Soft Robotics Podcast

Interesting discussion with Darren Lipomi, a professor in the Department of NanoEngineering and Programs in Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at UC San Diego. In this episode, we discussed how To Design Smart Materials" How smart materials can be designed to achieve high mechanical performance with fast response time? What kind of nonlinearities we have to keep and remove for better performance? Should we get rid of the viscoelastic behavior in smart materials?

Prof.Darren has started his podcast “Molecular Podcasting”, he is also doing informative Youtube videos handling the issues in academia ranging from the funding, handling grant rejections, soft skills, how to choose your Ph.D. supervisor which is very crucial to your academic career.

I highly recommend listening to Prof.Darren's podcast on iTunes:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/molecular-podcasting-with-darren-lipomi/id1519830532

Important words by Jessica Burgner about the publication and reviewing process, how we can move from the quantity to the quality? How are the key players for this systematic trend, is that the funding agency, or the employers? We need a collective movement to stand against this harsh environment that makes faculty members and grad students pressurized to publish.

What are the most significant parameters you have to consider for designing your complex physical system in simulation, and how we can close the gap between simulation and reality?

Many bachelor's students feel lost including my brother, they don't which path they have to take. I felt ashamed, we lack good mentors and we have to change the broken education style. I have interviewed Cosimo Della Santina, this clip is relatable.

Interesting discussion with Jessica Burgner, the head of Continuum Robotics

Laboratory, University of Toronto. Jessica shares the challenges and limitations that face small-scaled continuum robots and the importance to dig deeper into understanding the morphological computations and embodied intelligence. Besides highlighting the recommended solution for enhancing the reviewing and publication process in our community. I hope you enjoy this episode.

Interesting discussion with Davide Scaramuzza, the director of the Robotics and Perception Group at ETH Zurich. In this episode Davide shares his thoughts pushing the limits on vision-based navigation drones, can they beat the best human pilot? the challenges of scaling down drones, how to design tailored hardware and algorithm operating at very low power and frequency in real-time? What are the important features you have to consider in the simulation when your physical system gets complex? Other compelling points highlighted in the episode, I hope you enjoy it.

The current deep learning methods sound to be more memorizing patterns than learning from them and from personal experience which will not fair well when new situations are presented. Can startups build applications that can be scaled without having the resources of google/amazon/Facebook Etc?

Clip: Can we have a new world beyond Academia and Industry? Since we know there are limitations on both sides, can we come up with a new world that could have more freedom in terms of funding and ideas?

If you have an idea, but you don't know what the expected objectives are or what good would come out, you may be on the right route, even if you get rejected. This story is a good reminder to believe in what you are doing even if no one else can envision what you have.

Refik Anadol "Machine Hallucination, Can Machines Dream And Remember? What will happen if we take conscious models applied to latent space by colliding machine intelligence, neuroscience, and architecture to make invisible visible? Can we paint machines consciousness, can data be pigments? I was thrilled by this discussion with Refik. His way of thinking and imagination is ahead of the time, I hope you enjoy listening to Refik.