The Editor and Editorial Board of the Journal of Mechanical Design would like to thank all of the reviewers for volunteering their expertise and time reviewing manuscripts in 2020. Serving as reviewers for the journal is a critical service necessary to maintain the quality of our publication and to provide the authors with a valuable …
Berkeley Researchers Use 3D Printer to Make Stronger, Greener Concrete
Researchers at UC Berkeley have developed a new way to reinforce concrete with a polymer lattice, an advance that could rival other polymer-based enhancements and improve concrete’s ductility while reducing the material’s carbon emissions. The Berkeley team used a 3D printer to build octet lattices out of polymer, and then filled them with ultra-high performance …
Berkeley ME Group Wins Best Paper Award at ASME Design Conference
UC Berkeley Mechanical Engineering faculty (Alice Agogino and Kosa Goucher-Lambert), PhD graduates (Eui-Young Kim, Vivek Rao) and a visiting student from the University of Minnesota (Jieun Kwon) have been recognized for their research paper on decision making about design methods. They won the 2020 Best Paper Award in the Design Theory and Method division at the ASME …
UC Berkeley Researchers Motivated by Society, Personal Interests, Scientific Community
Mechanical engineering professor Homayoon Kazerooni, who has developed marketable exoskeletons — wearable devices that assist people who have limited mobility — sees applied research as a more effective means of accomplishing his goals. “There are urgent technological problems that need to be solved since the results would be life changing,” Kazerooni said in an email. …
The Jacobs Institute’s Student Design Challenge Brings New Ideas to Address COVID-19
We are pleased to share the results of our COVID-19 Design Challenge, launched in early April as the second month of shelter-in-place orders began. Spear-headed by ME professor, Dr. Kosa Goucher-Lambert, the Design Challenge encouraged student teams to consider how design could address the current climate of the COVID-19 pandemic and the future challenges it would …
California Mechanics for the Greater Good Design Competition
This semester, thanks to the generous sponsorship of the McDonald family (Evan – BA Arts & Arch 1989, MA Arch 1994, MBA 2000, and Christy, BA Fine Arts 1989), the department held a competition among ME102B design projects entitled “California Mechanics for the Greater Good Design Competition.” ME102B is a senior level capstone design course, …
Paralyzed Man Walks with Brain-Controlled Exoskeleton
A man paralyzed from the shoulders down has been able to walk using a pioneering four-limb robotic system, or exoskeleton, that is commanded and controlled by signals from his brain. With a ceiling-mounted harness for balance, the 28-year-old tetraplegic patient used a system of sensors implanted near his brain to send messages to move all …
Sensor Robots Can Handle Hazardous Situations
The “Squishy Robot” is equipped with six cameras, GPS, and various interchangeable chemical, biological, and radiological sensors that deliver data and 360-degree videos in situations where human access can be difficult or unsafe.
You Can’t Squash This Roach-Inspired Robot
If the sight of a skittering bug makes you squirm, you may want to look away — a new insect-sized robot created by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, can scurry across the floor at nearly the speed of a darting cockroach.
The Squishy Robots That Could Save the World
Two years ago, Alice Agogino, a UC-Berkeley mechanical engineering professor, was working on a contract to build exploratory robots for NASA Ames. She had been recruited to help design what would eventually become a fleet of mobile, ultra-impact-resistant, remote-sensing robots that could protect sensitive scientific equipment during a drop from orbit onto the surface of …
Squishy Robotics at TechCrunch
Squishy Robotics was invited to demo at TechCrunch Robotics+AI on Thursday 18, 2019.
Million Hands
“Million Hands,” a 2017 CITRIS seed-funded project that aims to build an open-source platform for customizable, functional, and low-cost prosthetic hands, has been making progress in developing 3D-printed prosthetic hands with more robust capability.
Alice Agogino: Diversity by Design
by Berkeley ENGINEERING Special Edition: 150 Years of Berkeley Engineering Luminaries Fittingly, Alice Agogino’s research group — the BEST Lab Berkeley Emergent Space Tensegrities/Energy and Sustainable Technologies/Expert Systems Technologies Lab, is an amalgam of research reflecting her wide-ranging expertise and interests. The only thing the lab lacks in its name is Agogino’s reputation as a …
ME Professor Alice Agogino Wins 2017 ASME Design Theory and Methodology Award
Sponsored by the ASME Design Engineering Division, ME Professor Alice Agogino was awarded the 2017 Design Theory and Methods Award. The award recognizes “sustained and meritorious contributions to research education service training of researchers or practitioners overall leadership in advancing the field or any combination of these in the field of Design Theory and Methodology.” …
ME Professor Alice Agogino and Grace O’Connell Awarded CITRIS Seed Funding for Their Work on 3D Printed Prosthetic Hands
ME Professors Alice Agogino and Grace O’Connell have been awarded the CITRIS and the Banatao Institute’s 2017 Core Seed Funding. The funding was awarded for their project “Million Hands: Prosthetic Hands for Children Through and Open Source Platform, 3D Printers and Sensors.” With this project, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and Davis will …
ME Doctoral Graduate Euiyoung Kim Wins 2016 Best Paper Award at the 2016 ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conference
ME Doctoral graduate Euiyoung Kim, along with his co-authors Jaewoo Chung, ME Teaching Professor Sara Beckman, and ME Professor Alice Agogino, won the 2016 Best Paper Award at the 2016 American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ International Design Engineering Technical Conference. The topic of the paper, titled “Design Roadmapping: A Framework and Case Study of Planning …
ME Doctoral Student Aimee Goncalves Helps Young Makers Build Prosthetic Hands for Children in Need
On Tuesday afternoons in June and July, 30 middle school-aged girls gather in one of the maker spaces in Jacobs Hall. They are participants in one of four weeklong sessions of Girls in Engineering, a summer program at Berkeley designed to increase diversity in STEM fields by inspiring girls about the wonders and impact of engineering and …
SuitX’s Robot Suit Lets Paralyzed People Walk Again
SuitX, a Berkeley startup, has developed what promises to be the lightest, lowest-cost exoskeleton yet — a low-profile robotic suit that helps people who use wheelchairs stand up and walk.
ME Ph.D. Candidate Sonia Travaglini is “Defining the Original Smart Material”
The kingdom fungi contains some of the oldest known terrestrial organisms in the world. Sonia Travaglini, a Ph.D. candidate in mechanical engineering, is studying the properties of part of this eclectic kingdom to find new sources for sustainable composites.
ME Professor Homayoon Kazerooni’s Lab Advances as a Top 20 Finalist in “Robotics for Good” Competition
The Berkeley Robotics & Human Engineering Laboratory’s medical exoskeleton, Phoenix, and its specific use for children with Cerebral Palsy, was named as one of the top 20 finalists in the Robotics for Good competition. Phoenix was chosen from a pool of 664 entries, from 121 countries, in December of 2015. The competition and judging ceremony …
ME Professor Alice M. Agogino Honored by ASME for Furthering Engineering Design Education
Contact: Mel Torre Phone: 212 591-8157 Email: torrem@asme.org Online: www.asme.org FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Alice M. Agogino, Ph.D., a resident of Berkeley, Calif., and Roscoe and Elizabeth Hughes professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California UC, Berkeley, was honored by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers ASME. She was recognized for tireless efforts in …
ME Professor Alice Agogino’s BEST Lab’s Shape-Shifting Robots Featured on KQED
Alice Agogino is a mechanical engineering professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and she and her lab are among a group of engineers that are designing what might be the next generation of space exploring robots. These don’t look like the Mars rovers with the big wheels that you may be thinking of– oh no, …
ME Professor Alice Agogino’s Shape-Shifting Robots Featured on KQED Quest
Have you ever seen a skeleton held together with wire in a classroom or at a museum? What would happen if you removed the wire? All of the bones would fall into a heap on the floor! In reality, there are no wires within our bodies. Instead, our bodies are held together with ligaments and soft tissue. …
ME Students Drew McPherson and Kevin Haninger Team Up to Launch Design Group to Help Tackle Difficulties Associated with Disabilities
ME senior Drew McPherson and PhD student Kevin Haninger have teamed up with cognitive science student Francisco Peralta to launch EnableTech. EnableTech is a student organization that “”aims at providing assistive technologies to people with disabilities in the Berkeley community. These assistive technologies will be investigated, designed, and, if needed, prototyped by students interested in real …
SF Business Journal Features Jacobs Hall and ME Chair David Dornfeld
The San Francisco Business Journal recently published an article featuring UC Berkeley’s new Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation, and the opportunity it will bring to Bay Area companies to help mentor and mold students in the College of Engineering. In the article, ME Chair David Dornfeld, who was recently named Faculty Director of the institute, spoke of …
ME Professor Dennis K. Lieu Wins EDGD’s Distinguished Service Award
At the June 2015 annual meeting of the American Society for Engineering Education ASEE in Seattle, ME Professor Dennis K. Lieu was presented with the Distinguished Service Award DSA by the Engineering Design Graphics Division EDGD. The Distinguished Service Award is a the highest award given by EDGD, which is the oldest division within ASEE.
ME Professor Alice Agogino & Students Win Best Paper Awards at ICED15
Congratulations to ME Professor Alice Agogino, and her students, on winning two Reviewer’s Favourite “”Best Paper”” Awards at this year’s International Conference on Engineering Design! Professor Agogino presented a paper on Euiyoung Kim’s doctoral research, “Design Roadmapping: Challenges and Opportunities” by Euiyoung Kim, Shun Yao, and Agogino. The paper won the first Reviewers’ Favourite Award, which are the top 10% of reviewed …
Grant awarded from Peder Sather Center for Advanced Study
ME Professor Alice Agogino, along with Dr. Sohyeong Kim and Professor Henry Chesbrough from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, recently won a grant from the Peder Sather Center for Advanced Study. This award will seed research on “Open Innovation in Food Innovation and Design: Comparative Case Study of California Cuisine and New Nordic Cuisine.
Alice Agogino in the Special Design Issue of Berkeley ENGINEER
“”What are we designing? Are we designing for those in extreme poverty? Are we designing for the human condition? I hope so, and I hope that becomes part of the Jacobs Institute story.”” –ME Professor Alice Agogino in the Special Design Issue of Berkeley ENGINEER.