Students
Current Graduate Students:
Aaron Gerratt -- silicon/elastomer processing
Ivan Penskiy -- high force density electrostatic motors
Chris Brown -- minimally actuated millirobots
Wayne Churaman -- microthrusters using nanoporous silicon
Dana Vogtmann -- 1.5g flapping MAV
Mike Gateau -- AntBot testbed
Current Undergraduate Students:
Let me know if your name isn't on here. I don't update this too
often.
Ethan Schaler -- energy scavenging
Elvin Peprah -- low power communication between robots
Carlos Casarez -- leg design in Si/PDMS process
Alumni:
(MS) Jessica Rajkowski -- all polymer microrobot prototyping
(BS) Elizabeth Kenyon (REU) -- RSSI for short range distance
measurement
(BS) Joe Rice -- inertial sensing and dynamic simulation
(BS) Mike Gateau -- networked mobile robots
(BS) Cliff Klein -- inertial sensing for mobile robots
January 2009
Future Students:
I'm currently looking for graduate and undergraduate students
interested in robotics and/or MEMS. It would help, but is not required,
to have proficiency in one of the following:
- MEMS and microfabrication
- Autonomous mobile robots
- Actuators and sensors
Tips for Undergraduate Research
Most of these tips are culled from Mark Chew's advice here.
- Do some research before talking to professors. Have a good idea of what you might be interested in.
- Be selective with your project. Make sure that it has a clear goal and that it's something you will learn from and enjoy.
- Setup a project schedule for yourself, especially if you're a procrastinator. Have a good idea of how much time you will be able to spend on the project.
- Expect things to go wrong. This is research and although it's cliche, you often learn a lot more when things break down.
- Talk to people. I can't stress this enough - you'll learn a lot interacting with other students.
- Document your work. The highest goal in research is to have others use what you have done. They can't do this if you don't write it down.
