Robotics

A robotic arm holding the hand of a mannequin.

Soft robots gain new strength

Penn Engineers have developed a clutch 63 times stronger than current electroadhesive clutches, making soft robots stronger and safer and making virtual reality gloves feel more real.

A large two-story wall inside a library beside a staircase.

A relief wall that’s a window onto architecture’s future

A public library relief wall is a novel approach to architectural design and robotic fabrication from the Weitzman School and the Robotics Lab.

People and places at Penn: Research

From Charles Addams Fine Arts Hall to the Schuylkill River, four researchers share their science and their spaces.

Technical.ly Philly

Artists and Penn Ph.D.s collabed to explore the intersection of art and engineering. Check out their exhibit

In the culminating project of Penn’s Robotics Art Residency, three artists hosted at the Pennovation Center developed collaborative exhibits with Ph.D. students at the GRASP Lab of the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Weitzman School of Design.

Tiny swimming robots can restructure materials on a microscopic level

Penn Engineers are working to make controlling microscopic processes, such as transporting drugs to tumors for precise therapies, faster, safer, and more reliable through the use of microrobots.

Physics World

Liquid crystals bring robotics to the microscale

In collaboration with the University of Ljubljana, Kathleen Stebe of the School of Engineering and Applied Science has built a swimming microrobot that paddles by rotating liquid crystal molecules.

A person sticks a paper coffee cup inside some branches holding together the stickbot.

A robot made of sticks

Devin Carroll, a doctoral candidate in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, is designing a modular robot called StickBot, which may be adapted for rehabilitation use in global public health settings.

The New York Times

The long road to driverless trucks

Steve Viscelli of the School of Arts & Sciences comments on the complexities and uncertainties of the emerging self-driving truck industry.

Two drone-like robots. A smaller one is on the left. A larger one is on the right. The larger one is making a 3D printout of something that looks like white foam.

3D printing drones work like bees to build and repair structures while flying

Researchers including Weitzman’s Robert Stuart-Smith have made a swarm of bee-inspired drones that can collectively 3D print material while in flight, allowing unbounded manufacturing for building and repairing structures.

New Scientist

Drone swarm that 3D prints cement structures could construct buildings

Robert Stuart-Smith of the Weitzman School of Design and colleagues demonstrate how 3D-printing drones can create large structures made of foam or cement, paving the way for future construction efforts.

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