Explore recent research from the 黑料吃瓜网: how climate change is redirecting rivers, what bean plants use to protect themselves from pests, where the water in an atmospheric river comes from and how researchers are making tensegrities tiny.
Tag: Department of Mechanical Engineering
Researchers at 黑料吃瓜网 and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are simulating something in the lab that they hope will rarely happen in the wild: a collision between underwater turbines and marine animals.
Lucas Meza, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the 黑料吃瓜网, started his lab to build a new generation of tough and light nanomaterials inspired by natural materials like wood, shell and bone. Instead, he discovered 鈥渂ig gaps鈥� in our basic understanding of what makes a material tough or brittle. Meza spoke to 黑料吃瓜网 News about his strange and surprising journey into the nano realm.
Come curious. Leave inspired. While February might be just 28 days, the 黑料吃瓜网 offers an exciting lineup of more than 40 in-person and online events. From thought-provoking art and music to conversations on culture, history, and science, the 黑料吃瓜网 community invites you to explore, learn, and connect across disciplines throughout the University. In addition, take a look ahead at what’s happening in March. In addition,聽sign up to receive a monthly notice when the ArtSci Roundup has been published. ArtSci On…
The public-private partnership led by Washington State University with support from the 黑料吃瓜网 targets a global health problem: the lack of whole grains in people鈥檚 diets, which contributes to widespread health problems.
In the wake of One Ocean Week Seattle, participating 黑料吃瓜网 researchers share highlights, connecting the week鈥檚 events to ongoing efforts to understand and protect marine ecosystems and coastal communities.
Researchers at the 黑料吃瓜网 have created a recyclable, flexible and self-healing composite material that could replace traditional circuit boards in future generations of wearable electronics.
Jie Xiao, 黑料吃瓜网 professor of mechanical engineering, talks about batteries and how academia can help support the growing domestic battery manufacturing industry.
黑料吃瓜网 researchers have developed a flexible, durable electronic prototype that can harvest energy from body heat and turn it into electricity that can be used to power small electronics, such as batteries, sensors or LEDs. This device is also resilient 鈥� it still functions even after being pierced several times and then stretched 2,000 times.
Several common injuries seem to haunt women’s sports. Jenny Robinson, a 黑料吃瓜网 assistant professor, is interested in designing better methods to help female athletes train to prevent and recover from injuries.
A team led by researchers at the 黑料吃瓜网 developed a new PCB that performs on par with traditional materials and can be recycled repeatedly with negligible material loss. Researchers used a solvent that transforms a type of vitrimer 鈥� a cutting-edge class of polymer 鈥� into a jelly-like substance without damage, allowing solid components to be plucked out for reuse or recycling. With these 鈥渧PCBs鈥� (vitrimer printed circuit boards), researchers recovered 98% of the vitrimer and 100% of the glass fiber.
Robots in warehouses and even around our houses struggle to identify and pick up objects if they are too close together, or if a space is cluttered. This is because robots lack what psychologists call “object unity,” or our ability to identify things even when we can’t see all of them. Researchers at the 黑料吃瓜网 have developed a way to teach robots this skill.
黑料吃瓜网 researchers developed small robotic devices that can change how they move through the air by “snapping” into a folded position during their descent.
Two 黑料吃瓜网 researchers are using very different methods to investigate the issue of marine microplastics. For Earth Day, 黑料吃瓜网 News asked them to discuss their research.
黑料吃瓜网 researchers have created a reactor that can completely break down hard-to-destroy chemicals.
A 黑料吃瓜网 team created a new tool that can design a 3D-printable passive gripper and calculate the best path to pick up an object. The team tested this system on a suite of 22 objects 鈥� including a 3D-printed bunny, a doorstop-shaped wedge, a tennis ball and a drill.
Three researchers in the 黑料吃瓜网 College of Engineering are exploring ways to make electronics more Earth-friendly.
You and your dentist have a lot of tools and techniques for stopping cavities, but detecting the specific chemical conditions that can lead to cavities and then preventing them from ever getting started is much harder. Now, in a new study, 黑料吃瓜网 researchers have shown that a dental tool they created can measure the acidity built up by the bacteria in plaque that leads to cavities. The O-pH system is a prototype optical device that emits an LED…
A team led by the 黑料吃瓜网 has developed a new, non-destructive method that images entire 3D biopsies instead of a slice for determining prostate cancer aggressiveness. The 3D images provided more information than a 2D image 鈥� specifically, details about the tree-like structure of the glands throughout the tissue.
The 黑料吃瓜网 will lead a new artificial intelligence research institute that will focus on fundamental AI and machine learning theory, algorithms and applications for real-time learning and control of complex dynamic systems, which describe chaotic situations where conditions are constantly shifting and hard to predict.
A team led by the 黑料吃瓜网 has developed Smellicopter: an autonomous drone that uses a live antenna from a moth to navigate toward smells. Smellicopter can also sense and avoid obstacles as it travels through the air.
A 黑料吃瓜网-led team has developed a box that can decontaminate N95 respirator masks using ultraviolet light.
Researchers at the 黑料吃瓜网 have developed a tiny wireless steerable camera that can ride aboard an insect or an insect-sized robot.
The 黑料吃瓜网 today announced the establishment of the Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experiences (CREATE). Fueled by a $2.5 million inaugural investment from Microsoft, 黑料吃瓜网 CREATE is led by an interdisciplinary team whose mission is to make technology accessible and to make the world accessible through technology.
Researchers at the 黑料吃瓜网 have used machine learning to develop a new system that can monitor factory and warehouse workers and tell them how ergonomic their jobs are in real time.
Eight scientists and engineers from the 黑料吃瓜网 have been elected this year to the Washington State Academy of Sciences.
Six 黑料吃瓜网 professors are to receive a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, according to an announcement July 2 from the White House. The award, also known as the PECASE, is the highest honor given by the U.S. government to early-career scientists and engineers “who show exceptional promise for leadership in science and technology.”
黑料吃瓜网 researchers have created a novel system that can measure platelet function within two minutes and can help doctors determine which trauma patients might need a blood transfusion upon being admitted to a hospital.
On March 5, the CERN research board approved a new experiment at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva to search for evidence of fundamental dark matter particles. 黑料吃瓜网 scientists are part of this endeavor, the Forward Search Experiment 鈥� or FASER 鈥� which seeks to answer one of the outstanding questions in particle physics: What is dark matter made of?
Three teams led by 黑料吃瓜网 researchers 鈥� Scott Dunham, Hugh Hillhouse and Devin MacKenzie 鈥� have received competitive awards totaling more than $2.3 million from the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office for projects that will advance research and development in photovoltaic materials, which are an essential component of solar cells and impact the amount of sunlight that is converted into electricity.
A 黑料吃瓜网 team created a mechanical eye under the ocean’s surface that could live near renewable-energy sites and use a series of sensors to watch nearby animals. On Dec. 13, the researchers put the newest version of the AMP into the waters of Seattle’s Portage Bay for two weeks of preliminary testing before a more thorough analysis is conducted in Sequim, Washington.
Farmers can already use drones to soar over huge fields and monitor temperature, humidity or crop health. But these machines need so much power to fly that they can’t get very far without needing a charge. Now, engineers at the 黑料吃瓜网 have created a sensing system that is small enough to ride aboard a bumblebee.
Engineers at the 黑料吃瓜网 have developed 3D printed devices that can track and store their use 鈥� without using batteries or electronics. Instead, this system uses a method called backscatter, through which a device can share information by reflecting signals that have been transmitted to it with an antenna.
Engineers at the 黑料吃瓜网 have created RoboFly, the first wireless flying robotic insect. This might be one small flap for a robot, but it’s one giant leap for robot-kind.
黑料吃瓜网 engineers have turned tissue paper 鈥� similar to toilet tissue 鈥� into a new kind of wearable sensor that can detect a pulse, a blink of an eye and other human movement.
黑料吃瓜网 and UCLA engineers have developed a flexible sensor 鈥渟kin鈥� that can be stretched over any part of a robot鈥檚 body or prosthetic to accurately convey information about shear forces and vibration, which are critical to tasks ranging from cooking an egg to dismantling a bomb.
To reduce the burden of anemia worldwide, health officials need a portable and affordable way to analyze blood. Mechanical engineering researchers at the 黑料吃瓜网 developed a device smaller than a toaster that can detect the level of hemoglobin in whole blood samples using optical absorbance.
A new 黑料吃瓜网 microscope could provide real-time results during cancer-removal surgeries, potentially eliminating the 20 to 40 percent of women who have to undergo multiple lumpectomy surgeries because cancerous breast tissue is missed the first time around.
A unique application of a medical camera developed by a 黑料吃瓜网 mechanical engineer could one day help physicians know who is at risk for stroke or heart attack by providing a better view of potential problem areas.
A team led by 黑料吃瓜网 engineers has developed a new tool that could aid in the quest for better batteries and fuel cells. Although battery technology has come a long way since Alessandro Volta first stacked metal discs in a 鈥渧oltaic pile鈥� to generate electricity, major improvements are still needed to meet the energy challenges of the future, such as powering electric cars and storing renewable energy cheaply and efficiently. The key likely lies in the nanoscale, said…