Outreach

BioRobotics Lab at Awesome Con!

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Over the weekend, Ph.D. students Katherine Pratt and Timothy Brown attended Awesome Con, Washington DC’s Comic Con. They were panelists for a session titled “THE HUMAN-TECHNOLOGY FRONTIER: TO ENHANCEMENT AND BEYOND?” at Future Con, a science and technology celebration inside Awesome Con to discuss the intersection of science, engineering and science fiction. They were joined by Dr. Dan Cosley and moderator Dr. Suveen Mathaudhu for a discussion about the cutting-edge research in engineering, computer science, materials, biology, and the social and ethical implications of our increasingly technologically advanced lives. A huge shoutout to the National Science Foundation for making this event possible!

Check out some of the pictures from Future Con, courtesy of Kevin Pratt.

Panelists (L to R): Dr. Suveen Mathaudhu, Tim Brown, Katherine Pratt, Dr. Dan Cosley
Star Talk Live (L to R): Scott Adsit, Katherine Pratt (Woohoo!)  and Colonel Chris Hadfield

    

Katherine and Tim sharing their wealth of knowledge with Future Con attendees!

Congratulations to our CSNE Summer students!

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Last week marked the end of an intensive 10 week summer research program for three of our summer students.  Alex and Magena were participants in the CSNE Research Experience for Undergraduates, and Matt was a participant in the CSNE Research Experience for Veterans.  All three did a fantastic job of delivering a short presentation and then presenting posters.  Thanks for all of your hard work this summer and good luck!

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Lab tours with local student groups

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File Jun 02, 3 38 25 PMWe have been excited to host several groups of students over the past few weeks, both in our lab and elsewhere on campus.  In May we were excited to have several students from the Discovery Lab of Ellensburg and the Robotics and Invention Club from Foster High School in Tukwila visit.  Special thanks to Kristi Morgansen and her graduate students for also sharing their autonomous underwater vehicles (top photo), and the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering.  We also recently demonstrated our haptic and surgical robots to students with Time to Invent from Northgate (bottom photo).

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Larry Bencivengo featured by Mercer Island School District

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One of the teachers who worked in BRL last summer through the CSNE Research Experience for Teachers, Larry Bencivengo, was recently featured by the Mercer Island School District for his work in developing an artificial neural network curriculum.  Larry and fellow teacher Paul Zimmer worked on haptics in addition to their curriculums.  Larry also received a grant through the Partners in Science program and will spend the next two summers doing research with the departments of medicine and ophthalmology (read more about that here).  Congrats, Larry!

BRL volunteers with Hour of Code

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IMG_9411On Sunday, BRL lab members Andrew Pace and Katherine Pratt volunteered at the Museum of Flight with an afternoon of technology and Hour of Code. Over a dozen mostly female students from 2nd, 4th, and 6th-8th grader rotated through four stations: Star Wars, Minecraft, littleBits, and offline coding. Students learned to program using Java and drag-and-drop. Afterward, they watched a video of the recent successful Blue Origin launch and landing, and were able to ask questions with one of their engineers. It was a fun, enjoyable, and most importantly educational afternoon.

IMG_9413Hour of Code is an annual program run by Code.Org, a non-profit based in Seattle that aims to increase exposure and involvement with computer science especially with females and underrepresented minorities.

BRL Graduate Student Timothy Brown Wins CSNE Hackathon

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Last weekend, BRL graduate student Tim Brown competed in the NSF Engineering Research Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering‘s second-annual Hackathon. In this competition, fifteen students gathered from the University of Washington, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, San Diego State University, and Spelman College. The contestants formed teams of three; these teams were given 36 hours to develop an innovative technology that addresses some problem related to sensorimotor neural engineering. Tim and his teammates—Rin Yunis from MIT and Jaycee Holmes from Spelman—were awarded first place! Congratulations!

Click here to read more about the competition.

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Museum of Flight Amelia’s Aero Club visits the BRL

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Amelia’s Aero ClubAmeliaAero is a middle school program for highly-motivated 6th-8th grade girls who are from across Washington State. The program organizes events related to Science, Technology, Engineering, Aviation, Art, and Mathematics (STEA2M) and the legacy of Amelia Earhart. This year it included a visit to the BioRobotics lab where they interacted with a haptic simulation and teleoperated a surgical robot during their visit.