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An MIT-Olin team took home the grand prize this October from the 2014 Maritime RobotX Challenge in Marina Bay, Singapore. The team was comprised of students from MIT’s Department of Mechanical...
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This week a team featuring multiple Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) researchers took home the grand prize in an international competition centered on autonomous...
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The world’s fiber-optic network spans more than 550,000 miles of undersea cable that transmits e-mail, websites, and other packets of data between continents, all at the speed of light. A rip or...
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Last week, at the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, MIT researchers unveiled an oval-shaped submersible robot, a little smaller than a football, with a flattened panel on...
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Cephalopods, which include octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish, are among nature’s most skillful camouflage artists, able to change both the color and texture of their skin within seconds to blend into...
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Speed and agility are hallmarks of the cheetah: The big predator is the fastest land animal on Earth, able to accelerate to 60 mph in just a few seconds. As it ramps up to top speed, a cheetah pumps...
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In the movie “Terminator 2,” the shape-shifting T-1000 robot morphs into a liquid state to squeeze through tight spaces or to repair itself when harmed.
Now a phase-changing material built from wax...
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Professor Sapsis’ research focuses on the area of stochastic dynamical systems in ocean engineering, including uncertainty quantification of turbulent fluid flows, passive protection configurations...
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by Alissa Mallinson
MechE’s 2N program in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering is almost as old as the department’s main Course 2 program in mechanical engineering.
The graduate program,...
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New Methods and Software Can Predict Optimal Paths for Automated Underwater Vehicles
By David Chandler, MIT News Office
Pierre Lermusiaux Photo credit: M. Scott Brauer
Sometimes the fastest...
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Engineering and the Ocean Environment: Challenge and Opportunity
by Alissa Mallinson
Vast and seemingly impenetrable, the ocean inspires endless fascination. It is the topic of countless tales...
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Suppose you’re trying to navigate an unfamiliar section of a big city, and you’re using a particular cluster of skyscrapers as a reference point. Traffic and one-way streets force you to take some...
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The Atlantic razor clam uses very little energy to burrow into undersea soil at high speed. Now a detailed insight into how the animal digs has led to the development of a robotic clam that can...
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If you’ve run out of drinking water during a lakeside camping trip, there’s a simple solution: Break off a branch from the nearest pine tree, peel away the bark, and slowly pour lake water through...
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When an earthquake and tsunami struck Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant in 2011, knocking out emergency power supplies, crews sprayed seawater on the reactors to cool them — to no avail.
One...
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“It’s all about the process,” says MIT professor Warren Seering.
He’s referring to his spring design class, Course 2.739 (Product Design and Development) — but he could easily be talking about...
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Assistant Professors Cullen Buie and Sangbae Kim of the Department of Mechanical Engineering both recently received a DARPA Young Faculty Award (YFA), which was granted to 25 tenure-track faculty...
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The U.S. Navy’s Arleigh Burke (DDG-51) class of destroyers consists of 62 active vessels that collectively carry 20,000 personnel and burn 4.4 million barrels of fuel each year. Since the first hull...
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Nate Ball (SB ’05, SM ’07) and Bryan Schmid (SB ’03, SM ’05)
Nate Ball
Bryan Schmid
by Alissa Mallinson
MechE alumni Nate Ball (SB ’05, SM ’07) and Bryan Schmid (SB ’03, SM ’05)...
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Engineering Light-Activated Muscles
by Jennifer Chu, MIT News Office
Many robotic designs take nature as their muse: sticking to walls like geckos, swimming through water like tuna, sprinting...