By changing the consistency of silicone rubber, John Morrow, a graduate student in robotics, enabled a 3D printer to assemble silicone into complex shapes. The breakthrough could hold the key to 3D printing of silicone soft-bodied robots.
Morrow and his colleague, Osman Dogan Yirmibesoglu, a Ph.D. student in robotics, presented their findings at the 2017 Graduate Research Showcase.
When three Oregon State students signed up for a project in the university’s new humanitarian engineering program, the first question was, Have any of you made soap? Nervous laughter broke out when each one said “no.”
“Ok, this will be fun,” Brianna Goodwin recalls thinking.
In a dramatic breakthrough for robotics, researchers in the College of Engineering at Oregon State University used a reinforcement learning algorithm operating in a simulated environment to train a bipedal robot to walk, run, hop, skip, and climb stairs in the real world.
The “sim-to-real” learning process represents a transformation in robotics control, according to Jonathan Hurst, professor of mechanical engineering and robotics.
In 2015, Alex Hagmüller (’09 B.S. Mechanical Engineering) co-founded Aquaharmonics, a wave energy converter company, with Max Ginsburg (’10 B.S. Electrical Computer Engineering). After winning a $1.5 million Wave Energy Prize, they were awarded up to $5 million in U.S. Department of Energy funding to enhance and test their energy-converter concept in the ocean.
Where did your interest in wave energy come from?
Additive manufacturing (AM)—also known as 3D printing—is rapidly disrupting the manufacturing sector, providing freedom of design, allowing a transition from rapid prototyping to real commercialization, decreasing material waste, and reducing time and cost of manufacturing. Furthermore, AM methods can be utilized for manufacturing of functionally graded materials (FGMs).
By: Andrew Mobbs
Photos by Johanna Carson
Our faculty are the heart of the College of Engineering’s pursuit of excellence. These are the people in whom our research and education missions live and breathe. Not only are the college’s faculty shaping the future by driving discovery and innovation — in the areas of artificial intelligence, robotics, advanced manufacturing, clean water, materials science, renewable energy, and many others — they are teaching and mentoring tomorrow’s leaders. Above all, faculty excellence fosters student success.
Jill Lewis (’11 B.S., Mechanical Engineering) didn’t set out to work at SpaceX, or even work in aerospace, but her experiences at Oregon State led her there.
Like many engineers, Lewis had an early interest in technology. As a child, she got her parents to take her to garage sales, where she found items like tripods and radios to play with. So, science and engineering were on her mind when she was planning for college.
In 2018, Ellie Parker landed an internship at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. A rising junior at the time, she worked in the aeromechanics branch, helping to test Ingenuity, the Mars helicopter, in the world’s largest wind tunnel.
“It was one of the coolest jobs you could have,” Parker said. “It was one of the very few times where I really sat there and thought maybe I should consider going into engineering rather than the military.”
OREGON STATE’S ‘ENGINEERING TRIANGLE’
In 2008, 180 acres of Oregon State University’s Corvallis campus was designated a National Historic District. At the time, it included 83 structures, 59 of which are historically significant. One wedge-shaped area in the district’s northeast corner encompasses buildings predominantly related to engineering, physics, and chemistry. Landscape architect Albert Davis Taylor, who updated the campus master plan in 1926 and 1945, dubbed this area the Engineering Triangle.
