Page 13 - Penn Engineering News Today

Even without a brain, metal-eating robots can search for food When it comes to powering mobile robots, batteries present a problematic paradox: the more energy they contain, the more they weigh, and thus the more energy the robot needs to move. Energy harvesters, like solar panels, might work for some applications, but they don’t deliver power quickly or consistently enough for sustained travel. The “metal-eating” robot can follow a metal path without using a...

New campus buildings to house centers for innovation and collaboration Several new facilities, including Tangen Hall and the Academic Research Building, have finished construction and the University is eyeing opening dates. Penn Today provides an overview. The glass exterior of Tangen Hall, which crews began construction on in summer 2018 and completed in December 2020. It was designed as a space for innovation and collaboration in...

The study outlines how complicated behavior can be achieved without a central processor.

Advanced Intelligent Systems, the Penn State team describes how the left and right wheels of the robot are powered by different ECVS units. This enables a basic form of navigation and foraging where the robot will automatically steer toward metal surfaces it can harvest power from, without assistance from a computer. The rudimentary form of navigation takes inspiration from the natural world, according to the team. “Bacteria are able to autonomously navigate toward nutrients through a process...

Penn researchers are working to engineer nanoscale features on ultra-lightweight materials, finding the ideal combination that will allow those materials to lift themselves into the air using the energy provided by light.

Niko Simpkins: At the nexus of engineering and music For Niko Simpkins, a musician who performs, produces, and engineers his own tracks, the most exciting processes combine structure and flexibility, creativity, and rigor. As a third-year student in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, he sees his mechanical engineering education as a framework for problem solving that might serve him across a broad set of endeavors, and for now, he’s more interested in learning than narrowing to an...

New bioprinting technique allows for complex microtissues Bioprinting is currently used to generate model tissues for research and has potential applications in regenerative medicine. Existing bioprinting techniques rely on printing cells embedded in hydrogels, which results in low-cell-density constructs that are well below what is required to grow functional tissues. Maneuvering different kinds of cells into position to replicate the complex makeup of an organ, particularly at organlike cell ...

Maybe this is why were single Richard Speed Mon 15 Feb 2021 // 12:28 UTC Share Copy Happy ENIAC Day! Join us for a celebration of the 75th anniversary of the launch of the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer. Yes, we know that things actually kicked off in 1945 rather than 15 February 1946, but todays the day when, 75 years ago, the machine was launched at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2011, Philadelphia City Council declared 15 February as "ENIAC Day" and ...

GRASP Lab’s coolest robot yet Mark Yim, Asa Whitney Professor of Mechanical Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, has seen any number of innovative robots walk, fly, hop, roll and otherwise propel themselves about the GRASP Lab, where he serves as Ruzena Bajcsy Director. But the lab’s latest creation is, quite literally, its coolest yet: it’s made out of ice. IceBot’s structural components are made out of ice, which could be cut and ...

Researchers measure different types of curiosity studying ‘hunters and busybodies’ Curiosity has been found to play a role in our learning and emotional well-being, but due to the open-ended nature of how curiosity is actually practiced, measuring it is challenging. Psychological studies have attempted to gauge participants’ curiosity through their engagement in specific activities, however, such methods focus on quantifying a person’s curiosity rather than understanding the different w...