SLOTH BOT In the factory and in the air...speed dominates. But just as slow animals have their niche, so do slow robots. When Magnus Egerstedt, the Georgia ech professor of electrical and computer engineering, was vacationing in Costa Rica he became obsessed with the sloth and was inspired to build really slow robots. He zeroed in on an appropriate application for a sluggish robot: persistent environmental monitoring. With funding from The National Science Foundation and the office of naval research, Egerstedt and his team created a solar-powered, wire-hanging robot. One of the researchers noticed that the robot’s two l-e-d's looked like eyes and the tube a rudimentary body, so she 3D-printed a sloth skin and soon the robot’s cuteness factor grew by several orders of magnitude. The robot is now hanging out in the Atlanta Botanical Garden, moving into the sun only when it needs to. Egerstedt now hopes to send a group of Sloth-bots into the trees of Costa Rica. REUSABLE N95 MASKS As countries the world over are grappling with spikes in Covid-19, the shortage of N-95 masks continues to plague healthcare workers. A research team at “M.I.T.” and “Brigham And Women’s Hospital” in Boston is trying to address that and has designed a silicone replacement that is just as efficient as the N-95 at filtering out droplets of “Water-Vapor-Carrying-Pathogens". The masks are made of liquid silicone rubber that allows them to be manufactured at scale using injection molding. An added benefit of using liquid silicone rubber is near-transparent masks which facilitate lip-reading and establish better patient-physician rapport. The team conducted various clinical trials and is currently working on a third version of the mask, applying lessons from field testing for a more comfortable fit. Resolving the N-95 mask shortage has been high-priority for the team that believes they are on to a scalable solution that checks off all the boxes. ASME Presents Exploration into Technology This week in engineering You can watch the full 1 hour event video from our main feature at this link: ASME Philanthropic Impact 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6NQCbN2qJg