UC Berkeley professor of mechanical engineering Oliver O’Reilly and campus graduate mechanical engineering student Nathaniel Goldberg constructed a model showing changes in the shape of spaghetti after it is placed in water, which could help researchers create more human-like robots.
Is Spaghetti the Key to Building a Better Robot?
Look at some spaghetti and you might think lunch. When Oliver O’Reilly looks at spaghetti, he thinks about the future of robotics. Pasta and robots might not seem like natural bedfellows, but O’Reilly, a UC Berkeley professor of mechanical engineering, hopes his research can help engineers construct better models and designs for soft robots.
Mathematical Model Shows Why Spaghetti Curls When Cooked
Scientists, as they are wont to do, have analyzed the way spaghetti curls as it cooks. Researchers Nathaniel Goldberg and Oliver O’Reilly, of U.C. Berkeley’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, used their noodles—we’re so sorry—to put together a mathematical model that accounts for gravity, density, elasticity, and rigidity in cooking “rod-shaped” noodles like spaghetti.
ME Professor David Steigmann Wins 2017 Acta Mechanica Sinica Best Paper Award
ME Professor David Steigmann has won the 2017 Acta Mechanica Sinica AMS Best Paper Award for his paper titled, “Mechanical response of fabric sheets to three-dimensional bending, twisting, and stretching.” The AMS Best Paper Award was established to “foster original and innovative scientific research in the field of mechanics.” AMS is an international journal published …
Special Issue of “Continuum Mechanics and Thermodynamics” Honors ME Professor David Steigmann
The July 2015 issue of Continuum Mechanics and Thermodynamics celebrates the award of the International Levi Civita Prize 2013 and the Engineering Science Medal conferred by the Society of Engineering Science 2013 to ME Professor David Steigmann. The issue highlights Professor Steigmann as “a distinguished scholar having made fundamental contributions to diverse areas of continuum …