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    • Fall 2024 GRASP SFI: Dian Wang, Northeastern University, “Equivariant Learning for Robotic Manipulation”

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    Levine 307 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

    This will be a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Levine 307 and virtual attendance on Zoom. ABSTRACT Despite recent advances in machine learning for robotics, current approaches often lack sample efficiency, posing a significant challenge due to the enormous time consumption to collect real-robot data. In this talk, I will present our innovative methods […]

    CBE Seminar: “Autonomous Soft and Colloidal Matter Fueled by Chemical Reactions” (Taylor Woehl, University of Maryland)

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    Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

    Abstract: Biological systems utilize networks of biochemical reactions to drive autonomous and dynamic processes. Examples include the dynamic polymerization of microtubules and the dynamic min protein system in E. Coli. In contrast, synthetic soft and colloidal matter generally requires active stimulation to undergo reconfiguration, such as application of external fields or manual changes in solution […]

    MEAM Ph.D. Thesis Defense: “Contacts with Dynamically Tunable Adhesion and Friction via Active Materials with Thermally Modulated Stiffness”

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    Room 337, Towne Building 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

    Contact interactions, including adhesion and friction, are critical to the design of many engineered systems. Currently, most systems rely on materials with static mechanical properties, requiring careful selection of materials to realize effective systems for specialized tasks. However, with advances in smart materials, system design is no longer limited to materials with static properties. There […]

    MSE Seminar: “Materials, Mechanics, and Performance of Flexible Polymeric Actuators in Robotics” (Sameh Tawfick – University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)

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    Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

    My group is developing a roadmap for soft actuating materials to replace bulky electric motors in miniature robots requiring large mechanical work output. First, I will describe the materials microstructure and mechanics of polymeric coiled muscles made by twisting nylon fishing lines, and how these actuators use internal strain energy to achieve a “record breaking” performance. Then I […]

    CIS Seminar: “Learning Controllers for multi-robot Teams”

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    Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

    We have recently demonstrated the possibility of learning controllers that are zero-shot transferable to groups of real quadrotors via large-scale, multi-agent, end-to-end reinforcement learning. We train policies parameterized by neural networks that can control individual drones in a group in a fully decentralized manner. Our policies, trained in simulated environments with realistic quadrotor physics, demonstrate […]

    BE Doctoral Dissertation Defense: “Extracting Insights From Electronic Health Records Using Optimized Large Language Models” (Kevin Xie)

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    Glandt Forum, Singh Center for Nanotechnology 3205 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

    The Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania and Dr. Brian Litt are pleased to announce the Doctoral Dissertation Defense of Kevin Xie. Title: Extracting Insights From Electronic Health Records Using Optimized Large Language Models Date: September 20th, 2024 Time: 9:00 AM Location: Glandt Forum, Singh Center for Nanotechnology Advisor: Dr. Brian Litt Zoom […]

    GRASP Industry Talk: Amazon Robotics – Scanless Technologies, “Amazon Robotics Tech Talk”

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    Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

    This will be an in-person event only with in-person attendance in Wu and Chen. This seminar will not be recorded or available on Zoom. Amazon Robotics Tech Talk & Networking Event   Amazon Robotics’ Scanless Technologies Team is excited to invite you to join us for a Tech Talk presentation followed by a Networking Event on Friday, 9/20 starting at 10:30am in Wu & Chen […]

    ASSET & Warren Center Research Mixer

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    Glandt Forum, Singh Center for Nanotechnology 3205 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

    The ASSET and Warren Center will be hosting a research mixer to welcome new PhD students and expose new and current students to the wide range of research in Penn Engineering in AI/ML. The program will consist of (short) faculty talks, poster presentations by students/postdocs, and a reception to end the night!

    PICS Colloquium: Motion-based rules and solitary waves: ameloblasts and birds

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    PICS Conference Room 534 - A Wing , 5th Floor 3401 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

    Information is usually expected to propagate across a population of active agents such as living cells or birds in a diffusive manner. Yet waviness in the microstructure of dental enamel implies coherent wave motion among the generative ameloblast cells over exceptionally long periods, from a week in the mouse to months in the human; and […]

    ESE Fall Seminar – “Beyond the Exit of the Device Miniaturization Tunnel”

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    Raisler Lounge (Room 225), Towne Building 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

    For the past fifty years, researchers of semiconductor technology have felt like walking inside a tunnel. There was a single path forward – two-dimensional down-scaling of device sizes, also referred to as 2D miniaturization. With device features approaching atomic scale, semiconductor technology has reached the exit of this tunnel. The future is bright at the […]

    MEAM Seminar: “Controlling Adhesion and Friction of Soft Interfaces by Meso-Scale Structures”

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    Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

    Discoveries of unique adhesive and frictional properties in biological attachment systems have, over the past two decades, demonstrated how near-surface architecture at lengths between the molecular (a few nm) and continuum (mm) scales can be used to achieve interesting and unique surface mechanical properties. This has spurred considerable research activity in design of meso-scale, near-surface […]

    ESE Ph.D. Thesis Defense: “Design and control of dynamical systems: a classical to quantum perspective”

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    Raisler Lounge (Room 225), Towne Building 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

    The design and control of dynamical systems have long been core objectives of engineering. In this thesis, we tackle the complexities of design and control across paradigms ranging from Boolean models of genetic networks, to thermally driven stochastic systems, to quantum-mechanical systems. These disparate domains share common challenges, including the large dimensionality of the design […]