Soft robots provide an opportunity to bridge the gap between machines and people. In contrast to hard bodied robots, soft robots have bodies made out of intrinsically soft and/or extensible materials (e.g. silicone rubbers) that can deform and absorb much of the energy arising from ...
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In this project we are developing self-driving cars for customized mobility on demand as part of the SMART program. The objective is to develop data-driven customized transportation. We are developing a fleet of self-driving cars consisting of golf carts and electric cars. Mobility on demand ...
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A great challenge with today’s robots is that it takes a long time to design and fabricate new robots. We need to speed up the creation of robots. Many different types of robots are available today, but each of these robots took many years to ...
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Observing whales is important for marine biology tasks such as taking census, determining family lineage, and general behavior observations. Currently, whales are observed manually using binoculars and cameras from the shore or from boats, and notes are made using pencil and paper. The process is ...
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The creation of a robot chef represents a grand challenge for the field of robotics. Cooking is one of the most important activities that takes place in the home, and a robotic chef capable of following arbitrary recipes would have many applications in both household ...
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We wish to monitor and control the position of herd animals at fine granularity to improve he management of pastures and herds. In collaboration with Dean Anderson from the USDA we developed wearable devices for cattle. Each animal in the herd is given a smart ...
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Seraph is a robot-human dance. This piece explores the relationship between man and machine in a pastoral fable involving a dancer and two flying robots. Set to a Schubert piano trio, the resulting work explores the expressive potential of machines, presenting in the process a ...
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The Umbrella Project (UP) is a large-scape participatory experiment in which hundreds of participants light up the night’s sky. The participants use the color-changing umbrellas to create images that are projected in real time on a large screen, and use this feedback along with high-level ...
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Computational thinking is an important part of a modern education, and robotics provides a powerful tool for teaching programming logic in an interactive and engaging way. We are developing a robot garden: a distributed multi-robot system consisting of robot flowers, robot sheep, and robot ducks. ...
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In August 2014 I traveled to Taveuni, the Garden Island of Fiji, with a treasure trove: a box of 60 Little Suns, the gift of light for school children. I had been visiting Taveuni for many years, at first for conducting experiments for my underwater ...
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