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By mixing glass beads with a curable polymer we create a well-defined cohesive granular medium, held together by solidified, and hence elastic, capillary bridges. This material has a geometry similar to a wet packing of beads, but with an…
To create heterogeneous, multiscale structures with unprecedented functionalities, recent topology optimization approaches design either fully aperiodic systems or functionally graded structures, which compete in terms of design freedom and…
In contrast with the diversity of materials found in nature, most robots are designed with some combination of aluminum, stainless steel, and 3D-printed filament. Additionally, robotic systems are typically assumed to follow basic…
The concept of 'deformable arm scale' (completely different from a traditional rigid arm balance) is theoretically introduced and experimentally validated. The idea is not intuitive, but is the result of nonlinear equilibrium kinematics of…
Differentiable simulation is a promising toolkit for fast gradient-based policy optimization and system identification. However, existing approaches to differentiable simulation have largely tackled scenarios where obtaining smooth…
Many organisms leverage an interplay between shape and activity to generate motion and adapt to their environment. Embedding such feedback into synthetic microrobots could eliminate the need for sensors, software, and actuators, yet current…
Random lasers with low spatial coherence have important potential applications in high quality imaging and displaying. Here, a random laser with tunable angular spectra is proposed and fabricated through directly coupling an asymmetric…
Multi-step pathways, constituted of a sequence of reconfigurations, are central to a wide variety of natural and man-made systems. Such pathways autonomously execute in self-guided processes such as protein folding and self-assembly, but…
Multiscale periodic metamaterials have been designed for numerous applications, such as impact absorption, acoustic cloaking, photonic band gaps, and mechanical logic gates. This prior work has focused on optimizing mesoscale structure for…
Soft composite solids are made of inclusions dispersed within soft matrices. They are ubiquitous in nature and form the basis of many biological tissues. In the field of materials science, synthetic soft composites are promising candidates…
The modelling of heterogeneous and architected materials poses a significant challenge, demanding advanced homogenisation techniques. However, the complexity of this task can be considerably simplified through the application of micropolar…
For various engineering and industrial applications it is desirable to realize mechanical systems with broadly adjustable elasticity to respond flexibly to the external environment. Here we discover a topology-correlated transition between…
A rectangular plate of dielectric elastomer exhibiting gradients of material properties through its thickness will deform inhomogeneously when a potential difference is applied to compliant electrodes on its major surfaces, because each…
In the context of elasticity theory, rigidity theorems allow to derive global properties of a deformation from local ones. This paper presents a new asymptotic version of rigidity, applicable to elastic bodies with sufficiently stiff…
Machine learning offers promising methods for processing signals recorded with wearable devices such as surface electromyography (sEMG) and electroencephalography (EEG). However, in these applications, despite high within-session…
We present a minimal model for simulating dynamics of assorted lipid assemblies in a computationally efficient manner. Our model is particle-based and consists of coarse-grained beads put together on a modular platform to give generic…
Shape assembly, the process of combining parts into a complete whole, is a crucial robotic skill with broad real-world applications. Among various assembly tasks, geometric assembly--where broken parts are reassembled into their original…
Hard magnetic materials belong to a novel class of soft active materials with the capability of quick, large, and complex deformation via applying an external actuation. They have an extensive range of potential applications in soft robots,…
We present a theoretical framework for the dynamic calibration of the higher eigenmode parameters (stiffness and optical lever responsivity) of a cantilever. The method is based on the tip-surface force reconstruction technique and does not…
We introduce a high-throughput platform that enables simultaneous, parallel testing of six bistable beams via programmable motion of a rotating disk. By prescribing harmonic angular dynamics, the platform explores the phase space of angular…