Soft and Squishy Robots in the Classroom, with Dr. Holly Golecki

Modern robotics can interact with the human body in newer, innovative ways, using flexible materials and compliant actuators. Dr. Holly Golecki, Ph.D., wants to teach young people all about it, recently sharing her team’s K-12 curriculum in soft robotics in The Science Teachermagazine. A professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Dr. Golecki teaches bioengineering and engineering design to undergraduates, while also research applications of materials engineering to bioengineering and engineering education. She discusses her pathway to her current focus on engineering education, and her ideas about increasing the diversity of students who can access engineering at younger ages by way of soft robotics.

Related to this episode:

• Dr. Holly Golecki’s website: https://www.hollygolecki.com/
• Revolutionizing Robotics: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19434871.2023.12290283
• Soft Robotics Toolkit: https://softroboticstoolkit.com/
• UIUC BioE: https://bioengineering.illinois.edu/
• Drexel Materials Science and Engineering: https://drexel.edu/engineering/academics/departments/materials-science-engineering/
• Sandia National Labs: https://www.sandia.gov/
• VEX Robotics competitions: https://www.vexrobotics.com/competition
• McKibben artificial muscles: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/803170
• Control Pneumatic Cylinder with Arduino (video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXNNjtK5hp8
• Tim the Nitinol Lepidopterist (video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyVGpRjG5-0
• Mark Rober on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY1kMZp36IQSyNx_9h4mpCg
• hgolecki on Twitter / X: https://twitter.com/hgolecki
• Soft Robotics Toolkit Competition: https://softroboticstoolkit.com/competition/requirements

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