A robot that survives through self-amputation
Outside the lab, the world can be a dangerous place for a robot. It could get stuck under a rock on a search-and-rescue mission or find itself under a fallen tree limb. In most cases, that would be it for the robot. But the lab of Professor Rebecca Kramer-Bottiglio has developed a technology that draws inspiration from lizards, crabs, and ants, and allows a robot to selectively disconnect its limbs and scurry to safety. Conversely, the same technology allows separate robots to join together to take on tasks that they couldn’t do on their own. The work is detailed in Advanced Materials.
Recovering valuable materials with better membranes
Critical minerals like lithium and cobalt are vital to batteries, electric vehicles, and renewable energy systems. To meet the long-term demand for these materials, finding sources of these materials beyond mining has become a priority for many researchers. To that end, membrane technology has shown great promise in extracting these materials from alternate sources. Featuring nanosized pores, these membranes can be tuned to filter specific materials from water and other sources. A team of researchers led by Professor Menachem Elimelech has drawn inspiration from living organisms to outline a way to hone this technology. The results were published in Nature Water.
Class project turns into startup
During their senior year, Sneha Sivakumar ’24 and Anushka Nijhawan ’24 built from scratch a no-code testing automation tool. Essentially, that means that anyone with a web-based application can use this tool to make sure their application works, without ever having to write any code. In July, they officially launched Spur, their startup based on the technology. Along the way, they got some help from Prof. Arman Cohan, received a $500 grant from Tsai CITY, and were accepted into the prestigious business accelerator Y Combinator with $500,000 in funding.
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