One robot that can retrieve objects drifting into deep water using a whirligig beetle’s swimming ability. Another that can deliver letters and greeting cards with the speed and grace of a dragonfly. Both were among the “Robo-Bugs” imagined and designed by third graders at Barclay Elementary/Middle School last fall.
The lowly cockroach has long been vilified as a spreader of disease and a marker of filth and squalor. But Chen Li, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, is studying them to improve the way robots navigate.
An open-source software and electronics kit created by a team of Whiting School faculty members, research engineers, and students for first-generation da Vinci surgical robots is in use at more than 25 research institutions around the world.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, demand for robotics engineers is on the rise, with job growth now through 2018 in the range of…