REU Site: Biomimetic and Soft Robotics (BioSoRo): from Biological Inspirations to Engineered Mechanisms

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This Biomimetic and Soft Robotics (BioSoRo) REU Site at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) will engage a diverse cohort of undergraduate students for 10 weeks during the summers of 2019-2021. Hosted by the departments of Mechanical Engineering, Electrical & Biomedical Engineering, and Biology at UNR, this program focuses on multidisciplinary collaborative projects related to BioSoRo research that span the fields of biomimetics, additive manufacturing, smart materials, solid mechanics, and robotics and control. Participants work closely with graduate student and faculty mentors on their respective research projects, gain the knowledge and tools for progression in STEM, build a community of professionals with peers, graduate students, and faculty, and grow in their perspective on the role of STEM in society. In addition to ten weeks of intensive research, students take part in educational, social, and professional development activities that support their sustained growth as engineers and scientists, including workshops on career development, scholarship community colloquiums, and tours to Tesla Gigafactory and Amazon Warehouse where industrial robots are massively adopted. Research projects at this BioSoRo REU site entail crawling legless animals and soft crawling robots inspired by them, electroactive polymers and their applications in soft robots, supercoiled polymer actuators for soft robots, and smart materials enabled compliant biomedical devices, among others. These projects will offer an advanced and interdisciplinary platform for enhancing undergraduate research experience in the cutting-edge BioSoRo research area, which perfectly leverages fundamental science with state-of-the-art engineering. This REU Site will capitalize on the broad appeal of BioSoRo research to increase the diversity and broaden the horizons of students engaged in robotics research. Students with experience in BioSoRo are in great demand and this REU site will help train and diversify the next generation of roboticists in the 21st century.This site is supported by the Department of Defense in partnership with the NSF REU program.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.