Robotics

smores

ModLab’s ‘SMORES’ are expanding robot autonomy

A self-assembling modular robot for extreme shapeshifting (SMORES) is designed to experience environmental features and modify its movement and function in response, bringing a new level of autonomy to the world of robotics.

Penn Today Staff ・

Building Futures Through LEGOs

Building futures through LEGOs

In the FIRST LEGO League tournament, middle school teams mentored by Penn Engineering students worked to design and build robots related to the theme of water.

Ali Sundermier

swarm

These robot teams will be intelligent, adaptive, and resilient

The United States Army Research Laboratory awarded the School of Engineering and Applied Science a five-year, $27 million grant to develop new methods of creating autonomous, intelligent, and resilient teams of robots.

Evan Lerner, Ali Sundermier ・

Sung is developing design software to enable people without an engineering background to create custom origami robots that can move on the ground. The tool, called Interactive Robogami, is based on a database of robot parts which users can combine together like a “virtual Lego set.”

These small robots are inspired by origami

Through origami-inspired engineering, one researcher hopes to not only create rapidly fabricable robots, but also build intuitive design software that enables others who may not be trained in engineering to create their own personalized robots.

Ali Sundermier

Proton Pack

Teaching Robots to ‘Feel with Their Eyes’

An engineering Ph.D. student is leading a project that builds up a database of surfaces so that robots may better identify what objects are made of and how to handle them.

Ali Sundermier

RET-program

Teachers get a crash course in robotics

For six weeks during her summer vacation, Henry C. Lea School’s Latoya Landfair spent hours each day in Penn’s General Robotics, Automation, Sensing, and Perception (GRASP) Laboratory. Studying alongside nine other School District of Philadelphia middle school teachers, Landfair was able to learn about computer vision—a field she plans to introduce to her seventh-grade math students this year.

Lauren Hertzler ・



In the News


The Architect’s Newspaper

A sculptural foam installation demonstrates the promise of a new technology-focused degree at Penn

Graduate students in a new robotics and fabrication program at the Weitzman School of Design, under the guidance of Andrew Saunders, have installed a large-scale sculptural wall in the atrium of the Middletown, Pennsylvania, Free Library.

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Technical.ly Philly

These Philly profs working on VR education, deepfake spotters, and tiny robots make predictions for next-gen tech

Mark Miskin of the School of Engineering and Applied Science is using tools from the semiconductor industry to develop nanotechnologies for microscopic robots.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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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