Faculty

Tom's Guide calls Segil, Afference "the future of digital touch"

Alexander James Servantez — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 21:51:52 +0000

Tom's Guide calls Segil, Afference "the future of digital touch" Alexander Jame… Wed, 01/15/2025 - 14:51

Research Professor Jacob Segil is also the CEO of ��«��Ƶ startup Afference. The company traveled to Las Vegas for this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) to showcase what's being called "the new frontier" of spatial computing: a neural haptic ring that allows users to feel something even when touching nothing.

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Pioneering sodium-ion batteries: a sustainable energy alternative

Alexander James Servantez — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 23:16:06 +0000

Pioneering sodium-ion batteries: a sustainable energy alternative Alexander Jame… Fri, 12/13/2024 - 16:16

Associate Professor Chunmei Ban and her research team are exploring the use of sodium-ion batteries as an alternative to lithium-based energy storage. Sodium is widely distributed in the Earth's crust and is an appealing candidate to remedy concerns over resource scarcity with lithium-ion batteries.

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Climate change is encouraging unsanitary toilet practices among vulnerable communities

Alexander James Servantez — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 19:34:09 +0000

Climate change is encouraging unsanitary toilet practices among vulnerable communities Alexander Jame… Fri, 12/06/2024 - 12:34

In a study conducted by Assistant Teaching Professor James Harper and his consultation company Realize Research, LLC, it was found that regions where heavy storms and floods are more prevalent cause households in those areas to stop using and maintaining their toilets. Toilet dysfunction is a huge source of pollution, can increase the burden on water treatment systems and is a major risk of human health.

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University of Colorado students are taking part in advancing robotics to help first responders

Alexander James Servantez — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 18:35:53 +0000

University of Colorado students are taking part in advancing robotics to help first responders Alexander Jame… Fri, 12/06/2024 - 11:35

Sean Humbert, professor in mechanical engineering and director of the Robotics graduate program, chats with CBS News Colorado about some of the technology him and his students are working on at CU ��«��Ƶ. One of their builds is a robot that the ��«��Ƶ County Sheriff's Office uses to support their bomb squad team.

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New PhD research area allows students, faculty to explore engineering design in a wider context

Alexander James Servantez — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 19:04:13 +0000

New PhD research area allows students, faculty to explore engineering design in a wider context Alexander Jame… Wed, 11/27/2024 - 12:04

Alexander Servantez

At the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering, the process and application of design is everywhere.

Students are constantly designing tools and technologies. Faculty members are launching successful startups on the backs of their own designs. In just the past two years, Venture Partners at CU ��«��Ƶ has supported 10 new startups featuring inventions designed by ME faculty and students.

But earlier this fall, the department took nearly a decade of development to a whole new level by introducing a new research area in design. This focus area, geared toward PhD students, involves the study of the design process and how various contexts (environmental, psychological, political, etc.) affect the artifacts that today’s engineers aim to create.

It’s the next step in the department’s design growth, building on the current MS design framework and the large network of undergraduate design courses made possible by Design Center Colorado. ME faculty and staff have worked tirelessly over the years to build this infrastructure and weave elements of design throughout all the other focus areas in the department. The new design PhD focus area represents the next iteration.

Grace Burleson, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, was a key player, among others, in the creation of this new concentration. She believes the focus area will help CU ��«��Ƶ researchers enhance the practice of design, and advance design methodologies throughout many engineering disciplines to tackle the difficult societal challenges we see today.

“Design has been happening in the department since the beginning. It’s embedded in mechanical engineering and our other focus areas,” Burleson said. “However, that framing makes it challenging to focus on design as a scientific study.

“Our engineers are being asked to solve much more complex issues than ever before, and we need to expand our thought of design in order to be successful.”

From interdisciplinary beginnings

Grace Burleson, assistant professor in mechanical engineering. Burleson is one of over 20 faculty members affiliated with the new design focus area.

The inspiration behind Burleson's research can be traced all the way back to summer 2015, nearly 8,517 miles away from ��«��Ƶ.

Burleson, at the time an undergraduate student at Oregon State University, was on a research trip in Uganda studying global health and sustainable development. While conducting her research, she quickly realized that her typical engineer’s rationale was not enough to foster successful design processes. An understanding of social contexts and a whole new perspective was needed in order to do her work the right way.

From there, a whole new spark of curiosity was formed. A spark that led Burleson down a dual path threading the needle between mechanical engineering and anthropology. She studied the two areas and applied principles from each to her own work until she found a true relationship: the impact of design.

“Applied sciences have always been a pillar of design in engineering, and they always will be,” Burleson said. “But I learned that we have to broaden the scope of sciences that we are using to design our artifacts. There are cultural considerations we need to understand in order to find the effective and equitable solutions to our design problems.”

After receiving her PhD from the University of Michigan, Burleson’s next project was finding a home that allowed her to foster the next great design minds. She joined CU ��«��Ƶ’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, whose interdisciplinary approach and faculty support made it easy for her to make her mark.

“Design has been a strong focus in our department long before I joined, and I received strong encouragement from other faculty members to start the process for formalizing the focus area,” Burleson said. “I met with faculty who led design research, and we all agreed that we needed to do this.”

To the first iteration

Nicole Xu, assistant professor in mechanical engineering, showcasing her lab's bio-inspired design for robotic jellyfish.

The Design Focus Area launched in fall 2024 with over 20 faculty members from very diverse backgrounds. Some faculty members tackle design questions in the areas of air quality and sustainability. Others practice design through the lens of materials and mechanics.

This interdisciplinary structure is a staple in the field of design, which Burleson calls a “horizontal discipline.” While other focus areas might require in-depth, vertical research into one topic, design requires a wide range of knowledge in a handful of topics. It’s a holistic approach that invites students with diverse backgrounds who are looking to study design.

“When I’m recruiting PhD students, I’m looking for those diverse backgrounds,” Burleson said. “We have students from mechanical engineering, physics, even theater and law. It really lends a unique perspective to the focus area.”

Even the current research that faculty and students are conducting is multi-dimensional and exciting. Nicole Xu, another assistant professor in mechanical engineering, focuses on biology-inspired design elements for robotic mechanisms. Her lab creates aquatic vehicles that mimic the movements of live organisms for environmental monitoring.

“Engineering is often seen as a purely logical field, but we need to think more broadly about other aspects of design,” Xu said. “In my work, we apply design principles from animals to improve or expand our available underwater technologies. For other faculty, the perspective could be the emotional contexts of design science, like teamwork and collaboration.

“Design is already inherent in every engineering project, with all the different types of research in our department. But it’s never been brought to the forefront like it is now with this new focus area.”

On to the next evolution

James Harper, assistant teaching professor in mechanical engineering.

Burleson says the focus area will continue to expand as engineers apply and advance new sciences. She also mentions rumors of an increased emphasis on design practice and research across campus to leverage the university’s vast consortium of design expertise.

Assistant Teaching Professor James Harper echoes those same sentiments, saying there is ample opportunity to enhance the curriculum going forward. He even says that prospective PhD students have the opportunity as they are here to leave their mark on the department, and change the way design is taught college-wide based on their research.

“Engineers are not taught to talk to people,” Harper said. “We’re taught the technical side of things. But design relies on engineers understanding people and how products are actually used. Good design requires gathering contextual data, as well as entrepreneurial skills, and we’ve begun to teach these topics even in undergraduate engineering courses, too.”

One of Burleson’s design-track PhD students, Mark Henderson, recognizes the impact he could have on future generations. As a patent attorney, Henderson has seen lots of creators receive patent rejections on their inventions because their designs were “too similar” to others.

His research in the focus area revolves around one question: what design choices would engineers make if they already knew the “state of the art”?

“Here at CU ��«��Ƶ, I have the opportunity to use these classes and this community for design research,” Henderson said. “But there is also potential in the broader ��«��Ƶ area to do industry research with the large companies that are here.

“I really couldn’t believe the fit when I chose to study design at CU ��«��Ƶ.”

The Paul M. Ray Department of Mechanical Engineering has launched a new research area in design. The new focus area, geared toward PhD students, involves the study of the design process and how various contexts (environmental, psychological, political, etc.) affect the artifacts that today’s engineers aim to create.

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Spinout LongPath Technologies to expand methane detection with $162M DOE loan

Alexander James Servantez — Wed, 20 Nov 2024 23:45:31 +0000

Spinout LongPath Technologies to expand methane detection with $162M DOE loan Alexander Jame… Wed, 11/20/2024 - 16:45

Greg Rieker, associate professor of mechanical engineering and co-founder of LongPath Technologies, gathered with others on the CU ��«��Ƶ campus to celebrate a $162.4 million loan package from the U.S. Department of Energy. The loan will help Rieker and LongPath expand methane detection using laser-based quantum devices that scan the atmosphere in real time.

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Jayaram and team win IROS Best Paper Award on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics

Anonymous — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 15:04:48 +0000

Jayaram and team win IROS Best Paper Award on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/31/2023 - 09:04

Assistant Professor Kaushik Jayaram’s Animal Inspired Movement and Robotics Laboratory recently won the IROS Best Paper Award on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics, rising above around 3,000 other academic papers that were submitted to the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Along with Jayaram as the PI of the lab, PhD student Heiko Kabutz was the lead researcher of the paper, and PhD students Alex Hedrick and Parker McDonnell were coauthors, as well.

Their paper titled mCLARI: a shape-morphing insect-scale robot capable of omnidirectional terrain-adaptive locomotion in laterally confined spaces, improves upon their previous miniature shape-morphing robot to demonstrate the ability to passively change its shape to squeeze through narrow gaps in multiple directions. This is a new capability for legged robots, let alone insect-scale systems, that enables significantly enhanced maneuverability in cluttered environments, and has the potential to aid first responders after major disasters.

Kabutz and Jayaram’s latest version is scaled down 60% in length and 38% in mass, while maintaining 80% of the actuation power. The robot weighs less than a gram but can support over three times its body weight as an additional payload. It is also over three times as fast as its predecessor reaching running speeds of 60 millimeters per second, or three of its body lengths per second.

Check out their video of mCLARI here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbMi6ezXf-Y.

With the latest breakthrough that Jayaram and Kabutz have now achieved with their research, they are able to scale down (or up), their design without sacrificing design integrity bringing such robots closer in size to real-world application needs.

“Since these robots can deform, you can still have slightly larger sizes,” Jayaram said. “If you have a slightly larger size, you can carry more weight, you can have more sensors, you'll have a longer lifetime and be more stable. But when you need to be, you can squish through and go through those specific gaps.”

Kabutz, who leads the design of the mClari, has surgeon-like hands that allow him to build and fold the tiny legs of the robot. Kabutz grew up fascinated by robots and competed in robotic competitions in high school.

“Initially, I was interested in building bigger robots,” said Kabutz, “but when I came to Jayaram’s lab, he really got me interested in building bioinspired robots at the insect scale.”

Jayaram’s research team studies concepts from biology and applies them to the design of real-world engineered systems. In his lab, you can find robots modeled after the body morphologies of various arthropods including cockroaches and spiders.

“We are fundamentally interested in understanding why animals are the way they are and move the way they do,” said Jayaram, “and how we can build bioinspired robots that can address social needs, like search and rescue, environmental monitoring, or even use them during surgery.”

Assistant Professor Kaushik Jayaram’s Animal Inspired Movement and Robotics Laboratory recently won the IROS Best Paper Award on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics.

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New Frequency Comb Can Identify Molecules in 20-Nanosecond Snapshots

Anonymous — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 01:11:41 +0000

New Frequency Comb Can Identify Molecules in 20-Nanosecond Snapshots Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/30/2023 - 19:11

The laser-based system now has the ability to capture moment-to-moment details of high-speed processes such as hypersonic propulsion and protein folding.

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Ranked #14 among U.S. universities by National Academy of Inventors, CU leads in translating innovation into impact

Anonymous — Tue, 24 Oct 2023 00:02:54 +0000

Ranked #14 among U.S. universities by National Academy of Inventors, CU leads in translating innovation into impact Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/23/2023 - 18:02

The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) has ranked the CU system 14th among the “Top 100” institutions nationwide for recent patent activity.

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Ruzzene and Rieker discuss Colorado's federal desgination as quantum hub

Anonymous — Mon, 23 Oct 2023 23:07:50 +0000

Ruzzene and Rieker discuss Colorado's federal desgination as quantum hub Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/23/2023 - 17:07

The designation positions Colorado to apply for and secure federal funding opportunities to advance the industry.

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