Robots

In 2.007, slow and steady wins the raceFinal tournament of robots in mechanical engineering class features wide variety of designs and strategies.

Modern-day inventorMIT senior Paul Lazarescu uses his engineering talents to help people with disabilities and improve everyday technology.

Knowing the unknownResearchers work to build robots’ awareness of their own limitations.

Robot meets worldA new way of reasoning about what happens when a robot’s limb strikes an object could lead to more efficient and reliable robotic-control systems.

Teaching robots lateral thinkingNew algorithms could help household robots work around their physical shortcomings.

Humans and robots work better together following cross-trainingSwapping of roles improves efficiency as well as robots’ confidence and humans’ trust.

The robotic equivalent of a Swiss army knifeReconfigurable robot a step toward something that can become almost anything.

Sibling powerSiblings Andrew and Jennifer Barry have not only managed to maintain a close friendship into their adult years, but are also both studying robotics at CSAIL

Department snapshot: Mechanical EngineeringMore MechE students choose to design their own education.

Researchers engineer light-activated skeletal muscleTechnique may enable robotic animals that move with the strength and flexibility of their living counterparts.

Connoisseur of chaosWhere other roboticists try to suppress the complex dynamics of mechanical systems, Russ Tedrake exploits them, to make control more efficient and versatile.

Soft autonomous robot inches along like an earthwormFlexible design enables body-morphing capability.

Autonomous robotic plane flies indoorsNew algorithms allow an autonomous robotic plane to dodge obstacles in a subterranean parking garage, without the use of GPS.

Research update: SPHERES to get powerful magnets and gogglesNew wireless power and camera setups will expand the mini-satellites’ vision and navigation capabilities.

New aircraft capable of fast, accurate and repeatable flightCSAIL's Robot Locomotion Group unveils new computer-controlled aircraft that can perform knife-edge turns.

Autonomous robot scans ship hulls for minesAlgorithms enable robot to navigate and view propellers and other complex structures.

Mechanical engineers develop an ‘intelligent co-pilot’ for carsSemiautonomous system takes the wheel to keep drivers safe.

All things big and small: the brain’s discerning taste for sizeNew research shows brain has distinct regions for identifying different sized objects.

Robotic assistants may adapt to humans in the factoryNew algorithm allows robots and humans to work side by side.

Daniela Rus named CSAIL directorEECS professor to become new leader of MIT’s largest interdepartmental laboratory.

Whirr, click, hum: Robots go at it in 2.007 finaleCompetition concludes mechanical design class, unleashing a wide variety of spinning, pumping and striking robots.

Woodie Flowers, a pioneer of hands-on engineering educationFlowers and his former student, David Wallace, have created a fun, teamwork-based approach to learning the art of mechanical design.

Robots that reveal the inner workings of brain cellsNew method offers automated way to record electrical activity inside neurons in the living brain.

The robot revolution is just beginningRodney Brooks outlines his vision of the future to student entrepreneurs.

All in a day’s work: Design and print your own robotMIT project, funded with $10 million NSF grant, could transform robotic design and production

Self-sculpting sandNew algorithms could enable heaps of ‘smart sand’ that can assume any shape, allowing spontaneous formation of new tools or duplication of broken mechanical parts.

Guiding robot planes with hand gesturesMIT researchers are developing a system that would allow aircraft-carrier crews to direct autonomous planes using ordinary hand gestures.