy of Inventors, CU leads in translating innovation into impact

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Ruzzene and Rieker discuss Colorado's federal desgination as quantum hub

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Mechanical's Ruzzene delivers a speech on the state of research at ���񱦵�

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New Partnership Aims to Revolutionize Sensor Technology for Indoor Growing

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Faculty, staff and students celebrate diversity at the ME Fall Festival

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Segil's new company Afference could change how you interact with your PC

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Neu tapped as new Director of Biomedical Engineering Program at ���񱦵�

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The flow of nature inspires 2023 Experimental Physics Investigator Nathalie Vriend

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Mechanical's Ruzzene delivers a speech on the state of research at ��񱦵�

Neu tapped as new Director of Biomedical Engineering Program at ��񱦵�