Mechanical engineering

Eko Devices founders Tyler Crouch, Jason Bellet and Connor Landgraf

Heart and asthma monitors? There’s an app for that

08/10/17 New York Times — Two startup companies spun out of bioengineering's senior capstone design program are taking the world of remote health monitoring by storm. Monitoring devices by Eko Devices and Knox Medical Diagnostics are changing the landscape of medicine, the New York Times reports.

Roofing material made from recycled cardboard on a home in Ahmedabad, India

Thinking inside the cardboard box

06/30/17 Berkeley Science Review — Traditional aid programs import finite resources that require an agency to distribute and maintain. Blum Center development engineers are changing the game by helping communities use their own resources, knowledge and people-power to solve their problems, says mechanical engineering alum Sonia Travaglini.

Chengzhi Shi checks the connections between the transducer array and the digital circuit.

High-speed communications for the deep sea?

06/29/17 Berkeley Lab — A new approach to sending acoustic waves through water could open up the world of high-speed communications to activities underwater (including scuba diving, remote ocean monitoring and deep-sea exploration), according to research led by mechanical engineering professor Xiang Zhang.

Dawn Tilbury to head NSF engineering

06/21/17 NSF — Dawn Tilbury (M.S.'92, Ph.D.'94 EECS), a mechanical engineering professor at the University of Michigan, will lead investments in fundamental engineering research and education as the newly appointed head of the National Science Foundation's Directorate for Engineering.

V&A Café brings dining and collaboration to Etcheverry

06/12/17 — The Berkeley Engineering community has an inviting new space for meetings and collaboration with the June 8 grand opening of the V&A Café in Etcheverry Hall.

Boosting robotics in manufacturing

05/01/17 — The Department of Defense announced a $253 million Advanced Robotics Manufacturing Innovation hub that partners with Berkeley Engineering.

3-D printers and the future of tissue engineering

04/27/17 Medium — The Fung Institute sat down with mechanical engineering professor Grace O'Connell to discuss her research into engineering complex tissues and cartilage with the help of a 3-D printer.

An interstellar journey

04/13/17 — A group of Berkeley students is developing the tools and technologies for humanity's next big step - exploring the deep reaches of space.

Shoe-string theory

04/12/17 — A new study by Berkeley mechanical engineers finally shows why shoelaces keep coming untied.

Tarek Zohdi, Distinguished Teaching Award winner

ME’s Tarek Zohdi wins 2017 DTA

03/21/17 Center for Teaching & Learning — Mechanical engineering professor Tarek Zohdi is one of five winners of this year's Distinguished Teaching Award, honored for "teaching that incites intellectual curiosity." Also selected was Khalid Kadir, who created the Engineering, the Environment and Society course.

ME professor Karl Hedrick dies at 72

02/28/17 — J. Karl Hedrick, the James Marshall Wells Academic Chair and Professor of Mechanical Engineering, passed away on February 22 after a long battle with lung cancer. He was an expert on nonlinear control theory and its applications to transportation. See also the Daily Cal's obituary for Prof. Hedrick.

Scott Silva and Nicole Panditi with a pile of plastic 3-D printer waste.

As 3-D printing grows, so does need to reclaim plastic waste

02/17/17 — With more than 100 3-D printers on campus, at least 600 pounds of plastic trash is generated each year. Undergraduates Nicole Panditi, a mechanical engineering senior, and Scott Silva, a CNR junior, have a solution.

Rahul Mehendiratta working on plastic filament recycling

Empowering communities through sustainability

01/12/17 Medium — Reflow Filament, cofounded by Fung Institute alumnus Rahul Mehendiratta (M.Eng.'14 ME), aims to create a new model for the 3D printing industry that empowers communities and encourages innovation in developing regions worldwide.

The future of fungi

01/04/17 Berkeley Science Review — Doctoral researcher Sonia Travaglini (M.S.'15 ME) writes about her exploration of the many non-culinary uses of mushrooms, from engineering building blocks and faux leather to bioremediation of toxic waste.

Argonne Lab’s embedded entrepreneurs have Berkeley ties

12/20/16 — Justin Whiteley (B.S.'10 NE & ME) and Ian Hamilton, an alumnus of the Nuclear Innovation Boot Camp, are part of the first cohort for Chain Reaction Innovations, a start-up hub for sustainable energy innovators embedded at Argonne National Laboratory.

The CalWave Power Technologies team with their prize check

CalWave rides Wave Energy Prize

11/18/16 University of California — Berkely Lab startup CalWave Power Technologies and its novel “wave carpet” earned second place (and a $500,000 prize) out of an initial 92 teams vying for the U.S. Department of Energy's Wave Energy Prize.

Modular exoskeleton will make more workers bionic

11/17/16 MIT Technology Review — SuitX, a startup founded by mechanical engineering professor Homayoon Kazerooni, has launched a trio of devices - backX, shoulderX and legX - that use robotic technologies to enhance the abilities of able-bodied workers and prevent common workplace injuries.

Berkeley research team and their autonomous car

Berkeley team recognized for autonomous car research

10/05/16 — ME professors Francesco Borrelli and Karl Hedrick, Ph.D. student Ashwin Carvalho, and Associate Director for Self-Driving Vehicle Development Chan Kyu Lee were in attendance for the U.S. Department of Transportation's announcement of a new policy on Automated Vehicle Development.

ME’s Yeung honored for ocean engineering achievements

08/09/16 — Mechanical engineering professor Ronald Yeung received a lifetime achievement award from ASME's Ocean, Offshore & Arctic Engineering Division, honoring his “contributions to the fields of hydromechanics and ocean engineering as a distinguished scholar.”

Olivier Siegelaar (third from left) rowing with the Dutch crew team

Olympic rower (and engineer) Siegelaar wins Pac-12 scholarship

08/09/16 Cal Sports Quarterly — Olivier Siegelaar (B.S.'13 ME), who is rowing for the Netherlands crew team at the Rio Olympics, is also a 2016 Pac-12 postgrad scholarship recipient, to help him pursue an MBA at Oxford University.