Automated sequence and motion planning for robotic spatial extrusion of 3D trusses

While robotic spatial extrusion has demonstrated a new and efficient means to fabricate 3D truss structures in architectural scale, a major challenge remains in automatically planning extrusion sequence and robotic motion for trusses with unconstrained topologies. This paper presents the first attempt in the field to rigorously formulate the extrusion sequence and motion planning (SAMP) problem, using a CSP encoding. Furthermore, this research proposes a new hierarchical planning framework to solve the extrusion SAMP problems that usually have a long planning horizon and 3D configuration complexity. By decoupling sequence and motion planning, the planning framework is able to efficiently solve the extrusion sequence, end-effector poses, joint configurations, and transition trajectories for spatial trusses with nonstandard topologies. This paper also presents the first detailed computation data to reveal the runtime bottleneck on solving SAMP problems, which provides insight and comparing baseline for future algorithmic development. Together with the algorithmic results, this paper also presents an open-source and modularized software implementation called Choreo that is machine-agnostic. To demonstrate the power of this algorithmic framework, three case studies, including real fabrication and simulation results, are presented.Comment: 24 pages, 16 figure

A Framework and Process Library for Human-Robot Collaboration in Creative Design and Fabrication

In the last two decades, the increasing affordability of industrial robots, along with the growing maturity of computational design software, has led architects to integrate robots into their design process. Robots have exceptional capabilities that enable the fabrication of geometrically complicated components and assembly of complex structures. However, the robot control and motion programming tools currently being adopted by designers were all initially intended for engineering-based manufacturing industries. When using computer-controlled tools, designers cannot adapt their designs to the production process in real time. Current industrial robot control systems force the designer to envision and embed all of the required machining data in the digital model before the fabrication process begins. This requirement makes the process of design to fabrication a unidirectional workflow. In pursuit of a solution, a growing body of research is exploring various human-robot collaboration methods for architectural practices. However, many of these studies are project- based, targeting the ad hoc needs of a particular robotic application or fabrication process. Consequently, this dissertation investigates a generalizable framework for human-robot collaboration that is rooted in the principles of distributed cognition. As an essential part of the research argument, the role of the tools of production in the formation of a designer's cognitive system is considered. This framework, defined for a bi-directional design and fabrication workflow, relies on and integrates material and fabrication feedback into the design process. The framework has three main components: interactive design, adaptive control, and a design and fabrication library. While different aspects of these components have been studied to various extents by other researchers, this dissertation is the first to define them in an integrated manner. Next, the requirements for each of these elements are introduced and discussed in detail. This dissertation focuses in more detail on the library component of the framework because compared to the first two components, it is the least investigated solution to date. A structure for the library is proposed so that the tacit knowledge of makers could be structured, captured, and reused. At its core, the library is a process-centric database where each process is supported by a set of tools, instructions, materials, and geometries required for the transformation of a part into its final form. Finally, this study demonstrates the generalizability of the library concept through a series of experiments developed for different material systems and with various robotic operations.Ph.D

Technological Literacy Programs in Elementary School

Technology and engineering design education is offered as an elective in most secondary school curriculums, however a primary school curriculum is not common. The Standards for Technological Literacy (ITEEA, 2007), which focus on technological literacy and engineering design, are not typically included in primary education. The objectives of this study are to determine if teachers and administrators think technology and engineering education provide new opportunities for elementary students, how they feel about technology and engineering education, and what obstacles exist for successful implementation. A literature review provided the background on federal, state, and local technology initiatives that exist for Virginia public schools. It also defined technology standards that exist and how they have been incorporated in state curriculum requirements at the elementary level. A survey was used for both teachers and administrators at each elementary school in the sample. Data was collected from seventy-seven participants from twenty-four elementary schools. The results indicate ninety-two percent of respondents agree that implementation of a technology and engineering design education program would provide new educational opportunities at their schools. Eighty-seven percent of respondents feel it is essential to learn about technology and engineering design in elementary school. Participants felt that students do use different types of technology in the classroom for finding information. But do not use technology and the engineering design process to troubleshoot and find solutions to problems through facilitated projects. Only a quarter of respondents were satisfied about the current technology and engineering educational opportunities at their schools. Teachers and administrators indicated that the biggest obstacle that exists for successful implementation of a technology and engineering education curriculum is lack of funding, followed by a lack of materials

System-supported instructor feedback on the students’ design and prototyping processes in Fab Lab education context

Abstract. Fab Lab represents a unique concept in educational platforms where both teachers and students can get access to work on digital fabrication. Digital fabrication allows students to do creative tasks using different categorized software tools and technologies in the Fab Lab. Most of the time, students and instructors face challenges to compile a successful job through prototype designing and documentation in the proper way. Instructors have no opportunity to give feedback to the students’ prototyping and documentation through any dedicated application in the present Fab Lab. For evaluating digital fabrication, it isn’t easy to provide timely feedback in the traditional approaches. For this reason, the present thesis proposes a solution to the difficulty of giving timely feedback to the students based on their documentation and prototyping design which considers a reflection as an activity in Fab Lab. The solution based on several iterations of Fab Lab Oulu digital fabrication courses. This thesis presents means of Interaction and communication for both teachers and students using comment which helps students create a new and unique concept of prototype design through an application in Fab Lab. Based on the submission of students’ weekly prototypes, this application implements the questionnaires for evaluation. It focuses on the easy way to give proper feedback to the students in the Fab Lab education context. This task performed various functions for developing new techniques for giving feedback, such as an evaluation of students. In this thesis, we developed a new application named "Protobooth Oulu" for providing feedback to the students. This thesis represents a real demonstration that assigns different scaling such as, rating, Semantic Differential, and Likert scales for grading the projects and giving feedback to students by instructors, which is also helpful to make decisions. This scaling can compare the current and previous works and quantify the development of individual students’ works. This study also focuses on the various stages of prototyping and different satisfaction levels of the students. As a result, meaningful feedback comes from the educators, which is visible to both the instructors and the students. We also hope to develop new functions for education which are visual and fetch the data based on specific scaling in future. Adding more scaling helps educators give feedback very specifically on the students’ prototyping design, and excellent results will be accurate and can be predicted

UKM8032 microcontroller design and FPGA implementation by integrating DW8051 IP Core for SoC design

Microcontroller is an essential component for many general and application specific purposes such as airbag control system in automotive industry. Current applications of any microcontroller vary with larger size, higher cost, and lower processing speed yet not locally designed

Epidermis and Re-epithelialization in <i>Schmidtea mediterranea</i>

Epidermal layer is crucial for organism’s survival as its ability to close the wound is essential for tissue recovery. Planarian epidermis enables animal recovery and survival after virtually any body part amputation. Nevertheless, neither the epidermis nor the mechanisms endowing such a remarkable wound healing capacity is described in detail in planarians. Our work introduces live imaging methodology, which allows following epidermal cells and their response to tissue damage or tissue loss for extended time (hours) and in high resolution. Using our methods, we followed planarian cells live for the first time and in conjunction with electron microscopy analysis we described epidermal cell behaviors during tissue maintenance, response to tissue damage and tissue loss. Our data provides comprehensive description of cellular wound response, wound closure as well as preexisting tissue contribution to tissue restoration. In addition, we performed epidermal expression profile analysis to identify the candidate list of epidermally expressed genes to depict the machinery endowing these epidermal cell behaviors. In the pilot functional (RNAi) screen an array of transcription factors with a tissue maintenance phenotypes were identified. Our work established tools for subsequent functional studies of other epidermal expressed genes and paved the way to dissect the mechanisms of the epidermis’ maintenance and efficient wound healing in planarians

2005 Revised Omaha Economic Development Plan: Plan for Northeast Omaha

The 2005 Revised OEDP provides OEDC with current data and analysis to initiate and complete a strategic process to develop an action plan for community and economic development activities and projects. The 2005 Revised Overall Economic Development Plan (OEDP) prepared by the Center for Public Affairs Research (CPAR) at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) for the Omaha Economic Development Corporation (OEDC) replaces the original OEDP first prepared in 1978. While a variety of revisions and updates over the years helped keep the original OEDP relatively current and helpful in development activities, in 2005 OEDC President Alvin Goodwin commissioned CPAR to provide a new basic planning document for the organization. Working with OEDC staff, and using the original OEDP as a framework, faculty and staff from CPAR, with the assistance of UNO graduate students, collected and analyzed data for the 2005 Revised Overall Economic Development Plan. The Revised OEDP retains and updates several of the sections from the original Plan but also adds new sections. Overall economic development plans contain a wealth of information about the demographic, social, and economic characteristics of the geographic area targeted for development by a community development corporation (CDC). CDCs, like the Omaha Economic Development Corporation, engage in many and varied community and economic development projects in its service area, and the overall economic development plan provides needed information to implement these projects. For example, the OEDP helps the community development corporation identify community needs as well as opportunities for business and economic development. Data from the OEDP can also be utilized for marketing and promotional purposes to attract new firms and customers. The OEDP serves as a source of information for formulating broad, long-term organizational goals, as well as specific, short-term development strategies and actions. Finally, the OEDP helps coordinate development activities, plans, and projects among the range of other organizations working in or adjacent to the target area

Low power data-dependent transform video and still image coding

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1999.Includes bibliographical references (p. 139-144).This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.This work introduces the idea of data dependent video coding for low power. Algorithms for the Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) and its inverse are introduced which exploit statistical properties of the input data in both the space and spatial frequency domains in order to minimize the total number of arithmetic operations. Two VLSI chips have been built as a proof-of-concept of data dependent processing implementing the DCT and its inverse (IDCT). The IDCT core processor exploits the presence of a large number of zerovalued spectral coefficients in the input stream when stimulated with MPEG-compressed video sequences. Adata-driven IDCT computation algorithm along with clock gating techniques are used to reduce the number of arithmetic operations for video inputs. The second chip is a DCT core processor that exhibits two innovative techniques for arithmetic operation reduction in the DCT computation context along with standard voltage scaling techniques such as pipelining and parallelism. The first method reduces the bitwidth of arithmetic operations in the presence of data spatial correlation. The second method trades off power dissipation and image compression quality (arithmetic precision.) Both chips are fully functional and exhibit the lowest switched capacitance per sample among past DCT/IDCT chips reported in the literature. Their power dissipation profile shows a strong dependence with certain statistical properties of the data that they operate on, according to the design goal.by Thucydides Xanthopoulos.Ph.D