Today I attended a lecture given by Professor Robert Wood from the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He talked about creating robots on an extremely small scale; the size of a house fly! If the robot is that small, imagine how small the its parts must be!
The part of his lecture I found very interesting was the process of assembly. He joked about graduate students spending weeks putting together the parts using tweezers. He then told us about how looking at origami and his sons pop-up books gave him the idea to assemble the robotic insects in a similar way. A detailed explanation can be found in this video:
He also showed us some other really cool designs like this centipede:
Another aspect I liked about his work is how interdisciplinary it is, combining math, physics, biology, engineering, computer science and even arts like oragami.
Sidenote: I've always felt uncomfortable about seeing insects in the restroom. Now my fears of being spied on by them during private hours have more legitimacy.
I love your side note! I thought it was really interesting how he thought of the unique pop-up idea form looking at his children's different books.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't able to attend his lecture, so I found this super informative about what he talked about in person! Attaching videos of some of his ideas was a great idea. Love the end note!
ReplyDeleteI like the videos that you were able to find with the insects in them! I also like how you summarized all the information that was thrown at us.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't at the lecture, so I'm glad that this gave me a look into what he lectured on. The videos are a nice touch, very interesting!
ReplyDeleteI like how you included the videos! It gives a clearer description of the overall lecture.
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