Professor Donald Sadoway’s team has designed a battery that makes use of molten metals, which could allow for large-scale power storage, reports Jonathan Webb for the BBC. “Previous battery designs have largely been too expensive to help store energy on the scale of a national power grid,” writes Webb.
“MIT researchers are engineering the next generation of space-wear: a skin-tight pressurized suit fit for awesome planetary exploration,” reports The Associated Press. “The researchers have engineered active compression garments that have small, springlike coils that contract in response to heat.”
“A team from MIT and Duke created flexible polymers that can change color and texture in response to a controlled voltage, essentially allowing them to camouflage an object with the flip of a switch,” reports Jim Festante for Slate. This mimics the ability of cephalopods in nature to rapidly change color.
Nidhi Subbaraman writes for BetaBoston about a new skin-tight spacesuit design from Professor Dava Newman’s team. “It promises to offer astronauts the same protection but a lot more mobility and comfort,” writes Subbaraman.
Professor Dava Newman’s team has designed a new lightweight, flexible suit for astronauts that provides pressurization through mechanical means rather than gas, as current spacesuits do. “The theoretical suits would be made from coils that spring back to a ‘remembered’ shape when heated,” reports Rachel Feltman for The Washington Post.
Brooks Hays of United Press International reports on the latest iteration of MIT’s skin-tight spacesuit, the BioSuit. “Ultimately, the big advantage is mobility, and a very lightweight suit for planetary exploration,” said Professor Dava Newman.
Jordon Golson of Wired reports on a new traffic control system created by MIT researchers: “The ‘RoadRunner’ system, developed for Singapore by graduate student Jason Gao and his advisor Li-Shiuan Peh, issues a digital ‘token’ to each car entering a congestion-prone area.”
USA Today’s Kristin Musulin reports on a new algorithm developed by MIT researchers that allows their cheetah robot to operate untethered. “This is the first time we show that an electrically powered robot can run and jump over one-foot height obstacles,” says Professor Sangbae Kim.
“Researchers at MIT have built a four-legged robot that runs like the super-fast spotted feline and can even run on its own power,” writes Amina Khan for The Los Angeles Times about MIT’s robotic cheetah. “[T]he researchers think that it could eventually reach speeds of 30 miles per hour.”
“Inspired by octopus tentacles, MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL)'s latest robot is as squishy as can be,” writes Rachel Feltman of The Washington Post. “Like other soft robots, this tentacle has potential in search and rescue missions.”
Professor Xuanhe Zhao has developed a material that mimics the ability of cephalopods such as cuttlefish, squids, and octopuses, to rapidly change color, reports Rachel Feltman for The Washington Post. "It's a fantastic quality, and one unprecedented in human engineering," says Zhao.
Dominique Mosbergen reports for The Huffington Post on MIT’s robotic cheetah: “[T]he researchers behind its development have devised an algorithm that allows their creation not just to run at speeds of up to 10 mph but also to jump over obstacles—all without being tethered to anything.”
Thomas Tamblyn of The Huffington Post reports on a soft, tentacle-shaped robot developed by doctoral candidate Andrew Marchese and PhD student Robert Katzschmann: “The arm is made using purely silicone which is then inflated and deflated forcing the arm to move in the desired direction.”
Brian Mastroianni reports for Fox News on the new algorithm developed by Professor Sangbae Kim’s team that gives its robotic cheetah the ability to run and jump over obstacles untethered. “Our goal is to use this kind of robot to save lives in a disaster situation,” said Kim.
Professor Sangbae Kim and his team in MechE have developed an algorithm that allows a four-legged cheetah robot to run up to 10 mph and jump over obstacles untethered. “The Cheetah's new algorithm improvements make it more agile and able to handle real-life terrain,” writes Francie Diep.