China 07 Summer Research Blog

Week 10 (Aug 26-Sep 1)

• Technology review of flexible displays
• Technology review of flexible batteries
• CIS User report submitted
• Simulation in Healthcare final draft accepted
• Tour of Tsinghua MEMS and Microfluidics Laboratory

Week 9 (Aug 19-25)

• Tsinghua Summer Vacation Over, Zhao Danpu & Yi Qiang back from Xi'an
• Stanford Telecon
• Nokia milestone report with Leon Xu and others at Nokia Research Center Beijing
• Visit to medical robotics start up company outside Tsignhua Science Park

Week 8 (Aug 12-18)

• Artificial Muscle feasibiliity document for clamshell joint AnalysisOfClamshellandActuatorRecommendation.doc
• SU-8 Paper Draft Sec. 1 & 2 in La Tex form

Week 7 (Aug 5-11)

• Matlab code for actuator demand in banded rolling joint JointForceCalcs.m:
• contact with MIGA motor co. and Artificial Muscle Inc. discussing ultra thin actuators flatpack_animation.avi
• install Mik Tex and Texni Center

Week 6 (July 29-Aug 4)

• Zhao & Yi Qiang back from Xi'an for day; compiled Artificial Muscle stuff into one document, CompiledArtificialMuscleDocument.doc
• Nokia whole group meeting--actuator sizing for clamshell joint
• Big Sister Depart (wed eve)
• help Xu Jiang with post-doc Search
• SU8 intro outline and citation search
• telecon with DanielSoto and NoeEsparza

Week 5 (July 22-28)

• Telecon with Xi'an
• Actuator Search--difficulty finding EPAM actuators for sale--SRI/AMI only seems to be doing large quantity applications for big companies ActuatorSearch.doc
• Proofread two papers on THBIP II for Xiong and Prof. Chen
• Big Sister Arrived (wed morn)

Week 4 (July 15-21)

• Telecon with Xi'an
• tour of Tsinghua IC Equipment Lab--very interesting work: they build precision 2 axis locating devices, and then attach a two photon laser assembly to do point by point exposure, similar to an FDM macroscale process but with points, not lines; they quoted resolution at 10nm (although there was some translation issues, and the original quote was 10mm); a few SEMs they sent me of the point by point layering process, notice undercuts are possible, but staircasing effect is present; dinosaur.tif gear.tif
• Artificial Muscle Cell Phone Applications; ArtificialMuscleApplications.doc
• meeting with Art Students--idea map presentation
• robotics lab graduating students' ceremony and dinner party

Week 3 (July 8-14)

• research on artificial muscle technologies
  • Mckibbon pnuematic actuators
  • Piezoelectric actuators (ie. PZT)
  • SRI/Artificial Muscle Inc. Electroactive Polymer actuators
  • Shape Memory Alloy Actuators
• very brief and rushed overview document written for Tsinghua labmates: ArtificialMuscle--July12.doc:
• Nokia team teleconference on Qq software
• revisions for "Simulation in Healthcare" technical report article written with Dr. Kay Daniels; based on old 218D birthing simulator project; revisions complete and reviewers comments addressed, figure added, resubmitted : KayPaperRevisedJuly.doc, [[http://bdml.stanford.edu/twiki/pub/Rise/AaronSummerblog/Fig4.jpg] Fig.4.jpg]]
• Communication with Dan Soto about MERL Cleanshop issues, broken molds, SEMs, etc.
• Second meeting with industrial design students

Week 2 (July 1-7)

• return from Milwaukee (tuesday eve)
• short commentary on potential facial expression and body language expression in cell phone: July6Commentary.doc:
  • main idea of robot skin comprised of touch sensors, flexible & exensible display, encapsulation in transparent silicone rubber occurs to me--possible topic in BDML
• Nokia team meeting
• Gave Chinglish presentation about BDML to entire lab (~25 people, 5 prof.) very well received LabIntroduction.ppt Strange enough, Will Provancher visisted this lab and gave a talk sometime 1 or 2 years ago, so some people are already familair with older StickyBot and SpinyBot work
• Meeting with Industrial Design students discussing cell phone usage, human behavior, gesture recognition, very interesting, but mostly in chinese and difficult to understand--they have a new building, though, which is quite nice

Week 1 (June 24-30)

• leave for Milwaukee wedding (thursday eve)
• up to speed on project (although things here are very roughly defined)
• some labmates leave to attend Robo Cup in Atlanta, others leave to go on 1 month social service requirement, lab is 60% full

Initial Days (June 22-24)

• 1st meeting with Prof. Chen and other graduate students
• robotic and automation Lab tour (http://www.pim.tsinghua.edu.cn/units/me/robot)
• Introduction to Nokia Biomimetic Cell Phone and Robotic Cell Phone project
  • Project Proposal (gives a good overview): ResearchProposal0406_wz.doc:
  • Description of Topic 3--adding DOFs to Cell Phone: top3_wz1.doc: (written by Wang Zhan, some project direction change since this)
  • Progress report submitted to Nokia April 1 or so: ReportforNokia_WZZDP_070208.doc:
• Nokia team meeting
• Dinner with Prof. Liu (sub-professor in charge of Nokia team) and family
• Initial briefing and discussion of Nokia project goals and my responsibilities and contributions
• University Orientation

-- AaronParness - 11 Jul 2007