Recent News:


News Archive:

2010:

Professor Robert Full attends the 2010 Council on Undergraduate Research national conference at Weber State University: “Undergraduate Research as Transformative Practice: Developing Leaders and SOlutions for a Better Society.” Click here for information on CUR and the conference.

2009:

ABC Television’s Catalyst series features Bob Full and Ron Fearing in the segment “Robot Biomimicry.” Clickhere to view this episode online.

Scientific American features Bob Full in “Natural Born Automatons: Next-Gen Robots Take Cues from Biology.” Click here for the article.

 

2008:

DragonflyTV Nano features Bob Full and Ron Fearing in “Gecko Feet” segment. Click here to view episode online.

The Robots Podcast features an interview with Robert Full. Click here to listen to the complete “Bio-inspired Locomotion” podcast.

The Poly-PEDAL Lab and CiBER are featured in the California’s “Back to nature: The latest inventions are inspired by the world around us.” To view the article online, please click here.

QUEST features the Poly-PEDAL Lab and CiBER in “Bio-Inspiration: Nature as Muse.” To view the episode online, please click here.

New Paper Published: Ardian Jusufi, Daniel I. Goldman, Shai Revzen, and Robert J. Full. 2008. Active tails enhance arboreal acrobatics in geckos. PNAS March 18, 2008 vol. 105 no. 11 4215–4219.
Media website with additional photos and information available here.

New Paper Published: M. J. Spenko, G. C. Haynes, J. A. Saunders, M. R. Cutkosky, A. A. Rizzi, R. J. Full, D. E. Koditschek. 2008. Biologically Inspired Climbing with a Hexapedal Robot. Journal of Field Robotics, 25(4-5), 223-242.

New Paper Published: Lee, J., Sponberg, S. N., Loh, O. Y., Lamperski, A. G., Full, R. J. 2008. Templates and Anchors for Antenna-Based Wall Following in Cockroaches and Robots. IEEE Transactions on Robotics, vol. 24 no. 1 130-143.

New Paper Published: Sponberg, S. and R. J. Full. 2008. Neuromechanical response of musculo-skeletal structures in cockroaches during rapid running on rough terrain. JEB, 211, 433-446.

 

2007:

Dr. Anne Peattie starts her post doctoral position in the Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge with Walter Federle.

New Paper Published: Peattie, A.M. and R.J. Full. 2007. Phylogenetic analysis of the scaling of wet and dry biological fibrillar adhesives. PNAS, 104, 18595-18600.

Simon Sponberg from the Poly-PEDAL Laboratory presented an invited talk on Bio-Inspired Robotics and Neuromechanical Systems Biology as part of a panel on the future of robotics at the 2nd National Symposium of the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation.

Professor Full presented a talk on “From Bio-inspiration to Robotic Implementation” together with another engineer, Mark Cutkosky from Stanford, in a Workshop on Biomimetic Robotics for IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Rome, Italy.

Professor Full presented on FIBR research in a talk titled “Neuromechanical Systems Biology” at the Advanced Robotics Technology and Systems Laboratory of The Sant’ Anna School of Advanced Studies of Pisa in Italy.

Professor’s Full and Koditschek presented in an invited symposium on Design Principles in Biological Systems at the Banbury Center in Cold Spring Harbor, NY.

Professor Full presented a talk on “Toward an Integrative Biology” and was a workshop session leader at National Research Council Committee’s Meeting on Conceptual Basis of Biology for the 21st Century at the National Science Foundation in Arlington, VA.

Professor Full presented on “Biologically Inspired Robots as Sustainable Partners in Search and Rescue, Environmental Monitoring and Exploration” in an invited Robotics Seminar Part I: Robots – Our Future’s Sustainable Partner for the American Association of Advancement of Sciences Annual Meeting in San Francisco, CA.

Professor Full presented a seminar on FIBR research in a talk titled “Neuromechanical Systems Biology” in Robotics, Controls and Mechantronics Colloquium at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA. Full was invited by Eric Klavins, a former PhD student from the Koditschek Laboratory.

Professor Full presented a seminar on “Neuromechanical Systems Biology” as the Dertouzos Distinguished Lecturer in the 2006-2007 at MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) in Cambridge, MA.

 

2006:

Professor Full, Hal Komsuoglu and Joel Weingarten demonstrated the bio-inspired robots, RHex and Edubot at Google Zeitgeist, Google Inc. in Mountain View, Ca. Meeting was attended by over two hundred leaders from technology and the media. Our team was able to discuss the relevance of biological inspiration with former Vice President Al Gore and General Colin Powell.

Professor Full presented a seminar on “Bipedal Bugs, Galloping Ghosts and Gripping Geckos Bio-Inspired Computer Animation, Robotics, Artificial Muscles and Adhesives” at the Google Science Foo, Google Inc. in Mountain View, Ca.

Professor Full presented a seminar on “Biological Inspiration in the Design of Complex Systems” at a General Motors Sponsored Workshop focusing on Bio-inspired materials & Systems in Detroit, Mi.

Professor Full presented on “Research-based Education: From Galloping Ghosts to Gripping Geckos” in a Plenary Lecture at the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS; Anaheim, Ca.). The ABRCMS is the largest multidisciplinary student conference in the United States. The conference attracted approximately 2,600 minorities, including 1650 undergraduate students, 300 graduate students/ postdoctoral scientists and 750 faculty and administrators.

Professor Full presented the Opening Plenary Lecture on “The Value of Interdisciplinary Research-based Learning – the Student as Colleague” at the Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities (SENCER) Summer Institute, Santa Clara University. He discussed how FIBR supported research can enhance teaching – the approach of the new center at Berkeley – CIBER. Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities (SENCER) was initiated in 2001 under the National Science Foundation’s CCLI national dissemination track. Since then, SENCER has established and supported an ever-growing community of faculty, students, academic leaders, and others to improve undergraduate STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education by connecting learning to critical civic questions. The meeting was attended by 36 colleges and universities from across the nation.

Professor Full and graduate student Simon Sponberg of Berkeley presented an interdisciplinary, experience based pedagogy for teaching undergraduate level integrative biology courses at the 3rd National Conference of the ReInvention Center entitled Transforming the Culture: Undergraduate Education and the Multiple Functions of the Research University. The presentation featured in part the new CiBER center at Berkeley and multidisciplinary educational approaches taken by FIBR team in developing undergraduate curricula. They also held a discussion with other attendees about the challenges of performing cutting edge research in parallel novel teaching methods, demonstrating that the two can in fact be synergistic. The published report of the presentation and discussion, The Reciprocal Relationships Among Research, Teaching, and Learning, is available in the Center’s Proceedings and an executive summary is athttp://www.reinventioncenter.miami.edu/conference2006/robertfull/summary.htm

Professor Full created a new Division for the study of Comparative Biomechanics in the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) because it needed a home where colleagues from all fields, interested students, granting agencies and corporations can turn to find the latest cutting-edge research, the investigators conducting the studies and the events that disseminate the discoveries. No other society in the world is better positioned to highlight the contributions of comparative biomechanics. The strength of the symposium and contributed paper and poster sessions at the SICB annual meetings are exceptional in this area.

Professor Full joined the editorial board of a new Journal, Bioinspiration and Biomimetics from the Institute of Physics. “Scientists and engineers are increasingly turning to nature for inspiration. The solutions arrived at by natural selection are often a good starting point in the search for answers to scientific and technical problems. Equally, designing and building bioinspired devices or systems can tell us more about the original animal or plant model. Bioinspiration & Biomimetics publishes research involving the study and distillation of principles and functions found in biological systems that have been developed through evolution, and application of this knowledge to produce novel and exciting basic technologies and new approaches to solving scientific problems.” http://www.iop.org/EJ/journal/bioinsp

Paper Published: Dynamics of rapid vertical climbing in cockroaches reveals a template. Daniel I. Goldman, Tao S. Chen, Daniel M. Dudek, and Robert J. Full. J Exp Biol 2006 209: 2990-3000.

JEB Summary

Paper Published: Passive mechanical properties of legs from running insects. Daniel M. Dudek and Robert J. Full. J Exp Biol 2006; 209 1502-1515.

JEB Summary

The National Academies honors 42 educators, including Professor Full, with the title “National Academies Education Mentor in the Life Sciences.”

Read The National Academies’ Press Release

2005:

UC Berkeley Biologists observe bipedal locomotion in two species of octopus.

Huffard C. L., F. Boneka, and R. J. Full (2005) Underwater bipedal locomotion by octopuses in disguise. Science. 307:1927

Read University of California at Berkeley’s Press Release

 

2004:

Professor Full and a team of researchers have been awarded a $5 million, five-year grant by the National Science Foundation.

Read University of California at Berkeley’s Press Release



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