Amazon unveiled its first fully autonomous mobile robot that can move heavy carts and work safely alongside humans. The company says the robot will help address safety concerns, but it comes as Amazon faces a labor crisis and several unionization effort from warehouse workers.

A team of UCLA engineers and their colleagues have developed a new design strategy and 3D printing technique to build robots in one single step.

A study that outlined the advance, along with the construction and demonstration of an assortment of tiny robots that walk, maneuver and jump, was published in Science today.

The breakthrough enabled the entire mechanical and electronic systems needed to operate a robot to be manufactured all at once by a new type of 3D printing process for engineered active materials with multiple functions (also known as metamaterials). Once 3D printed, a “meta-bot” will be capable of propulsion, movement, sensing and decision-making.

The printed metamaterials consist of an internal network of sensory, moving and structural elements and can move by themselves following programmed commands. With the internal network of moving and sensing already in place, the only external component needed is a small battery to power the robot.

“We envision that this design and printing methodology of smart robotic materials will help realize a class of autonomous materials that could replace the current complex assembly process for making a robot,” said Xiaoyu (Rayne) Zheng.

“We envision that this design and printing methodology of smart robotic materials will help realize a class of autonomous materials that could replace the current complex assembly process for making a robot,” said the study’s principal investigator Xiaoyu (Rayne) Zheng, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, and of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. “With complex motions, multiple modes of sensing and programmable decision-making abilities all tightly integrated, it’s similar to a biological system with the nerves, bones and tendons working in tandem to execute controlled motions.”

The team demonstrated the integration with an on-board battery and controller for the fully autonomous operation of the 3D printed robots — each at the size of a finger nail. According to Zheng, who is also a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA, the methodology could lead to new designs for biomedical robots, such as self-steering endoscopes or tiny swimming robots, which can emit ultrasounds and navigate themselves near blood vessels to deliver drug doses at specific target sites inside the body.

These “meta-bots” can also explore hazardous environments. In a collapsed building, for example, a swarm of such tiny robots armed with integrated sensing parts could quickly access confined spaces, assess threat levels and help rescue efforts by finding people trapped in the rubble.

Rayne Research Group/UCLA
UCLA-developed “meta-bots” demonstrate their flexibility and abilities to navigate tough terrain and avoid obstacles

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Most robots, no matter their size, are typically built in a series of complex manufacturing steps that integrate the limbs, electronic and active components. The process results in heavier weights, bulkier volumes and reduced force output compared to robots that could be built using this new method.

The key in the UCLA-led, all-in-one method is the design and printing of piezoelectric metamaterials — a class of intricate lattice materials that can change shape and move in response to an electric field or create electrical charge as a result of physical forces.

The use of active materials that can translate electricity to motions is not new. However, these materials generally have limits in their range of motion and distance of travel. They also need to be connected to gearbox-like transmission systems in order to achieve desired motions.

By contrast, the UCLA-developed robotic materials — each the size of a penny — are composed of intricate piezoelectric and structural elements that are designed to bend, flex, twist, rotate, expand or contract at high speeds.

The team also presented a methodology to design these robotic materials so users could make their own models and print the materials into a robot directly.

“This allows actuating elements to be arranged precisely throughout the robot for fast, complex and extended movements on various types of terrain,” said the study’s lead author Huachen Cui.

“This allows actuating elements to be arranged precisely throughout the robot for fast, complex and extended movements on various types of terrain,” said the study’s lead author Huachen Cui, a UCLA postdoctoral scholar in Zheng’s Additive Manufacturing and Metamaterials Laboratory. “With the two-way piezoelectric effect, the robotic materials can also self-sense their contortions, detect obstacles via echoes and ultrasound emissions, as well as respond to external stimuli through a feedback control loop that determines how the robots move, how fast they move and toward which target they move.”

Using the technique, the team built and demonstrated three “meta-bots” with different capabilities. One robot can navigate around S-shaped corners and randomly placed obstacles, another can escape in response to a contact impact, while the third robot could walk over rough terrain and even make small jumps.

Other UCLA authors of the study are graduate students Desheng Yao, Ryan Hensleigh, Zhenpeng Xu and Haotian Lu; postdoctoral scholar Ariel Calderon; development engineering associate Zhen Wang. Additional authors are Sheyda Davaria, a research associate at Virginia Tech; Patrick Mercier, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at UC San Diego; and Pablo Tarazaga, a professor of mechanical engineering at Texas A&M University.

The research was supported by a Young Faculty Award and a Director’s Fellowship Award from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), with additional funding from the U.S. Office of Naval Research, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the National Science Foundation.

The advance incorporates 3D printing techniques previously developed by Zheng and Hensleigh while both were researchers at Virginia Tech, which holds the patent. The researchers plan to file an additional patent through the UCLA Technology Development Group for the new methodology developed at UCLA.

A lifeguard drone saved the life of a 14-year-old caught in a powerful tide off a beach in Valencia, Spain, moments before rescue crews arrived.

When NASA’s Perseverance vehicle arrived this Thursday on the surface of Mars, it not only achieved a space milestone but also fulfilled the dream of a Colombian. Caleña Diana Trujillo arrived alone in the United States at the age of 17, without knowing English, $ 300 in her pocket, and a clear first objective: not to starve.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/diana-trujillo-nasa-mars-rover-perseverance/

Descripcion:STEM jobs by 2025, with more than two million of them going unfilled because of the lack of highly skilled candidates. With so much opportunity out there for STEM-educated students, it is important that students know how many options they have moving forward. Here are five STEM majors that can lead to interesting, high-paying careers:

https://matterandformedu.net/2019/08/06/5-stem-majors-that-lead-to-high-paying-career-options/

July 22, 20177:31 AM ETHeard on Weekend Edition Saturday

This week, the FIRST Global Challenge, a highly anticipated robotics competition for 15- to 18-year-olds from 157 countries, ended the way it began — with controversy.

On Wednesday, members of the team from the violence-torn east African country of Burundi went missing. And well before the competition even began, the teams from Gambia and Afghanistan made headlines after the U.S. State Department denied the members visas. Eventually, they were allowed to compete.

Team Honduras preps for the competition. The members, who come from a remote village, may have lacked resources, but they know that the “world today demands that we understand technology,” said one participant.Liam James Doyle/NPR

The drama marred an otherwise upbeat event focused on kids and robots.

Every team arrived with a robot in tow, each built with the exact same components, but designed, engineered and programmed differently. The goal: to gobble up and sort blue and orange plastic balls representing clean water and contaminated water.

For two days, teenagers — rich and poor, male and female — competed on a level playing field.

In addition to robotic innovation, the competition brought out national pride. This included Brendan Alinquant of Ireland (clockwise from top left), Andrea Terán of Mexico, Helder Mendonca of Mozambique, Anis Eljorni of Libya, Sarah Lockyer of Australia and twins Rinat and Shir Hadad of Israel.Liam James Doyle/NPR

But there were reminders that in some parts of the world, there is no such thing as a level playing field. And no team understood that better than Team Hope, made up of Syrian refugees who had fled to Lebanon.

As Fadil Harabi, the team’s mentor, pointed out, “more than 90 percent of Syrian refugees in Lebanon don’t have legal status. They don’t have passports.”

Getting passports for the team, Harabi said, turned out to be a lot more complicated than building a robot.

The competition theme was providing access to clean water. The robots had to gobble up and sort blue and orange plastic balls, representing clean water and contaminated water, respectively.Liam James Doyle/NPR

Team Hope’s robot didn’t do very well, but every time the Syrian teens competed, they attracted a crowd that would clap and chant, “Team Hope, Team Hope!”

For Colleen Johnson, 18, a member of the all-girl U.S. team, that was what this event was all about.

“Everybody here is working together, loaning each other batteries, tools, helping each other fix programming issues to lift each other up,” she said.

Still, the technology gap between poor and rich nations was evident. For team Honduras though, that gap is due to the lack of opportunity, not just the lack of resources.

Competitors from Team Hope (center in black) test their robot in a designated practice area. The team of Syrian refugees who had fled to Lebanon drew cheers from the crowd.Liam James Doyle/NPR

“Honduras is a country where there aren’t many opportunities,” explained the team’s leader, 17-year-old Daniel Marquez.

Marquez and his teammates all come from a tiny village that is a seven-hour drive — and a world away — from Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital. Not a single member of the team had ever handled a remote control, let alone built a robot.

“But the world today demands that we understand technology,” said Melissa Lemus, one of two girls on the Honduran team.

As the competition entered its third and final day, I checked in on Afghanistan’s all-girl team. It seemed the competitors had grown weary of the media frenzy around them.

GOATS AND SODA

Meet The Other Robotics Team That Almost Didn’t Make It To The Competition

Speaking through an interpreter, 15-year-old Yasimin Yasinzadah said she was disappointed that her teammates’ skills, and the robot they built, had gotten a lot less attention than the team’s visa problems, which nearly kept them out of the competition.

The Afghan team’s consolation prize: a medal for “courageous achievement” and knowing that they placed much higher than countries like Canada, the United Kingdom and the U.S.

Top honors went to Teams Europe, Poland and Armenia.

The all-girls team from Afghanistan had garnered attention even before the competition began, when the U.S. State Department initially denied the members visas. They were awarded a medal for “courageous achievement.”Liam James Doyle/NPR

The awards ceremony and closing ceremony felt like one big party, not so much a goodbye. It was a celebration with a hopeful message delivered by World Bank President Jim Yong Kim.

“You are the first generation in human history that can end extreme poverty in the world,” Kim said. “And from what I saw of these robots, I know you can do it.”

His message was not lost: Intelligence and talent with a moral vision have no race, nationality, religion or gender.

Taking a break, Youngmo Koo (left) and Ryan Lee of South Korea pass the time with a video game.Liam James Doyle/NPR