News from

Mechanical Engineering

Reset All Filters
116 Results
Engineers and nurses team up to build inflatable robots
A soft robot mimicking octopus skin, to develop the basis for a new type of soft robot.

Pikul and collaborators at Cornell took inspiration from octopus skin, which changes its texture to mimic rough surfaces, to develop the basis for a new type of soft robot. Pikul and colleagues at Penn are now looking at how such systems could be used to help move patients in healthcare settings. (Image: J. H. Pikul et al. Science 2017)

Engineers and nurses team up to build inflatable robots

Penn Engineering and Penn Nursing’s collaboration in this new area of “soft robotics” is critical for designing machines that can safely interact with people in health care settings.

Penn Today Staff

Evan and the chocolate factory
A dish of bespoke 3D printed chocolates

Evan and the chocolate factory

Engineering student Evan Weinstein fixated on the idea of liberating bespoke chocolates from the confines of both the bar and the mold. Rather than cast a chocolate shape, why not build it? Cocoa Press is his solution. 
Inspiring young women in STEM
a group of people seated at a circle of chairs talking to each other

Inspiring young women in STEM

Over two days, nearly two dozen female STEM role models at Penn welcomed more than 100 high school students and teachers to campus as part of the Girls Advancing in STEM (GAINS) Initiative Conference on campus.

Erica K. Brockmeier

New topological insulator can reroute photonic ‘traffic’ on the fly
Abstract background with circuit.

New topological insulator can reroute photonic ‘traffic’ on the fly

Penn researchers, who first discovered topological insulators in 2005, have shown, for the first time, a way for a topological insulator to make use of its entire footprint without wasted space throughout the material’s interior.

Penn Today Staff

Making waves with metamaterials
a round disk making a slow-motion wave over a field of small metal balls

A wave propagating across the researchers’ mechanical metamaterial at 6,000 frames per second. (Image: Penn Engineering)

Making waves with metamaterials

Penn engineers are using a custom mechanical metamaterial, an artificial structure with properties that are defined by its geometry instead of its composition, to study how non-linear waves move in a soft, 2D system to better understand how mechanical metamaterials could be used in the future.

Penn Today Staff

A new bone-like metal foam can ‘heal’ at room temperature
a microscopic view of bone metal

A new bone-like metal foam can ‘heal’ at room temperature

Penn Engineers have developed a way to repair metal at room temperature, rather than welding. They call their technique “healing” because of its similarity to the way bones heal, recruiting raw material and energy from an external source.

Penn Today Staff

Solving complex problems with purpose
angelica padilla working in a lab on a crowded optics table looking at a computer

Solving complex problems with purpose

Senior Angelica Padilla, who recently completed research through the Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter undergraduate summer program, shares her passion for fluid mechanics.

Erica K. Brockmeier

Blinking eye-on-a-chip used for disease modeling and drug testing
The Huh lab’s eye-on-a-chip attached to a motorized, gelatin-based eyelid.

The Huh lab’s eye-on-a-chip attached to a motorized, gelatin-based eyelid. (Image: Penn Engineering)

Blinking eye-on-a-chip used for disease modeling and drug testing

Penn Engineering’s Dan Huh and Jeongyun Seo built an eye model that could imitate a healthy eye and an eye with dry eye disease, allowing them to test an experimental drug without risk of human harm.

Penn Today Staff

Iron Man: The engineer who became a superhero
Film still of Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man character standing at a work table full of tools trying on a robotic-looking arm.
  • Q&A

    • Iron Man: The engineer who became a superhero

    A Q&A with Marc Miskin and James Pikul about the real-world tech and practical limitations that underly Tony Stark’s superpowered suit.

    Erica K. Brockmeier

    ‘Why not fly over it?’ Uber picks New Jersey firms in ambitious bid to beat traffic congestion

    ‘Why not fly over it?’ Uber picks New Jersey firms in ambitious bid to beat traffic congestion

    Rahul Mangharam of the School of Engineering and Applied Science commented on Uber’s new air taxi venture. “It’s going to be a very congested sky,” he said. “You want to make sure that each flight plan is safe by design, and that even if they do mess up for some reason, they have a fallback option.”