Margaret Zhu and the Serpent Robotics team have leveraged Penn resources to create a tree-cutting robot, improving safety in a dangerous industry. The President’s Innovation Prize allows Zhu to iterate and pilot the device over the next year.
3 min. read
Tree trimmers have one of the most dangerous jobs in America, with falls, falling tree limbs, and equipment injuries causing a fatality rate much higher than the national average.
Margaret Zhu, a fourth-year finance major in the Wharton School from Short Hills, New Jersey, decided to do something about it. She co-founded Serpent Robotics, a startup that is prototyping a rope-climbing, ground-controlled robotic arborist system—allowing tree care workers to stay on the ground.
Penn President J. Larry Jamesonannounced Zhu as a recipient of the 2026 President’s Innovation Prize, which empowers Penn undergrads to design and undertake year-long post-graduation projects that make a positive, lasting difference in the world. Zhu is receiving $100,000 in implementation costs for Serpent Robotics and a $50,000 living stipend.
“Margaret aims to increase safety in one of the most dangerous jobs in our country,” says Penn President J. Larry Jameson. “Her use of cutting edge-technology together with human insight is quintessentially Penn and will help protect arborists while improving the industry.”
Zhu says that she and the Serpent Robotics team—Steyn Knollema, Jason Li, and Yiran (Kevin) Xuan, master’s students in the Integrated Product Design program—will iterate the design and pilot it with four residential tree care companies in Pennsylvania and Seattle.
Margaret Zhu and the Serpent Robotics team fine-tuning their robot at Tangen Hall.
“If you’ve ever watched an arborist climb a tree with a chain saw, you realize how dangerous tree care is,” Babin says. “Serpent Robotics is leveraging robotics to improve safety and address labor shortages in tree care. Serpent’s robot is the first-of-its-kind to allow remote operation and branch removal.”
How the device works
The robot is about two feet tall and made from machine-cut parts, Zhu says, including custom-made steel plates and 3D-printed parts.
“All the resources that Penn has put into creating this entrepreneurial ecosystem and hub have paid off,” Zhu says.
Step one for the tree care workers is to toss their rope into the tree and attach the robot to the rope. The robot has a motorized ascender, and the tree care workers use a Nintendo-like remote control—equipped with a camera feed from the robot—to control where it goes.
The system has two claws to clamp onto the branch and blades to make the cuts; the operator can either let the branch drop or have the robot hold the cut branch on the way down, so it doesn’t hit anything below.
Why this matters
Zhu notes that the tree-trimming industry includes power utilities—trees are the top cause of electrical outages in the United States—and companies cutting branches from trees that are diseased or have been damaged in a storm.
Penn President J. Larry Jameson celebrated all the winners of this year’s Presidential Prizes at the annual PIP PEP luncheon, including Zhu, on May 1st.
(Image: Eddy Marenco)
Her number one goal with Serpent Robotics is to improve safety. “If we’re saving people’s lives or saving someone from getting hospitalized, we’re doing our job correctly,” she says. “Because it’s such an overlooked industry, it really gives us extra interest in working on this problem.”
Zhu says she also hopes the technology will improve labor shortages and help utilities increase vegetation management while keeping costs down.
When she is not in class, doing an internship in the finance industry, or supporting the Mask and Wig Club musical comedy troupe as business staff, Zhu might be found running—an activity that contributes to why trees matter to her. “You really appreciate the nature and the fresh air that has been afforded to us by all that is green and grows,” she says.
How Penn made this possible
Serpent Robotics got its start in the fall of 2024 with Y-Prize, a competition organized by Wharton’s Mack Institute for Innovation Management, Penn Center for Innovation, and Penn Engineering. Tasked with designing a commercial use case for a robotic arm, Zhu, Knollema, Li, and Xuan came up with digital renderings for a tree-cutting robot and the team was named a finalist.
Then came the most instrumental turning point, Zhu says: They applied to Venture Lab’s Startup Challenge last year and won $20,000, allowing the team to develop a basic prototype at Pennovation Works last summer. Next, they participated in Venture Labs’ VIP-X accelerator program, learning from experts about raising capital, marketing, and more.
“All the resources that Penn has put into creating this entrepreneurial ecosystem and hub have paid off,” Zhu says. “We could not be more grateful.”
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