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.
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, …
TUNE IN: ME Grad Students Give Whirlwind of TV & Radio Interviews After Their Shoelace Research Goes Viral
ME graduate students Christopher Daily-Diamond and Christine Gregg have had a pretty busy week (or being that they are grad students, perhaps we should say a BUSIER week!). Their research, conducted alongside ME Professor Oliver O’Reilly in the Dynamics Lab, on why shoelaces come untied, has piqued interest around the world after being published in the …
ME Graduate Students Team Up in the O’Reilly Lab to Test Their Shoe-String Theory
Photo by Christopher Daily-Diamond Shoe-string theory: Science shows why shoelaces come untied By Brett Israel, Media Relations brett.israel@berkeley.edu, 510 643-7741 Berkeley – A new study by mechanical engineers at UC Berkeley finally shows why your shoelaces may keep coming untied. It’s a question that everyone asks, often after stopping to retie their shoes, yet one …