By Alex Stewart A seal races after a herring twisting and darting through the water in the dead of night. The seal cannot see the fish it is chasing, but instead relies on its sensitive …
seminar
Soft robots, hard achievements
By Fan Lou Imagine a robot that is made with no rigid parts. That is what Marc Kilpack, an assistant professor from Brigham Young University, demonstrated in his presentation on soft robotics. His seminar, titled …
Wind energy: The feasible path to sustainable energy
By Samuel Moss As the world continually seeks alternatives to large carbon footprint energy sources, the demand for efficient renewable energy continues to increase. In the United States, 7% of current energy comes from wind …
Mechanical Engineering and Medicine Collide
By Charlie Chermak Have you ever been curious how asthma medication travels throughout your body or how blood flow is affected by plaque buildup in your arteries? New research in the field of fluid mechanics …
Cell mechanics: Motion of the microscopic
By Hayley Raj It may be hard to imagine that the microscopic cells in our blood follow specific patterns of flow, and that this may have important physiological consequences, but Professor Mike Graham is focusing …
Metamaterials: From Spycraft to Infinity and Beyond
By Stephan Blanz The future is here, but if you don’t look closely, you might miss it. Dr. Igor Bargatin, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics at the University of Pennsylvania is creating metamaterials …
Less is More When it Comes to the Floor
By Madeleine Girard Would you be surprised to learn that some of the floors you have walked on may contain several large plastic “air bubbles” made from recycled materials? Would you be more surprised to …
To Mach 5 and beyond: Jack McNamara pushes the limits with hypersonic flight
By Anna Boggs Imagine being able to fly from New York to California in less time than it takes you to go to the grocery store. While it may seem like a dream, hypersonic flight …
Stefano Gonella steers earthquakes with LEGOs
By Daniel Reasa LEGO cylinders on a plate form a simplified model of a forest, and Prof. Stefano Gonella has experimentally shown that physical waves (analogous to earthquakes) can be guided along complex paths created …
Davide Bigoni applies extreme materials to extreme applications
By David Murgado New challenges and advances in technology call for special types of materials. Materials that show extreme properties make them excellent candidates to solve problems where ordinary materials cannot perform. In this field …