Caroline Perry

Robotic insects make first controlled flight

The demonstration of the first controlled flight of an insect-sized robot is the culmination of more than a decade’s work, led by researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard.

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Posted in bioinspired engineering, Caroline Perry, Control, control systems, Engineering, Engineering & Technology, Flight, HarvardScience, Kevin Y. Ma, Pakpong Chirarattananon, Robert J. Wood, RoboBees, Robotic flying insects, robotics, Robots, Sawyer B. Fuller, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering | Comments Off

Robot hands gain a gentler touch

Researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have developed an inexpensive tactile sensor for robotic hands that is sensitive enough to turn a brute machine into a dexterous manipulator.

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Posted in Caroline Perry, Engineering & Technology, hands, haptics, Harvard Biorobotics Laboratory, HarvardScience, Leif Jentoft, Office of Technology Development, Robert D. Howe, robotics, Robots, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, tactile sensing, TakkTile, Yaroslav Tenzer | Comments Off

Imagining impact, and believing in it

Sixth annual Harvard College Innovation Challenge supports student projects through a year of development and beyond. From common roots — intellectual curiosity and the desire to make life just a little bit easier — 64 ideas blossomed this year in the challenge.

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Posted in Awards, Campus & Community, Caroline Perry, Dario Sava, Harvard College Innovation Challenge, I3 Challenge, Innovation, Jacqueline Schechter, Majahonkhe Shabangu, myLINGO, Nathan Georgette, Olenka Polak, OpportunitySpace, Paul Bottino, Project Lede, Roy Zhang, Sawubona, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, TECH, Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard | Comments Off

New device hides from infrared cameras

A new device invented at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) can absorb 99.75 percent of infrared light that shines on it. When activated, it appears black to infrared cameras.

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Posted in Applied Physics, Caroline Perry, Electrical Engineering, Engineering & Technology, Federico Capasso, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, HarvardScience, Infrared light, materials science, Metamaterials, Mikhail Kats, optical interference, perfect absorber, sapphire, Shriram Ramanathan, thermal imaging, thin films, tunable materials, vanadium dioxide | Comments Off

Applied physics as art

Harvard researchers spray-paint ultrathin coatings that change color with only a few atoms’ difference in thickness.

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Posted in Applied Physics, Caroline Perry, coatings, Color, Engineering & Technology, Federico Capasso, germanium, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, HarvardScience, interference, materials science, Mikhail Kats, nanophotonics, Nature Materials, Optics, Patrice Genevet, Physics, Reflection, Romain Blanchard, thin films | Comments Off

Pecking order

Harvard researchers have found that a new investigation of tissues and signaling pathways in finches’ beaks reveals surprising flexibility in the birds’ evolutionary tool kit.

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Posted in Arhat Abzhanov, Caribbean bullfinches, Caroline Perry, Charles Darwin, Galapagos Islands, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, HarvardScience, Kevin J. Burns, Life Sciences, Michael Brenner, National Institutes of Healt, National Science Foundation, OEB, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Ricardo Mallarino, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences | Comments Off

Needle beam stays on point

A Harvard-led team of researchers has demonstrated a new type of light beam that propagates without spreading outward, remaining very narrow and controlled along an unprecedented distance. It could greatly reduce signal loss for on-chip optical systems and may eventually assist the development of a more powerful class of microprocessors.

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Posted in Applied Physics, Caroline Perry, CNRS, cosine-Gauss plasmon beam, diffraction, Engineering & Technology, Federico Capasso, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, HarvardScience, Jiao Lin, light, microprocessors, nanophotonics, needle beam, optical interconnects, Patrice Genevet, Physical Review Letters, plasmonics, plasmons, quantum optics | Comments Off

Super gel

A team of experts in mechanics, materials science, and tissue engineering at Harvard has created an extremely stretchy and tough gel that may suggest a new method for replacing damaged cartilage in human joints.

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Posted in : Hydrogel, Alginate, Artificial cartilage, Bioengineering, Biomedical Materials, Caroline Perry, Crack bridging, David J. Mooney, Energy dissipation, Engineering & Technology, Gel, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, HarvardScience, Jeong-Yun Sun, Joost J. Vlassak, materials science, Mechanics, Polyacrylamide, Zhigang Suo | Comments Off

Clues in the cucumber’s climb

Harvard researchers, captivated by a strange coiling behavior in the grasping tendrils of the cucumber plant, have characterized a new type of spring that is soft when pulled gently and stiff when pulled strongly.

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Posted in Andrew McCormick, Applied Physics, bio-inspired engineering, Botany, Caroline Perry, Cell Biology, Coiling, cucumber, Engineering & Technology, Evolution, fiber ribbon, HarvardScience, Joshua Puzey, L Mahadevan, mathematical modeling, mechanical engineering, morphology, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Physics, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Sharon Gerbode, springs, tendril, Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering | Comments Off

Clues in the cucumber’s climb

Harvard researchers, captivated by a strange coiling behavior in the grasping tendrils of the cucumber plant, have characterized a new type of spring that is soft when pulled gently and stiff when pulled strongly.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted in Andrew McCormick, Applied Physics, bio-inspired engineering, Botany, Caroline Perry, Cell Biology, Coiling, cucumber, Engineering & Technology, Evolution, fiber ribbon, HarvardScience, Joshua Puzey, L Mahadevan, mathematical modeling, mechanical engineering, morphology, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Physics, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Sharon Gerbode, springs, tendril, Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering | Comments Off