Hawkes Lab 

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• January 2024: "A scalable, light-controlled, individually addressable, non-metal actuator array" is accepted to ICRA 2024 in Yokohama, Japan, lead author, Sophia Paul. Congrats, Sophie!

• January 2024: "High-force, high-curvature vine robot for inspection" is accepted to ICRA 2024 in Yokohama, Japan, lead author, Mijail Mendoza. Congrats, Mijail!

• December 2023: "Passively adaptive radiative switch for thermoregulation in buildings" is published in Device, lead Author, Charles Xiao. Congrats, Charlie! 

• December 2023: Anna Alvarez and Charles Xiao are accepted to present their posters at the 2024 Gordon Research Conference on Robotics in Ventura, CA. Congrats, Anna and Charlie!

• October 2023: "Passively Adaptive Radiative Switch for Thermoregulation in Buildings" is accepted to Device, lead author, Charles Xiao. Congrats, Charlie!

• October 2023: "A light- and heat-seeking vine-inspired robot with material-level responsiveness" is accepted to IEEE RA-L, lead authors Shivani Derglurkar and Charles Xiao. Congrats Shivani and Charlie!

• October 2023: US Patent for "Reconfigurable, Adaptable Robotic Structures" is granted. US Pat. 11794334.

• August 2023: "Control of Soft Robots with Inertial Dynamics" is published in Science Robotics, David Haggerty and Michael Banks lead authors. Congrats, David and Michael!

• August 2023: David Haggerty successfully defends his thesis, "Design, Modeling, and Control of Soft Robots." Congrats, Dr. Haggerty!

• June 2023: "A peristaltic soft, wearable robot for compression therapy and massage" is accepted to IEEE RA-L, lead author Mengjia Zhu. Congrats, Mengjia!

• May 2023: Nicholas Naclerio successfully defends his thesis, "Leveraging compliance and anisotropy to address robotic challenges." Congrats, Dr. Naclerio!

• May 2023: Apical Robotics, a team of undergraduates from our lab, places third in their category in the UCSB New Venture Competition, winning $2,000. Additionally, they won the Audience Choice Award out of all teams participating for another $2,500. Congrats, team!

• April-May 2023: Nicholas Naclerio takes part in Visiting Technologist Experience at NASA Glenn Research Center, testing his burrowing robots in various lunar regolith simulants.

• April 2023: US Patent for "Soft robotic device with fluid emission for burrowing and cleaning" is granted. US Pat. 11633849.

• March 2023: Anna Alvarez wins the 2023 NSF GRFP Award! Congrats, Anna!

• March 2023: William Heap wins the 2023 NSF GRFP Award! Congrats, William!

• March 2023: Charlie Xiao and Chris Keeley present their work on jumping robots at Amazon's MARS conference. Congrats, Charlie and Chris!

• March 2023: Nathan Usevitch joins our lab as a postdoc, working on the next generation of extreme mobility robots. Welcome, Nathan!

• February 2023: Charlie Xiao, Jonathan Cardona Garcia, David Rodriguez Lopes, Eric Port, Saul Gallegos, and Connor Tang bring their lunar hopper work to the 2023 Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference. Congrats, team!

• October 2023: Anna Alvarez and William Heap present their work at IROS 2022 in Kyoto. The rest of the lab joins for our first conference since COVID. A very exciting conference and an amazing trip!

• September 2023: Matt Devlin is selected for an internship at Meta Reality Labs. Congrats, Matt!

• August 2022: Veritasium produces a great video about our jumper. Thanks, Derek, Emily, and Team!

• July 2022: "Miniature, Lightweight, High-Force, Capstan Winch for Mobile Robots" is published online in RA-L. Congrats, William!

• June 2022: "Jumping on Air: Design and Modeling of Latch-mediated, Spring-actuated Air-jumpers" is accepted to IROS 2022, lead author Anna Alvarez. Congrats, Anna!

• June 2022: Miniature, Lightweight, High-Force, Capstan Winch for Mobile Robots" is accepted to IROS 2022 + RA-L, lead author William Heap. Congrats, William!

• May 2022: Luke Gockowski successfully defends his thesis, "Designing Light-Material Interactions for Soft Robotics." Congrats, Dr. Gockowski!

• April 2022: Great video put out by Dan Fox @Nature on our jumper. Thanks, Dan!

• April 2022: Our article, Engineered jumpers overcome biological limits via work multiplication, is published in Nature. Congrats, Charlie, Chris, and everyone else involved! 

• February 2022: Anna Alvarez is selected as one of just 45 Finalists for the Hertz Fellowship. Congrats, Anna!

• January 2022: Connie Berdan, William Heap, and Steven Man each win the Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities Grant. Congrats, All!

• December 2021: Anna Alvarez advances to the interview round for the Hertz Fellowship; only 17% of applicants were selected for this round. Congrats, Anna!

• November 2021: Our experiment on burrowing robots in low gravity is selected by NASA to be launched on a 1/6 g Blue Origin flight in 2023, with Nicholas Naclerio leading the project. Congrats, Nicholas!

• October 2021: "Geometric Solutions for General Actuator Routing on Inflated-Beam Soft Growing Robots" is published online in IEEE Transactions on Robotics, lead author Laura Blumenschein. Congrats, Laura!

• September 2021: Our work on vine robots for intubation is selected by MIT's The Engine for their Fall 2021 Blueprint Cohort, with David Haggerty leading the effort. Congrats, David!

• July 2021: Listen about our work on the IEEE Soft Robotics Podcast!

• June 2021: "Controlling subterranean forces enables a fast, steerable, burrowing soft robot" is published in Science Robotics as the COVER ARTICLE, lead author, Nicholas Naclerio. Congrats, Nicholas!

• May 2021: Honored to receive the Northrop Grumman Excellence in Teaching Award for 2020-2021!

• April 2021: "Hard Questions for Soft Robotics" is published in Science Robotics. Full text available via this link. Author's version.

• April 2021: "This Unstoppable Robot Could Save Your Life," a video about our vine robots is posted by Veritasium on YouTube. ~7 million views!

• March 2021: "Hybrid vine robot with internal Steering-Reeling Mechanism enhances system-level capabilities" is published in IEEE RAL, lead author David Haggerty. Congrats, David!

• February 2021: "Why Robots that Bend are Better," a video about our isoperimetric soft robot from our Science Robotics paper, is posted by Veritasium on YouTube. Up to 2.7 million views!

• February 2021: "Mechanism and function of root circumnutation" is published in PNAS, lead author Isaiah Taylor. Congrats, Isaiah! UCSB press release.

• January 2021: Connie Berdan and William Heap each win the Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities Grant. Congrats, Connie and William!

• December 2020: We are honored to be selected as one of the 2020 NASA Early Career Faculty to pursue our work on Highly Mobile, Self-Anchoring Robots for Coordinated, High-Force Environmental Interaction. 

• October 2020: We are honored to be selected as one of the 2020 Packard Fellows for Science and Engineering to pursue our work investigating a new paradigm of endoscopy and surgery, based on steerable tip growth. UCSB press release.

• October 2020: "Tunable Photothermal Actuation Enabled by Photoswitching of Donor—Acceptor Stenhouse Adducts" is accepted to ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, lead authors Jaejun Lee and Miranda Sroda. Congrats, Jaejun and Miranda!

• September 2020: "Design, modeling, control, and application of everting vine robots" is accepted to Frontiers in Robotics and AI, authored by Laura H Blumenschein, Margaret M Coad, David A Haggerty. Congrats, team!

• August 2020: "A Multimodal, Enveloping Soft Gripper: Shape Conformation, Bioinspired Adhesion, and Expansion-Driven Suction" is accepted to IEEE Transactions on Robotics, lead author Yufei Hao. Congrats, Yufei!

• July 2020: "An untethered soft cellular robot with variable volume, friction, and cell-to-cell cohesion" is accepted to IEEE IROS 2020, lead author Matt Devlin. Congrats, Matt!

• May 2020: "Variable area, constant force shock absorption motivated by traumatic brain injury prevention" is accepted to Smart Materials and Structures, lead author Michael Fanton. Congrats, Michael!

• April 2020: "Fluidic fabric muscle sheets for wearable and soft robotics" is the cover of Soft Robotics, lead author Mengjia Zhu. Congrats, Mengjia!

• April 2020: Charlie Xiao is selected for the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program! Congrats, Charlie!

• March 2020: Press videos released for the Science Robotics "Isoperimetric" paper by Stanford/UCSB Press and NSF.

• March 2020: "An untethered isoperimetric soft robot" is published in Science Robotics, lead authors Nathan Usevitch and Zachary Hammond. Congrats, Nathan and Zack!

• February 2020: "Physical Principles and Applications of Plant-Inspired Tip Growth for Robotics" receives the Faculty Early Career Development Program  (CAREER) award!

• January 2020: "A Dexterous Tip-extending Robot with Variable-length Shape-locking" is accepted to ICRA 2020, lead author Sicheng Wang. Congrats, Sicheng!

• January 2020: "Simple, Low-hysteresis, Foldable, Fabric Pneumatic Artificial Muscle" is accepted to both RAL and ICRA 2020, lead author Nicholas Naclerio. Congrats, Nicholas!

• January 2020: "A Tri-Stable Soft Robotic Finger Capable of Pinch and Wrap Grasps" is accepted to ICRA 2020, lead author Aaron Nguyen. Congrats, Aaron!

• January 2020: "An obstacle-interaction planning method for navigation of actuated vine robots" is accepted to ICRA 2020, lead author Mario Selvaggio. Congrats, Mario!

• January 2020: "Retraction of Soft Growing Robots without Buckling" is accepted to both RAL and ICRA 2020, lead author Margaret Coad. Congrats, Margaret!

• January 2020: "3D Electromagnetic Reconfiguration Enabled by Soft Continuum Robots" is accepted to RAL and ICRA 2020, lead author Lucia Gan. Congrats, Lucia!

• September 2019: EFRI C3 SoRo: Overcoming Challenges in Control of Continuum Soft is awarded. Looking forward to working with Profs. Megan Valentine, Igor Mezic, Javier Read de Alaniz, and Mike Gordon on this!

• September 2019: ‘Connecting the legs with a spring improves human running economy’ on the cover of JEB volume 222 issue 17. Congrats to Cole Simpson, lead author.

• August 2019: NRI: INT: COLLAB: Mesh Of Robots on a Pneumatic Highway (MORPH): An Untethered, Human-Safe, Shape-Morphing Robotic Platform is awarded. Looking forward to working with Profs. Sean Follmer and Mac Schwager on this!

• July 2019: US Patent Granted: "Surface grasping mechanism using directional adhesives."  Patent No. 10,220,520.

• July 2019: US Patent Granted: “Enhancing ground reaction forces beyond friction using dry adhesives." Patent No. 10,011,010.

• June 2019: "Characterizing Environmental Interactions of Soft Growing Robots" is accepted to IROS 2019 in Macau, lead author David Haggerty. Congrats, David!

• June 2019: "Energy Harvesting across Temporal Temperature Gradients using Vaporization" is accepted to IROS 2019 in Macau, lead author Charles Xiao. Congrats, Charlie!

• May 2019: "Pilot Study of Cadence, a Novel Shoe for Patients with Foot Drop" is accepted to the 2019 41st Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine & Biology Society, lead author Arlette Evora. Congrats, Arlette!

• May 2019: US Patent Granted: "Controllable Adhesive on Conformable Film for Non-flat surface," with Mark Cutkosky and David Christensen. Patent No. 10,316,220.

• April 2019: US Patent Granted: "Wolverine: A wearable haptic interface for grasping in virtual reality," with Sean Follmer and Inrak Choi. Patent No. 10,248,201.

• April 2019: Nicholas Naclerio wins the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program award. Congrats, Nicholas!

• April 2019: Nicholas Naclerio also wins the NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship. Congrats again, Nicholas!

• March 2019: "Grasping Without Squeezing: Design and Modeling of Shear-Activated Grippers" wins the 2019 IEEE Transactions on Robotics King-Sun Fu Memorial Best Paper Award! Congrats all co-authors!

• February 2019: "Spatially variant microstructured adhesive with one-way friction" published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, lead author Arul Suresh. Congrats, Arul!

• January 2019: "Low-cost, Continuously Variable, Strain Wave Transmission Using Gecko-inspired Adhesives" is published online in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, lead author, Nicholas Naclerio. Congrats, Nicholas! 

• November 2018: "A Soft, Steerable Continuum Robot That Grows via Tip Extension" is published online in Soft Robotics, lead author Joey Greer. Congrats Joey!

• July 2018: "Soft Robotic Burrowing Device with Tip-Extension and Granular Fluidization" is accepted to IROS 2018 in Madrid, lead author Nicholas Naclerio. Congrats Nicholas!

• June 2018: Congrats to Spencer, Joe, Ryan, Kira, and Harrison for Most Innovative Senior Capstone project! Their Rehabilitation Crib for children with Cerebral Palsy is really impressive.

• May 2018: "Design of Materials and Mechanisms for Responsive Robots," co-authored by Mark Cutkosky, is published online in the Annual Reviews, available here.

• April 2018: "Toward the Design of Personalized Continuum Surgical Robots" is accepted to for publication in the Annals of Biomedical Engineering, lead author Dr. Tania Morimoto. Congrats Tania!

• February 2018: UCSB Robotics is Live! UCSB Robotics brings together faculty, students, and visitors affiliated with departments across the UC Santa Barbara campus. The group facilitates cooperation in robotic systems, design, and control and their various interdisciplinary applications.

• February 2018: "Helical actuation on a soft inflated robot body" is accepter to IEEE Robosoft 2018 in Livorno, Italy, lead author Laura Blumenschein. Congrats Laura!

• January 2018: "Obstacle-AidedNavigation of a Soft Growing Robot" is accepted to IEEE ICRA 2018 in Brisbane, Australia, lead author Joey Greer. Congrats Joey!

• January 2018: "A Tip-Extending SoftRobot Enables Reconfigurable and Deployable Antennas" is accepted to IEEE ICRA 2018 in Brisbane, Australia AND IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, lead author Laura Blumenschein and Lucia Gan. Congrats Laura and Lucia! 

• January 2018: "APAM: Antagonistic Pneumatic Artificial Muscle" is accepted to IEEE ICRA 2018 in Brisbane, Australia, lead author Nathan Usevitch. Congrats Nathan!

• January 2018: "HapWRAP: Soft Growing Wearable Haptic Device" is accepted to IEEE ICRA 2018 in Brisbane, Australia, lead author Nathaniel Agharese. Congrats Nathaniel!

• December 2017: "Grasping Without Squeezing: Design and Modeling of Shear-Activated Grippers," is published online in IEEE Transactions on Robotics.

• November 2017: "Design of a Compact Actuation and Control System for Flexible Medical Robots," is accepted to IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, lead author Tania Morimoto. Congrats Tania!

• September 2017: "A Soft, Controllable, High Force Density Linear Brake Utilizing Layer Jamming," is accepted to IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, lead author Inrak Choi. Congrats Inrak!

• August 2017: "A Tip-extending Catheter for Endovascular Surgery," a poster with Dr. Tania Morimoto of UCSD and Dr. Jeremy Heit of Stanford Hospital, accepted for IROS 2017.

• July 2017: Our soft robot is featured in the SF Chronicle and the Wall Street Journal.

• July 2017: Our soft robot made the July cover of Soft Robotics.

• July 2017: "A soft robot that navigates its environment through growth" is published in Science Robotics (full text link).

• June 2017: "Design of a Soft Catheter for Low-Force and Constrained Surgery," accepted to IROS 2017, lead author Patrick Slade. Congrats Patrick!

• June 2017: "A robotic device using gecko-inspired adhesives can grasp and manipulate large objects in microgravity" is published in Science Robotics,

lead author: Hao Jiang. Congrats Hao!

• May 2017: Cara's poster for ISB is shortlisted for the David Winter's Young Investigator's Award. Congrats Cara!

• April 2017: "Simulation of a Passive Assistive Device to Reduce Running Effort," accepted ISB 2017 as a poster. Congrats Cara!

• January 2017: "Exomuscle: An inflatable device for shoulder abduction support," accepted to ICRA 2017, lead author: Cole Simpson. Congrats Cole!

• January 2017: "Series Pneumatic Artificial Muscles (sPAMs) and Application to a Soft Continuum Robot," accepted to ICRA 2017, lead author: Joey Greer. Congrats Joey!

• January 2017: "Force and Moment Constraints of a Curved Surface Gripper and Wrist for Assistive Free Flyers," accepted to ICRA 2017, lead author: Matt Estrada. Congrats Matt!

• January 2017: "Pneumatic Reel Actuator: Design, Modeling, and Implementation," accepted to ICRA 2017, lead author: Zachary Hammond. Congrats Zack!

• January 2017: "Passive Returning Mechanism for Twisted String Actuators," accepted to ICRA 2017, lead author: Muhammad Usman. Congrats Muhammad!

• January 2017: "Design of a Compact Actuation and Control System for Flexible Medical Robots," accepted to ICRA 2017 and RAL, lead author: Tania Morimoto. Congrats Tania!

• December 2016: US Patent 9517610 Issued: "Grippers based on opposing van der Waals adhesive pads."

• December 2016: "A Multi-Modal Robot for Perching and Climbing on Vertical Outdoor Surfaces" has been accepted to IEEE Transactions on Robotics. Check out the fun video. Congrats Morgan Pope!

• October 2016: "Fruit fly scale robots can hover longer with flapping wings than with spinning wings"published in Journal of the Royal Society Interface. Thanks to co-author David Lentink for all the help!

• October 2016: Congrats to Inrak Choi for "Best Demo," showing Wolverine Haptic Interface at UIST 2016, in Tokyo, Japan!

• September 2016: Excited to start working on our NSF NRI grant on vine robots!

• July 2016: Began as Visiting Assistant Professor at Stanford University in CHARM Lab.

• July 2016: Accepted position as Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at University of California, Santa Barbara. 

• June 2016: "Wolverine: A Wearable Haptic Interface for Grasping in Virtual Reality," lead author Inrak Choi, accepted to IROS 2016. Congrats Inrak!

• May 2016: 4 new provisional patents filed.

• March 2016: Stephen Colbert once again believes in the goodness of science; Spiderman IS plausible after all! Stephen Colbert pretending to climb like Spiderman/Elliot

• February 2016: After a group from Cambridge suggested that climbing with a hand-sized area of gecko adhesive is impossible, Stephen Colbert is very disappointed because Science has ruined Spider-Man. Luckily, the Stanford Press Office filmed a response!

• January 2016: "One Motor, Two Degrees of Freedom through Dynamic Response Switching" accepted to both ICRA 2016 and RAL!

• January 2016: "Design and Implementation of a 300% Strain Soft Artificial Muscle" accepted to ICRA 2016.

• January 2016: "Free Flyer Acquisition of Spinning Objects with Gecko-Inspired Adhesives," lead author Matthew Estrada, accepted to ICRA 2016. Congrats Matt!

• December 2015: Featured in the Cosmos for Schools Physics Lesson, with a Career Profile and even a cartoon!

• October 2015: ASME 2015 Best Journal Paper Award in Bioinspired Systems and Materials for "Human climbing with efficiently scaled gecko-inspired dry adhesives."

• October 2015: With Mark Cutkosky and David Christensen, presented work on human climbing, grasping without squeezing and microrobots at swissnex Biorobots:Dissected. Photos

• October 2015: Co-author, Best Paper Award IROS 2015 for “Tactile Sensing for Gecko-Inspired Adhesion.”

• September 2015: PNAS paper hits 200 citations. Google Scholar

• July 2015: Began as a Postdoctoral Scholar with Prof. Allison Okamura in Stanford's CHARM Lab. Elliot's CHARM website.

• May 2015: Best Student Paper Award at ICRA 2015 for "Grasping without Squeezing: Shear Adhesion Gripper with Fibrillar Thin Film"

• March 2015: Invited to exhibit work at TED2015