From cutting-edge robotics, design, and bioengineering to sustainable energy solutions, ocean engineering, nanotechnology, and innovative materials science, MechE students and their advisors are doing incredibly innovative work. The graduate students highlighted here represent a snapshot of the great work in progress this spring across the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and demonstrate the ways the future of this field is as limitless as the imaginations of its practitioners.

Democratizing design through AI

Lyle Regenwetter
Hometown: Champaign, Illinois
Advisor: Assistant Professor Faez Ahmed
Interests: Food, climbing, skiing, soccer, tennis, cooking

Lyle Regenwetter finds excitement in the prospect of generative AI to "democratize" design and enable inexperienced designers to tackle complex design problems. His research explores new training methods through which generative AI models can be taught to implicitly obey design constraints and synthesize higher-performing designs. Knowing that prospective designers often have an intimate knowledge of the needs of users, but may otherwise lack the technical training to create solutions, Regenwetter also develops human-AI collaborative tools that allow AI models to interact and support designers in popular CAD software and real design problems. 

Solving a whale of a problem 

Loïcka Baille
Hometown: L’Escale, France
Advisor: Daniel Zitterbart
Interests: Being outdoors — scuba diving, spelunking, or climbing. Sailing on the Charles River, martial arts classes, and playing volleyball

Loïcka Baille’s research focuses on developing remote sensing technologies to study and protect marine life. Her main project revolves around improving onboard whale detection technology to prevent vessel strikes, with a special focus on protecting North Atlantic right whales. Baille is also involved in an ongoing study of Emperor penguins. Her team visits Antarctica annually to tag penguins and gather data to enhance their understanding of penguin population dynamics and draw conclusions regarding the overall health of the ecosystem.

Water, water anywhere

Carlos Díaz-Marín
Hometown: San José, Costa Rica
Advisor: Professor Gang Chen | Former Advisor: Professor Evelyn Wang
Interests: New England hiking, biking, and dancing

Carlos Díaz-Marín designs and synthesizes inexpensive salt-polymer materials that can capture large amounts of humidity from the air. He aims to change the way we generate potable water from the air, even in arid conditions. In addition to water generation, these salt-polymer materials can also be used as thermal batteries, capable of storing and reusing heat. Beyond the scientific applications, Díaz-Marín is excited to continue doing research that can have big social impacts, and that finds and explains new physical phenomena. As a LatinX person, Díaz-Marín is also driven to help increase diversity in STEM.

Scalable fabrication of nano-architected materials

Somayajulu Dhulipala
Hometown: Hyderabad, India
Advisor: Assistant Professor Carlos Portela
Interests: Space exploration, taekwondo, meditation.

Somayajulu Dhulipala works on developing lightweight materials with tunable mechanical properties. He is currently working on methods for the scalable fabrication of nano-architected materials and predicting their mechanical properties. The ability to fine-tune the mechanical properties of specific materials brings versatility and adaptability, making these materials suitable for a wide range of applications across multiple industries. While the research applications are quite diverse, Dhulipala is passionate about making space habitable for humanity, a crucial step toward becoming a spacefaring civilization.

Ingestible health-care devices

Jimmy McRae
Hometown: Woburn, Massachusetts
Advisor: Associate Professor Giovani Traverso
Interests: Anything basketball-related: playing, watching, going to games, organizing hometown tournaments 

Jimmy McRae aims to drastically improve diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities through noninvasive health-care technologies. His research focuses on leveraging materials, mechanics, embedded systems, and microfabrication to develop novel ingestible electronic and mechatronic devices. This ranges from ingestible electroceutical capsules that modulate hunger-regulating hormones to devices capable of continuous ultralong monitoring and remotely triggerable actuations from within the stomach. The principles that guide McRae’s work to develop devices that function in extreme environments can be applied far beyond the gastrointestinal tract, with applications for outer space, the ocean, and more.

Freestyle BMX meets machine learning

Eva Nates
Hometown: Narberth, Pennsylvania 
Advisor: Professor Peko Hosoi
Interests: Rowing, running, biking, hiking, baking

Eva Nates is working with the Australian Cycling Team to create a tool to classify Bicycle Motocross Freestyle (BMX FS) tricks. She uses a singular value decomposition method to conduct a principal component analysis of the time-dependent point-tracking data of an athlete and their bike during a run to classify each trick. The 2024 Olympic team hopes to incorporate this tool in their training workflow, and Nates worked alongside the team at their facilities on the Gold Coast of Australia during MIT’s Independent Activities Period in January.

Augmenting Astronauts with Wearable Limbs 

Erik Ballesteros
Hometown: Spring, Texas
Advisor: Professor Harry Asada
Interests: Cosplay, Star Wars, Lego bricks

Erik Ballesteros’s research seeks to support astronauts who are conducting planetary extravehicular activities through the use of supernumerary robotic limbs (SuperLimbs). His work is tailored toward design and control manifestation to assist astronauts with post-fall recovery, human-leader/robot-follower quadruped locomotion, and coordinated manipulation between the SuperLimbs and the astronaut to perform tasks like excavation and sample handling.

This article appeared in the Spring 2024 edition of the Department of Mechanical Engineering's magazine, MechE Connects. 

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Table of Contents

Wizards and witches, brace yourselves, for the highly anticipated RPG, Hogwarts Legacy, is finally on the horizon. Developed by Avalanche Software and published by Warner Bros. Games, this open-world adventure game is set in the wizarding world of Harry Potter, and it promises to offer players an immersive and magical experience like never before.

As fans of the Harry Potter series, we all have dreamed of attending Hogwarts and experiencing the magic first-hand. Hogwarts Legacy allows us to do just that. The game is set in the 1800s, decades before the events of the Harry Potter series, and it allows players to take on the role of a fifth-year student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Imagine exploring the castle and its grounds, attending classes, interacting with familiar characters such as Dumbledore and Hagrid, and uncovering the secrets of ancient magic hidden within the school.

In this post, we’ll take a deep dive into the game’s features, gameplay, and storyline, so get your wands ready and let’s begin! We’ll explore the setting and storyline of the game, the gameplay and features, and the game’s social system. We’ll also look at the game’s release date and the platforms on which it’ll be available.

Hogwarts Legacy is more than just a game; it’s an opportunity to fully immerse ourselves in the wizarding world we’ve come to love. It’s a chance to experience the magic, the mystery and the adventure of Harry Potter in a whole new way. So, without further ado, let’s dive into the world of Hogwarts Legacy.

Setting and Storyline

One of the most exciting aspects of Hogwarts Legacy is the game’s setting. The game is set in the 1800s, decades before the events of the Harry Potter series, which allows players to explore a new and unique time within the wizarding world. Players will be able to see how the castle and its grounds looked before the events of the Harry Potter series and how the wizarding world has changed over time.

The game’s storyline centres around the player’s character, who discovers that they have a unique magical ability known as the “Ilvermorny Legacy.” This ability allows the player to communicate with and control animals, and it plays a crucial role in the game’s main quest. The main quest of the game involves uncovering the secrets of ancient and powerful magic that lies hidden within Hogwarts. Players will have to navigate through various challenges, puzzles, and obstacles to uncover these secrets and discover the truth behind the Ilvermorny Legacy.

Players will also be able to interact with familiar characters such as Dumbledore and Hagrid, and they will be able to attend classes and learn new spells and potions. The game also features a variety of magical creatures, such as dragons, giant spiders, and centaurs, that players can encounter and battle throughout the game.

One of the most exciting things about the game’s setting and storyline is the opportunity for players to experience new and unique events and situations within the wizarding world. The game takes place in a time before the events of the Harry Potter series, which means that players will be able to experience new stories and adventures that have not been previously explored in the books or films. This provides an exciting opportunity for players to learn more about the wizarding world and discover new secrets and mysteries within it.

The game’s storyline also features multiple branching paths and choices that players can make, which will affect the outcome of the game. This means that players will have the ability to shape their own story and create a unique experience within the game.

Overall, the game’s setting and storyline offer players an immersive and exciting experience within the wizarding world of Harry Potter. The opportunity to explore a new time period and uncover ancient secrets and magic within Hogwarts, combined with the ability to interact with familiar characters and attend classes, make for a truly magical and engaging experience.

Gameplay and Features

 

Hogwarts Legacy offers a unique and immersive gameplay experience that allows players to fully explore the wizarding world of Harry Potter. The game is an open-world RPG, which means that players will have the freedom to explore the game’s vast and detailed world at their own pace. Players will be able to explore the castle and its grounds, attend classes, and participate in a variety of activities such as Quidditch matches and duels.

One of the most exciting features of the game is the player’s ability to attend classes and learn new spells and potions. Players will be able to attend classes such as Herbology, Defence Against the Dark Arts, and Potions, and they will be able to learn and master various spells and potions that they can use in battle and to solve puzzles. Players will also be able to customize their character’s appearance and abilities, which allows them to create a unique and personalized experience within the game.

The game also features a wide array of spells, potions, and magical creatures, which players can use to battle enemies, solve puzzles, and uncover secrets. Players will be able to cast spells such as Expelliarmus, Wingardium Leviosa, and Accio, and they will be able to brew and use potions such as Felix Felicis and Polyjuice Potion. Players will also be able to encounter and battle a variety of magical creatures such as dragons, giant spiders, and centaurs, which adds an extra level of excitement and challenge to the game.

Another exciting feature of the game is the player’s ability to choose a house. Players will be able to choose between Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin, and their choice will affect their reputation and interactions with other characters within the game. Players will also be able to attend Quidditch matches and participate in duels, which adds an extra level of excitement and challenge to the game.

The game also features a unique social system that allows players to form alliances and rivalries with other characters. These relationships will have an impact on the game’s story and will affect the player’s reputation in the wizarding world. Players will be able to make friends and enemies, and their relationships with other characters will affect how they are perceived and treated within the game.

Overall, the gameplay and features of Hogwarts Legacy offer players a truly immersive and engaging experience within the wizarding world of Harry Potter. The opportunity to attend classes, learn new spells and potions, and customize their character’s appearance and abilities, combined with the wide array of spells, potions, and magical creatures, make for a truly magical and engaging experience.

Social System

One of the most unique and interesting aspects of Hogwarts Legacy is its social system. The game features a unique social system that allows players to form alliances and rivalries with other characters within the game. These relationships will have an impact on the game’s story and will affect the player’s reputation in the wizarding world.

Players will be able to make friends and enemies, and their relationships with other characters will affect how they are perceived and treated within the game. For example, if a player forms a strong friendship with a character, that character may be more likely to offer help or information to the player. Similarly, if a player forms a rivalry with a character, that character may be more likely to try and sabotage the player’s progress or interfere with their goals.

The social system also allows players to form alliances with other characters. Players will be able to form alliances with other characters, and these alliances will affect the player’s reputation and interactions with other characters within the game. For example, if a player forms an alliance with a character, that character may be more likely to offer help or information to the player.

The social system also includes a reputation system, which tracks the player’s reputation within the wizarding world. Players will be able to gain or lose reputation based on their actions and interactions with other characters within the game. For example, if a player completes a quest or helps another character, they may gain reputation points. However, if a player causes trouble or breaks the rules, they may lose reputation points.

The social system also features a variety of social events within the game, such as parties and gatherings. Players will be able to attend these events and interact with other characters within the game. These events will offer players the opportunity to form new relationships, gain reputation points, and uncover new information about the game’s story and world.

Overall, the social system of Hogwarts Legacy offers players a truly immersive and engaging experience within the wizarding world of Harry Potter. The opportunity to form alliances and rivalries with other characters, and the reputation system that tracks the player’s reputation within the wizarding world, makes for a truly unique and engaging experience. It allows players to fully immerse themselves in the game’s world and create their own unique story, making each playthrough unique and different.

Choosing Your House in Hogwarts Legacy

One of the most exciting features of Hogwarts Legacy is the ability for players to choose the house they belong to at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Players will be able to choose between Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin, and their choice will affect their reputation and interactions with other characters within the game.

The process of choosing a house in the game is similar to the process in the Harry Potter series, where players will have to take a sorting quiz. The quiz will consist of a series of questions that will help determine the player’s personality and characteristics, and it will place them in the house that best suits them. The quiz will be based on the questions that the Sorting Hat asks in the Harry Potter series, such as “Which would you rather be, smart or kind, powerful or loyal, etc.”

Once players have been sorted into a house, they will be able to interact with other characters within the house and attend classes and activities specific to the house. For example, if a player is sorted into Gryffindor, they will be able to interact with other Gryffindor characters and attend classes such as Defense Against the Dark Arts and Transfiguration.

Players’ choice of house will also affect their reputation within the wizarding world. For example, if a player is sorted into Slytherin, they may be perceived as cunning and ambitious, whereas if a player is sorted into Hufflepuff, they may be perceived as loyal and hardworking. These perceptions will affect the player’s interactions with other characters within the game and may affect the outcome of the game’s story.

Players will also be able to participate in house-specific activities, such as Quidditch matches and duels. For example, if a player is sorted into Gryffindor, they will be able to participate in Quidditch matches as a member of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and they will be able to participate in duels against members of other houses.

Choosing a house in Hogwarts Legacy is a unique and exciting feature that allows players to fully immerse themselves in the game’s world and create their own unique story.

Controversies Surrounding Hogwarts Legacy

One of the main controversies surrounding the game is the inclusion of the Ilvermorny Legacy, a magical ability that allows players to communicate with and control animals. Some have criticized this inclusion, stating that it is insensitive and disrespectful towards indigenous cultures and their beliefs about animal spirits and communication. The developers have stated that they have taken steps to ensure that the Ilvermorny Legacy is portrayed in a respectful and culturally sensitive manner, but some critics have called for the removal of this aspect of the game entirely.

Another controversy surrounding the game is the inclusion of a character customization feature that allows players to choose their character’s gender and body type. Some have criticized this feature, stating that it is insensitive and disrespectful towards trans and non-binary individuals, and that it erases the experiences of marginalized groups. The developers have stated that they have taken steps to ensure that the character customization feature is inclusive and respectful, but some critics have called for the removal of this feature entirely.

Another controversy that is surrounding the game is the inclusion of a potion that allows players to change their appearance, some critics have called it transphobic and insensitive towards trans and non-binary individuals, as it implies that the player can change their gender and body type at will. The developers have stated that the potion is just a game element and not meant to be taken as a representation of real-life issues.

The game’s developers have stated that they are aware of these controversies and that they are taking steps to ensure that the game is respectful and inclusive. They have also stated that they are open to feedback and suggestions from the community, and that they are committed to making the game a positive and inclusive experience for all players.

Despite these controversies, the game has generated a lot of excitement among Harry Potter fans and gamers alike. The game promises to offer players an immersive and magical experience within the wizarding world of Harry Potter. The release date for the game has not been officially announced yet, but it’s expected to release in 2022. As the release date draws closer, fans of the Harry Potter series are eagerly awaiting more information about the game, including the official release date and any additional information about the game’s features and gameplay.

Expected time to complete

The completion time for Hogwarts Legacy will vary depending on the player’s playstyle and the difficulty level chosen. If a player chooses to focus on the main quest and complete it as quickly as possible, the game can be completed in around 10-15 hours. However, if a player chooses to explore the game’s open-world and participate in side quests and activities, the completion time can be extended to 30-40 hours or more. Additionally, if a player chooses to replay the game, the completion time will be different each time.

Previews and Live Streams of Hogwarts Legacy

As the release date for Hogwarts Legacy draws closer, fans of the Harry Potter series are eagerly awaiting more information about the game, including previews and live streams. These previews and live streams offer players a glimpse into the game’s features, gameplay, and world, and they provide valuable insight into the game’s development and progress.

Several previews of the game have been released by the developers and publishers, offering a first look at the game’s features and gameplay. These previews have shown off the game’s stunning graphics and detailed world, as well as its spell casting and creature interactions. They also give a glimpse of the games’ open-world nature, showing off the different activities players can participate in, such as attending classes and exploring the castle.

Live streams of the game have also been released, providing a more in-depth look at the game’s features and gameplay. These live streams have allowed players to see the game in action and get a sense of the game’s pacing and atmosphere. They also provide valuable information about the game’s controls and mechanics, and they give players a chance to see the game’s spellcasting and creature interactions in real-time.

In addition to previews and live streams, the developers have also released several trailers for the game, which provide an even deeper look at the game’s story and world. These trailers have been well-received by fans and have generated a lot of excitement.

Release Date and Platforms

The release date for Hogwarts Legacy is one of the most highly anticipated pieces of information for fans of the Harry Potter series. The game, developed by Avalanche Software and published by Warner Bros. Games, is set to transport players to the magical world of Harry Potter like never before.

As of now, the official release date for the game is set to be on the 10th of February, 2023. It has been confirmed that the game will be releasing on the next-generation consoles, the PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. This means that players will be able to experience the game in stunning 4K resolution and take advantage of the faster loading times and improved graphics that the next-generation consoles offer.

The release of the game on next-generation consoles also means that players will be able to take advantage of the improved controllers, such as the DualSense on the PS5, which will enhance the overall gameplay experience.

The release of the game on PC means that players will be able to experience the game in its full glory, with the ability to run the game at higher resolutions and frame rates, and the ability to use a mouse and keyboard for improved control.

The release of the game on multiple platforms also means that players will have the flexibility to choose the platform they prefer to play the game on. This allows players to experience the game in the way that they feel most comfortable and offers the best experience for them.

As the release date draws closer, fans of the Harry Potter series are eagerly awaiting more information about the game and any additional information about the game’s features and gameplay.

The release of Hogwarts Legacy on next-generation consoles, PC, and across multiple platforms means that players will be able to experience the game in the way they prefer, with improved graphics and faster loading times. The game is shaping up to be an immersive and magical experience for fans of the Harry Potter series and the release date is expected to be on 2022. Keep an eye on official announcements, mark your calendars, and get ready for the adventure of a lifetime with Hogwarts Legacy.

Conclusion

Hogwarts Legacy is shaping up to be an immersive and magical experience for fans of the Harry Potter series. With its detailed open-world, engaging storyline, and multitude of spells, potions, and magical creatures, the game is sure to transport players to the wizarding world like never before. The release date is not official yet, but mark your calendars, as the game is set to release on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC in 2022. Get your wands ready, and let the magic begin!

The post Exploring the Magic of Hogwarts Legacy: A Deep Dive into the Upcoming RPG appeared first on CTRL+Zed.

From cutting-edge robotics, design, and bioengineering to sustainable energy solutions, ocean engineering, nanotechnology, and innovative materials science, MechE students and their advisors are doing incredibly innovative work. The graduate students highlighted here represent a snapshot of the great work in progress this spring across the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and demonstrate the ways the future of this field is as limitless as the imaginations of its practitioners.

Democratizing design through AI

Lyle Regenwetter
Hometown: Champaign, Illinois
Advisor: Assistant Professor Faez Ahmed
Interests: Food, climbing, skiing, soccer, tennis, cooking

Lyle Regenwetter finds excitement in the prospect of generative AI to "democratize" design and enable inexperienced designers to tackle complex design problems. His research explores new training methods through which generative AI models can be taught to implicitly obey design constraints and synthesize higher-performing designs. Knowing that prospective designers often have an intimate knowledge of the needs of users, but may otherwise lack the technical training to create solutions, Regenwetter also develops human-AI collaborative tools that allow AI models to interact and support designers in popular CAD software and real design problems. 

Solving a whale of a problem 

Loïcka Baille
Hometown: L’Escale, France
Advisor: Daniel Zitterbart
Interests: Being outdoors — scuba diving, spelunking, or climbing. Sailing on the Charles River, martial arts classes, and playing volleyball

Loïcka Baille’s research focuses on developing remote sensing technologies to study and protect marine life. Her main project revolves around improving onboard whale detection technology to prevent vessel strikes, with a special focus on protecting North Atlantic right whales. Baille is also involved in an ongoing study of Emperor penguins. Her team visits Antarctica annually to tag penguins and gather data to enhance their understanding of penguin population dynamics and draw conclusions regarding the overall health of the ecosystem.

Water, water anywhere

Carlos Díaz-Marín
Hometown: San José, Costa Rica
Advisor: Professor Gang Chen | Former Advisor: Professor Evelyn Wang
Interests: New England hiking, biking, and dancing

Carlos Díaz-Marín designs and synthesizes inexpensive salt-polymer materials that can capture large amounts of humidity from the air. He aims to change the way we generate potable water from the air, even in arid conditions. In addition to water generation, these salt-polymer materials can also be used as thermal batteries, capable of storing and reusing heat. Beyond the scientific applications, Díaz-Marín is excited to continue doing research that can have big social impacts, and that finds and explains new physical phenomena. As a LatinX person, Díaz-Marín is also driven to help increase diversity in STEM.

Scalable fabrication of nano-architected materials

Somayajulu Dhulipala
Hometown: Hyderabad, India
Advisor: Assistant Professor Carlos Portela
Interests: Space exploration, taekwondo, meditation.

Somayajulu Dhulipala works on developing lightweight materials with tunable mechanical properties. He is currently working on methods for the scalable fabrication of nano-architected materials and predicting their mechanical properties. The ability to fine-tune the mechanical properties of specific materials brings versatility and adaptability, making these materials suitable for a wide range of applications across multiple industries. While the research applications are quite diverse, Dhulipala is passionate about making space habitable for humanity, a crucial step toward becoming a spacefaring civilization.

Ingestible health-care devices

Jimmy McRae
Hometown: Woburn, Massachusetts
Advisor: Associate Professor Giovani Traverso
Interests: Anything basketball-related: playing, watching, going to games, organizing hometown tournaments 

Jimmy McRae aims to drastically improve diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities through noninvasive health-care technologies. His research focuses on leveraging materials, mechanics, embedded systems, and microfabrication to develop novel ingestible electronic and mechatronic devices. This ranges from ingestible electroceutical capsules that modulate hunger-regulating hormones to devices capable of continuous ultralong monitoring and remotely triggerable actuations from within the stomach. The principles that guide McRae’s work to develop devices that function in extreme environments can be applied far beyond the gastrointestinal tract, with applications for outer space, the ocean, and more.

Freestyle BMX meets machine learning

Eva Nates
Hometown: Narberth, Pennsylvania 
Advisor: Professor Peko Hosoi
Interests: Rowing, running, biking, hiking, baking

Eva Nates is working with the Australian Cycling Team to create a tool to classify Bicycle Motocross Freestyle (BMX FS) tricks. She uses a singular value decomposition method to conduct a principal component analysis of the time-dependent point-tracking data of an athlete and their bike during a run to classify each trick. The 2024 Olympic team hopes to incorporate this tool in their training workflow, and Nates worked alongside the team at their facilities on the Gold Coast of Australia during MIT’s Independent Activities Period in January.

Augmenting Astronauts with Wearable Limbs 

Erik Ballesteros
Hometown: Spring, Texas
Advisor: Professor Harry Asada
Interests: Cosplay, Star Wars, Lego bricks

Erik Ballesteros’s research seeks to support astronauts who are conducting planetary extravehicular activities through the use of supernumerary robotic limbs (SuperLimbs). His work is tailored toward design and control manifestation to assist astronauts with post-fall recovery, human-leader/robot-follower quadruped locomotion, and coordinated manipulation between the SuperLimbs and the astronaut to perform tasks like excavation and sample handling.

This article appeared in the Spring 2024 edition of the Department of Mechanical Engineering's magazine, MechE Connects. 

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From cutting-edge robotics, design, and bioengineering to sustainable energy solutions, ocean engineering, nanotechnology, and innovative materials science, MechE students and their advisors are doing incredibly innovative work. The graduate students highlighted here represent a snapshot of the great work in progress this spring across the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and demonstrate the ways the future of this field is as limitless as the imaginations of its practitioners.

Democratizing design through AI

Lyle Regenwetter
Hometown: Champaign, Illinois
Advisor: Assistant Professor Faez Ahmed
Interests: Food, climbing, skiing, soccer, tennis, cooking

Lyle Regenwetter finds excitement in the prospect of generative AI to "democratize" design and enable inexperienced designers to tackle complex design problems. His research explores new training methods through which generative AI models can be taught to implicitly obey design constraints and synthesize higher-performing designs. Knowing that prospective designers often have an intimate knowledge of the needs of users, but may otherwise lack the technical training to create solutions, Regenwetter also develops human-AI collaborative tools that allow AI models to interact and support designers in popular CAD software and real design problems. 

Solving a whale of a problem 

Loïcka Baille
Hometown: L’Escale, France
Advisor: Daniel Zitterbart
Interests: Being outdoors — scuba diving, spelunking, or climbing. Sailing on the Charles River, martial arts classes, and playing volleyball

Loïcka Baille’s research focuses on developing remote sensing technologies to study and protect marine life. Her main project revolves around improving onboard whale detection technology to prevent vessel strikes, with a special focus on protecting North Atlantic right whales. Baille is also involved in an ongoing study of Emperor penguins. Her team visits Antarctica annually to tag penguins and gather data to enhance their understanding of penguin population dynamics and draw conclusions regarding the overall health of the ecosystem.

Water, water anywhere

Carlos Díaz-Marín
Hometown: San José, Costa Rica
Advisor: Professor Gang Chen | Former Advisor: Professor Evelyn Wang
Interests: New England hiking, biking, and dancing

Carlos Díaz-Marín designs and synthesizes inexpensive salt-polymer materials that can capture large amounts of humidity from the air. He aims to change the way we generate potable water from the air, even in arid conditions. In addition to water generation, these salt-polymer materials can also be used as thermal batteries, capable of storing and reusing heat. Beyond the scientific applications, Díaz-Marín is excited to continue doing research that can have big social impacts, and that finds and explains new physical phenomena. As a LatinX person, Díaz-Marín is also driven to help increase diversity in STEM.

Scalable fabrication of nano-architected materials

Somayajulu Dhulipala
Hometown: Hyderabad, India
Advisor: Assistant Professor Carlos Portela
Interests: Space exploration, taekwondo, meditation.

Somayajulu Dhulipala works on developing lightweight materials with tunable mechanical properties. He is currently working on methods for the scalable fabrication of nano-architected materials and predicting their mechanical properties. The ability to fine-tune the mechanical properties of specific materials brings versatility and adaptability, making these materials suitable for a wide range of applications across multiple industries. While the research applications are quite diverse, Dhulipala is passionate about making space habitable for humanity, a crucial step toward becoming a spacefaring civilization.

Ingestible health-care devices

Jimmy McRae
Hometown: Woburn, Massachusetts
Advisor: Associate Professor Giovani Traverso
Interests: Anything basketball-related: playing, watching, going to games, organizing hometown tournaments 

Jimmy McRae aims to drastically improve diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities through noninvasive health-care technologies. His research focuses on leveraging materials, mechanics, embedded systems, and microfabrication to develop novel ingestible electronic and mechatronic devices. This ranges from ingestible electroceutical capsules that modulate hunger-regulating hormones to devices capable of continuous ultralong monitoring and remotely triggerable actuations from within the stomach. The principles that guide McRae’s work to develop devices that function in extreme environments can be applied far beyond the gastrointestinal tract, with applications for outer space, the ocean, and more.

Freestyle BMX meets machine learning

Eva Nates
Hometown: Narberth, Pennsylvania 
Advisor: Professor Peko Hosoi
Interests: Rowing, running, biking, hiking, baking

Eva Nates is working with the Australian Cycling Team to create a tool to classify Bicycle Motocross Freestyle (BMX FS) tricks. She uses a singular value decomposition method to conduct a principal component analysis of the time-dependent point-tracking data of an athlete and their bike during a run to classify each trick. The 2024 Olympic team hopes to incorporate this tool in their training workflow, and Nates worked alongside the team at their facilities on the Gold Coast of Australia during MIT’s Independent Activities Period in January.

Augmenting Astronauts with Wearable Limbs 

Erik Ballesteros
Hometown: Spring, Texas
Advisor: Professor Harry Asada
Interests: Cosplay, Star Wars, Lego bricks

Erik Ballesteros’s research seeks to support astronauts who are conducting planetary extravehicular activities through the use of supernumerary robotic limbs (SuperLimbs). His work is tailored toward design and control manifestation to assist astronauts with post-fall recovery, human-leader/robot-follower quadruped locomotion, and coordinated manipulation between the SuperLimbs and the astronaut to perform tasks like excavation and sample handling.

This article appeared in the Spring 2024 edition of the Department of Mechanical Engineering's magazine, MechE Connects. 

Good launch offer for the SIGAM M25 retro console, a device clearly reminiscent of a PS5 controller in its design and colors. This console has the Rockchip RK3566 ...

The post SIGAM M25, PS5 style retro console with 4.3″ and Rockchip RK3566 first appeared on AndroidPCtv.

The new MeLe Overclock4C mini PC is now available, an updated version with more RAM up to 32 GB and Intel N100 processor. This slim computer now offers ...

The post MeLe Overclock4C, the flattest Intel N100 mini PC now with 32GB RAM first appeared on AndroidPCtv.

The onn. Google TV 4K Pro Streaming Device is an interesting TV-Box of which we present today in or review. A very interesting product for its price. The ...

The post onn. Google TV 4K Pro Streaming Device, Review: Smart TV-Box first appeared on AndroidPCtv.

This IFA 2024 will feature the new GEEKOM MEGAMINI G1 mini Gaming PC with TECNO’ s signature design and a liquid cooling system. This powerful mini PC does ...

The post GEEKOM MEGAMINI G1, the first mini PC with integrated liquid cooling first appeared on AndroidPCtv.

We already have the first official images of the Google TV Streamer and its remote control, the successor to the Chromecast with Google TV, which as you can ...

The post Google TV Streamer, the successor to Google Chromecast has arrived first appeared on AndroidPCtv.

The new MINIX CA361 and MINIX CP86 CarPlay systems have just been introduced, two connection alternatives for our car’s display. Thanks to the small MINIX CA361 box it ...

The post MINIX CA361 and CP86, two CarPlay systems for your car first appeared on AndroidPCtv.

Good deal on the popular Xiaomi I68 headphones, they feature an open design with OWS hook that is very comfortable to wear. These headphones with OWS design (Over-ear ...

The post Xiaomi I68, very economical sport headphones with ear hook first appeared on AndroidPCtv.

Thanks to the convoluted nature of geography-based licensing among the major studios, streaming services with international reach can have much more comprehensive selections of TV shows and movies in a different country. That’s why savvy viewers have long used VPNs – virtual private networks – to expand their options. Change your location from the US to the UK and, voila, you suddenly have access to Friends and The Office on Netflix again.

That’s great if you’re watching on a phone, tablet or PC, where installing and activating a VPN is as generally as simple as visiting the device’s app store. But streaming through a VPN is a bit more challenging on a TV. Thankfully, there are quite a few ways to get that VPN-filtered content on the biggest screen in your home. Below, we’ll walk you through unlocking geo-blocked content on your TV.

If you don’t already have a VPN subscription, we’d suggest choosing a service from our list of best VPNs. And with the notable exception of Proton VPN, we’d strongly recommend avoiding any free VPN options.

How to stream video to your smart TV using a VPN

The easiest way to install a VPN on your smart TV is to download it from the built-in app store – if your preferred VPN is available. Among the top smart TV platforms, Amazon’s Fire TV and Google TV are your best bets for built-in support. If your set doesn’t run those operating systems, you can add them to any TV with a free HDMI port for as little as $30. Meanwhile, the pricier Apple TV supports a growing list of VPNs as well. Roku, unfortunately, does not support built-in VPN apps.

Fire TV

Amazon’s Fire TV operating system has a wide range of content to binge-watch, as it comes with access to Prime Video’s expansive catalog. Thankfully, its user interface is easy to navigate, making installing a VPN a breeze.

Amazon

To set up a VPN, navigate to the Fire TV app store and search for the VPN service to which you’re subscribed. Fire TV has multiple options on the app store, including most of the services mentioned in our aforementioned best VPNs list.

From there, the process is pretty simple: Download the app, log in and connect to the VPN. When you obfuscate your IP address using the VPN and connect to a different country, you’ll unlock its Prime Video content library.

Google TV

Google TV is a smart TV operating system with a sleek user interface that supports thousands of apps, including VPNs and streaming platforms. As with Fire TV, just download your VPN app of choice, input your credentials and run it before activating the streaming service you’d like to check out. While Google TV doesn’t have as robust a VPN library as Fire TV, it currently has a wider selection than Apple TV (see below).

Apple TV

If you want to install a VPN on your Apple TV directly, you’ll need tvOS 17 or later. If not, you can follow our alternative workarounds below.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

For those with tvOS 17 and later, setting up a VPN on your Apple TV is simple. However, it’s important to note that it doesn’t support many services, so you’ll have to double-check that the VPN you subscribe to has Apple TV compatibility.

AirPlay or Google Cast from a VPN-enabled device

There are two distinctions between screen casting and mirroring. The former is when you stream content on a device, cast it on your smart TV and still use the device for other purposes without interrupting what you’re streaming. The latter is when you show everything you’re doing on your device on your TV. For example, if you’re streaming a movie and tab out, your smart TV will mirror everything you’re doing.

As with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto in vehicles, there are Apple and Google flavors of screencasting: AirPlay and Google Cast (formerly Chromecast). In each case, you start by running your VPN of choice on your phone or tablet, firing up your streaming app, starting your movie or TV show and simply clicking the AirPlay or Google Cast icon when streaming the video. If your TV doesn’t have AirPlay or Google Cast built-in, you can buy a set-top box that supports one or the other.

AirPlay is probably the most well-known casting and mirroring technology, and it currently works on a wide range of smart TVs and set-top boxes. I screencasted from my iPhone XR with a VPN enabled to my Samsung UHD TV and everything worked without a hitch.

On the Google side, click the icon with a TV and Wi-Fi rays to start casting your content to the big screen.

Note that Amazon is working on a rival screencasting platform called Matter Casting, but it’s not widely supported yet.

HDMI from a VPN-enabled device

If you don’t want to fiddle with wireless protocols, an underrated and lesser-known way to stream video to your TV using a VPN is via an HDMI cable. You’ll need an HDMI cable and (for some devices) an HDMI dongle, such as one that converts a USB-C port to HDMI. Once connected, your laptop, phone or tablet screen should be displayed on your TV’s screen. At that point, just fire up your VPN, start your streaming app (or browser) and maximize the window.

Whole-house VPN access: Set up a VPN on your router

All of the methods above describe ways to get VPN streaming access on a single TV. But if you want a whole-house approach – in which you could, for instance, watch UK Netflix on every device on your home network – you’d want to investigate accessing the VPN at the router level. Just note this is for advanced users only, and is far and away the most challenging method of the bunch.

This requires installing a new router, or making major modifications to your existing one. Furthermore, it generally requires installing a custom firmware on a router, which usually means voiding the hardware manufacturer’s warranty. And even then, you’ll need an expert user in the household who knows how to engage and disengage the VPN and customize its settings, as leaving it turned on all the time can interfere with non-streaming activities, including simple things like shopping online.

All that said, a more streamlined whole-home option for ExpressVPN users is to try out that provider’s AirCove router models. (Note that Engadget has not yet tested these models.) Because they are ExpressVPN’s own hardware, they include warranty coverage and support through the company.

From cutting-edge robotics, design, and bioengineering to sustainable energy solutions, ocean engineering, nanotechnology, and innovative materials science, MechE students and their advisors are doing incredibly innovative work. The graduate students highlighted here represent a snapshot of the great work in progress this spring across the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and demonstrate the ways the future of this field is as limitless as the imaginations of its practitioners.

Democratizing design through AI

Lyle Regenwetter
Hometown: Champaign, Illinois
Advisor: Assistant Professor Faez Ahmed
Interests: Food, climbing, skiing, soccer, tennis, cooking

Lyle Regenwetter finds excitement in the prospect of generative AI to "democratize" design and enable inexperienced designers to tackle complex design problems. His research explores new training methods through which generative AI models can be taught to implicitly obey design constraints and synthesize higher-performing designs. Knowing that prospective designers often have an intimate knowledge of the needs of users, but may otherwise lack the technical training to create solutions, Regenwetter also develops human-AI collaborative tools that allow AI models to interact and support designers in popular CAD software and real design problems. 

Solving a whale of a problem 

Loïcka Baille
Hometown: L’Escale, France
Advisor: Daniel Zitterbart
Interests: Being outdoors — scuba diving, spelunking, or climbing. Sailing on the Charles River, martial arts classes, and playing volleyball

Loïcka Baille’s research focuses on developing remote sensing technologies to study and protect marine life. Her main project revolves around improving onboard whale detection technology to prevent vessel strikes, with a special focus on protecting North Atlantic right whales. Baille is also involved in an ongoing study of Emperor penguins. Her team visits Antarctica annually to tag penguins and gather data to enhance their understanding of penguin population dynamics and draw conclusions regarding the overall health of the ecosystem.

Water, water anywhere

Carlos Díaz-Marín
Hometown: San José, Costa Rica
Advisor: Professor Gang Chen | Former Advisor: Professor Evelyn Wang
Interests: New England hiking, biking, and dancing

Carlos Díaz-Marín designs and synthesizes inexpensive salt-polymer materials that can capture large amounts of humidity from the air. He aims to change the way we generate potable water from the air, even in arid conditions. In addition to water generation, these salt-polymer materials can also be used as thermal batteries, capable of storing and reusing heat. Beyond the scientific applications, Díaz-Marín is excited to continue doing research that can have big social impacts, and that finds and explains new physical phenomena. As a LatinX person, Díaz-Marín is also driven to help increase diversity in STEM.

Scalable fabrication of nano-architected materials

Somayajulu Dhulipala
Hometown: Hyderabad, India
Advisor: Assistant Professor Carlos Portela
Interests: Space exploration, taekwondo, meditation.

Somayajulu Dhulipala works on developing lightweight materials with tunable mechanical properties. He is currently working on methods for the scalable fabrication of nano-architected materials and predicting their mechanical properties. The ability to fine-tune the mechanical properties of specific materials brings versatility and adaptability, making these materials suitable for a wide range of applications across multiple industries. While the research applications are quite diverse, Dhulipala is passionate about making space habitable for humanity, a crucial step toward becoming a spacefaring civilization.

Ingestible health-care devices

Jimmy McRae
Hometown: Woburn, Massachusetts
Advisor: Associate Professor Giovani Traverso
Interests: Anything basketball-related: playing, watching, going to games, organizing hometown tournaments 

Jimmy McRae aims to drastically improve diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities through noninvasive health-care technologies. His research focuses on leveraging materials, mechanics, embedded systems, and microfabrication to develop novel ingestible electronic and mechatronic devices. This ranges from ingestible electroceutical capsules that modulate hunger-regulating hormones to devices capable of continuous ultralong monitoring and remotely triggerable actuations from within the stomach. The principles that guide McRae’s work to develop devices that function in extreme environments can be applied far beyond the gastrointestinal tract, with applications for outer space, the ocean, and more.

Freestyle BMX meets machine learning

Eva Nates
Hometown: Narberth, Pennsylvania 
Advisor: Professor Peko Hosoi
Interests: Rowing, running, biking, hiking, baking

Eva Nates is working with the Australian Cycling Team to create a tool to classify Bicycle Motocross Freestyle (BMX FS) tricks. She uses a singular value decomposition method to conduct a principal component analysis of the time-dependent point-tracking data of an athlete and their bike during a run to classify each trick. The 2024 Olympic team hopes to incorporate this tool in their training workflow, and Nates worked alongside the team at their facilities on the Gold Coast of Australia during MIT’s Independent Activities Period in January.

Augmenting Astronauts with Wearable Limbs 

Erik Ballesteros
Hometown: Spring, Texas
Advisor: Professor Harry Asada
Interests: Cosplay, Star Wars, Lego bricks

Erik Ballesteros’s research seeks to support astronauts who are conducting planetary extravehicular activities through the use of supernumerary robotic limbs (SuperLimbs). His work is tailored toward design and control manifestation to assist astronauts with post-fall recovery, human-leader/robot-follower quadruped locomotion, and coordinated manipulation between the SuperLimbs and the astronaut to perform tasks like excavation and sample handling.

This article appeared in the Spring 2024 edition of the Department of Mechanical Engineering's magazine, MechE Connects. 

What if when playing Mario Kart and you throw a red shell at an opponent, instead of just knocking them aside, you blow them up instead? That’s the kind of outside-the-box thinking Sumo Digital is cooking up with DeathSprint 66, which is basically a real murder-y version of Mario Kart.

Set …

Today we present the comparison of the new Amlogic S928X SoC against the rest of the SoCs on the market. A powerful processor that tries to carve a ...

The post Amlogic S928X. Review and Comparison VS all SoCs first appeared on AndroidPCtv.

Let’s see today how to play Windows PC games on Android using the Winlator emulator, a system under development that opens up many possibilities. In this tutorial you ...

The post Winlator. Play PC games on Android with this Windows emulator first appeared on AndroidPCtv.

Today we present our Guide on eGPU or External Graphics Card to connect to our mini PC or laptop and improve performance in Gaming. Thanks to this type ...

The post External Graphics Card or eGPU. Tutorial and Basics first appeared on AndroidPCtv.

New Thursday with the AliExpress Big Save Day, where today we find among its offers the new Teclast T50HD, a tablet with a good size screen with its ...

The post Teclast T50HD an 11″ tablet with Android 14 now available first appeared on AndroidPCtv.

Today we will test the new Beelink EQ13, a Beelink computer that we will analyze or review in detail. A mini PC with integrated power supply as a ...

The post Beelink EQ13, Review: Intel N200 mini PC with integrated power supply first appeared on AndroidPCtv.

New version of ROCKNIX available that offers improvements and fixes. Download or update online this version to get the most out of your console. The Linux ROCKNIX operating ...

The post ROCKNIX 20240612, available for download and install first appeared on AndroidPCtv.

From cutting-edge robotics, design, and bioengineering to sustainable energy solutions, ocean engineering, nanotechnology, and innovative materials science, MechE students and their advisors are doing incredibly innovative work. The graduate students highlighted here represent a snapshot of the great work in progress this spring across the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and demonstrate the ways the future of this field is as limitless as the imaginations of its practitioners.

Democratizing design through AI

Lyle Regenwetter
Hometown: Champaign, Illinois
Advisor: Assistant Professor Faez Ahmed
Interests: Food, climbing, skiing, soccer, tennis, cooking

Lyle Regenwetter finds excitement in the prospect of generative AI to "democratize" design and enable inexperienced designers to tackle complex design problems. His research explores new training methods through which generative AI models can be taught to implicitly obey design constraints and synthesize higher-performing designs. Knowing that prospective designers often have an intimate knowledge of the needs of users, but may otherwise lack the technical training to create solutions, Regenwetter also develops human-AI collaborative tools that allow AI models to interact and support designers in popular CAD software and real design problems. 

Solving a whale of a problem 

Loïcka Baille
Hometown: L’Escale, France
Advisor: Daniel Zitterbart
Interests: Being outdoors — scuba diving, spelunking, or climbing. Sailing on the Charles River, martial arts classes, and playing volleyball

Loïcka Baille’s research focuses on developing remote sensing technologies to study and protect marine life. Her main project revolves around improving onboard whale detection technology to prevent vessel strikes, with a special focus on protecting North Atlantic right whales. Baille is also involved in an ongoing study of Emperor penguins. Her team visits Antarctica annually to tag penguins and gather data to enhance their understanding of penguin population dynamics and draw conclusions regarding the overall health of the ecosystem.

Water, water anywhere

Carlos Díaz-Marín
Hometown: San José, Costa Rica
Advisor: Professor Gang Chen | Former Advisor: Professor Evelyn Wang
Interests: New England hiking, biking, and dancing

Carlos Díaz-Marín designs and synthesizes inexpensive salt-polymer materials that can capture large amounts of humidity from the air. He aims to change the way we generate potable water from the air, even in arid conditions. In addition to water generation, these salt-polymer materials can also be used as thermal batteries, capable of storing and reusing heat. Beyond the scientific applications, Díaz-Marín is excited to continue doing research that can have big social impacts, and that finds and explains new physical phenomena. As a LatinX person, Díaz-Marín is also driven to help increase diversity in STEM.

Scalable fabrication of nano-architected materials

Somayajulu Dhulipala
Hometown: Hyderabad, India
Advisor: Assistant Professor Carlos Portela
Interests: Space exploration, taekwondo, meditation.

Somayajulu Dhulipala works on developing lightweight materials with tunable mechanical properties. He is currently working on methods for the scalable fabrication of nano-architected materials and predicting their mechanical properties. The ability to fine-tune the mechanical properties of specific materials brings versatility and adaptability, making these materials suitable for a wide range of applications across multiple industries. While the research applications are quite diverse, Dhulipala is passionate about making space habitable for humanity, a crucial step toward becoming a spacefaring civilization.

Ingestible health-care devices

Jimmy McRae
Hometown: Woburn, Massachusetts
Advisor: Associate Professor Giovani Traverso
Interests: Anything basketball-related: playing, watching, going to games, organizing hometown tournaments 

Jimmy McRae aims to drastically improve diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities through noninvasive health-care technologies. His research focuses on leveraging materials, mechanics, embedded systems, and microfabrication to develop novel ingestible electronic and mechatronic devices. This ranges from ingestible electroceutical capsules that modulate hunger-regulating hormones to devices capable of continuous ultralong monitoring and remotely triggerable actuations from within the stomach. The principles that guide McRae’s work to develop devices that function in extreme environments can be applied far beyond the gastrointestinal tract, with applications for outer space, the ocean, and more.

Freestyle BMX meets machine learning

Eva Nates
Hometown: Narberth, Pennsylvania 
Advisor: Professor Peko Hosoi
Interests: Rowing, running, biking, hiking, baking

Eva Nates is working with the Australian Cycling Team to create a tool to classify Bicycle Motocross Freestyle (BMX FS) tricks. She uses a singular value decomposition method to conduct a principal component analysis of the time-dependent point-tracking data of an athlete and their bike during a run to classify each trick. The 2024 Olympic team hopes to incorporate this tool in their training workflow, and Nates worked alongside the team at their facilities on the Gold Coast of Australia during MIT’s Independent Activities Period in January.

Augmenting Astronauts with Wearable Limbs 

Erik Ballesteros
Hometown: Spring, Texas
Advisor: Professor Harry Asada
Interests: Cosplay, Star Wars, Lego bricks

Erik Ballesteros’s research seeks to support astronauts who are conducting planetary extravehicular activities through the use of supernumerary robotic limbs (SuperLimbs). His work is tailored toward design and control manifestation to assist astronauts with post-fall recovery, human-leader/robot-follower quadruped locomotion, and coordinated manipulation between the SuperLimbs and the astronaut to perform tasks like excavation and sample handling.

This article appeared in the Spring 2024 edition of the Department of Mechanical Engineering's magazine, MechE Connects. 

We present today we have the Newsmay AC8F-POE, a Newsmay Tech computer that we will go through our analysis or review. A fanless mini PC, robust and with ...

The post Newsmay AC8F-POE, Review: Intel N100 fanless mini PC with PoE first appeared on AndroidPCtv.

Today we find the interesting Chatreey T9 mini PC, a computer with the popular Intel N100 processor that features multiple ports. This is a mini PC is presented ...

The post Chatreey T9, new mini PC with Intel N100 and two USB-C ports first appeared on AndroidPCtv.

It has just been presented the new box for streaming and IPTV Formuler Z10 NEO, the replacement of the Formuler Z Neo launched a few years ago. This ...

The post Formuler Z10 NEO, a low-end box for IPTV at high-end price first appeared on AndroidPCtv.

Today we find the SZBOX G48S fanless mini PC, a solution to set up a Softrouter and filter all traffic entering our home network. A computer designed to ...

The post SZBOX G48S, new fanless mini PC for Softrouter with Ethernet PoE first appeared on AndroidPCtv.

During the Computex congress we get information about the new Intel Lunar Lake SoCs that bring interesting features. It seems that the new generation of notebooks, mini PCs, ...

The post Intel Lunar Lake, new SoCs with Xe2 iGPU and integrated RAM first appeared on AndroidPCtv.

From Computex we get new interesting announcements such as the new ZOTAC ZONE console PC, with a hardware and design that reminds us of the Steam Deck. This ...

The post ZOTAC ZONE, new consolidated PC Steam Deck style first appeared on AndroidPCtv.

The new AMD processors have been presented at Computex, where the Ryzen 9000 for desktop and the Ryzen AI 300 APUs with RDNA 3.5 stand out. We already ...

The post AMD introduces its Ryzen 9000 and Ryzen AI 300 APUs with RDNA 3.5 first appeared on AndroidPCtv.

From cutting-edge robotics, design, and bioengineering to sustainable energy solutions, ocean engineering, nanotechnology, and innovative materials science, MechE students and their advisors are doing incredibly innovative work. The graduate students highlighted here represent a snapshot of the great work in progress this spring across the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and demonstrate the ways the future of this field is as limitless as the imaginations of its practitioners.

Democratizing design through AI

Lyle Regenwetter
Hometown: Champaign, Illinois
Advisor: Assistant Professor Faez Ahmed
Interests: Food, climbing, skiing, soccer, tennis, cooking

Lyle Regenwetter finds excitement in the prospect of generative AI to "democratize" design and enable inexperienced designers to tackle complex design problems. His research explores new training methods through which generative AI models can be taught to implicitly obey design constraints and synthesize higher-performing designs. Knowing that prospective designers often have an intimate knowledge of the needs of users, but may otherwise lack the technical training to create solutions, Regenwetter also develops human-AI collaborative tools that allow AI models to interact and support designers in popular CAD software and real design problems. 

Solving a whale of a problem 

Loïcka Baille
Hometown: L’Escale, France
Advisor: Daniel Zitterbart
Interests: Being outdoors — scuba diving, spelunking, or climbing. Sailing on the Charles River, martial arts classes, and playing volleyball

Loïcka Baille’s research focuses on developing remote sensing technologies to study and protect marine life. Her main project revolves around improving onboard whale detection technology to prevent vessel strikes, with a special focus on protecting North Atlantic right whales. Baille is also involved in an ongoing study of Emperor penguins. Her team visits Antarctica annually to tag penguins and gather data to enhance their understanding of penguin population dynamics and draw conclusions regarding the overall health of the ecosystem.

Water, water anywhere

Carlos Díaz-Marín
Hometown: San José, Costa Rica
Advisor: Professor Gang Chen | Former Advisor: Professor Evelyn Wang
Interests: New England hiking, biking, and dancing

Carlos Díaz-Marín designs and synthesizes inexpensive salt-polymer materials that can capture large amounts of humidity from the air. He aims to change the way we generate potable water from the air, even in arid conditions. In addition to water generation, these salt-polymer materials can also be used as thermal batteries, capable of storing and reusing heat. Beyond the scientific applications, Díaz-Marín is excited to continue doing research that can have big social impacts, and that finds and explains new physical phenomena. As a LatinX person, Díaz-Marín is also driven to help increase diversity in STEM.

Scalable fabrication of nano-architected materials

Somayajulu Dhulipala
Hometown: Hyderabad, India
Advisor: Assistant Professor Carlos Portela
Interests: Space exploration, taekwondo, meditation.

Somayajulu Dhulipala works on developing lightweight materials with tunable mechanical properties. He is currently working on methods for the scalable fabrication of nano-architected materials and predicting their mechanical properties. The ability to fine-tune the mechanical properties of specific materials brings versatility and adaptability, making these materials suitable for a wide range of applications across multiple industries. While the research applications are quite diverse, Dhulipala is passionate about making space habitable for humanity, a crucial step toward becoming a spacefaring civilization.

Ingestible health-care devices

Jimmy McRae
Hometown: Woburn, Massachusetts
Advisor: Associate Professor Giovani Traverso
Interests: Anything basketball-related: playing, watching, going to games, organizing hometown tournaments 

Jimmy McRae aims to drastically improve diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities through noninvasive health-care technologies. His research focuses on leveraging materials, mechanics, embedded systems, and microfabrication to develop novel ingestible electronic and mechatronic devices. This ranges from ingestible electroceutical capsules that modulate hunger-regulating hormones to devices capable of continuous ultralong monitoring and remotely triggerable actuations from within the stomach. The principles that guide McRae’s work to develop devices that function in extreme environments can be applied far beyond the gastrointestinal tract, with applications for outer space, the ocean, and more.

Freestyle BMX meets machine learning

Eva Nates
Hometown: Narberth, Pennsylvania 
Advisor: Professor Peko Hosoi
Interests: Rowing, running, biking, hiking, baking

Eva Nates is working with the Australian Cycling Team to create a tool to classify Bicycle Motocross Freestyle (BMX FS) tricks. She uses a singular value decomposition method to conduct a principal component analysis of the time-dependent point-tracking data of an athlete and their bike during a run to classify each trick. The 2024 Olympic team hopes to incorporate this tool in their training workflow, and Nates worked alongside the team at their facilities on the Gold Coast of Australia during MIT’s Independent Activities Period in January.

Augmenting Astronauts with Wearable Limbs 

Erik Ballesteros
Hometown: Spring, Texas
Advisor: Professor Harry Asada
Interests: Cosplay, Star Wars, Lego bricks

Erik Ballesteros’s research seeks to support astronauts who are conducting planetary extravehicular activities through the use of supernumerary robotic limbs (SuperLimbs). His work is tailored toward design and control manifestation to assist astronauts with post-fall recovery, human-leader/robot-follower quadruped locomotion, and coordinated manipulation between the SuperLimbs and the astronaut to perform tasks like excavation and sample handling.

This article appeared in the Spring 2024 edition of the Department of Mechanical Engineering's magazine, MechE Connects. 

Under the name of D11 we find a peculiar mini-computer that surprises us with its design and the inclusion of an unusual Oculink port. This new mini PC ...

The post Mini PC D11, a peculiar PC with AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS and Oculink first appeared on AndroidPCtv.

Soon we will have available the new ACEMAGIC M2A, a mini PC that stands out for its spectacular design and specifications. The ACEMAGIC M2A space computer will undoubtedly ...

The post ACEMAGIC M2A, powerful mini PC for Science Fiction lovers first appeared on AndroidPCtv.

Today we have news about a new mini PC called Beelink EQ13, which in this case surprises us with a fanless design that integrates the power supply. Undoubtedly, ...

The post Beelink EQ13, new fanless mini PC with Intel N200 and integrated power supply first appeared on AndroidPCtv.

The attractive Beelink SEi14 mini PC is now available, with a new generation Intel 125H processor that offers a dedicated core for AI. As the engine of this ...

The post Beelink SEi14, new mini PC with Intel Core Ultra 5 125H for IA first appeared on AndroidPCtv.

New OneXPlayer 2 Pro console that upgrades its processor to the new AMD Gen8, a system that features a peculiar 5-in-1 multipurpose design. A laptop with side rails ...

The post OneXPlayer 2 Pro, Tablet PC now with AMD Ryzen 7 8840U processor first appeared on AndroidPCtv.

Get to know Moonlight streaming client in detail and enjoy your PC games on any screen without the need of a powerful GPU. Through this client we can ...

The post Moonlight. Streaming PC Games on any screen first appeared on AndroidPCtv.

Today we are going to explain how to install and configure Sunshine, our Streaming Gaming Server from our PC to any Android or Windows device. Thanks to this ...

The post Sunshine. Create your Streaming Gaming Server on PC first appeared on AndroidPCtv.

It has just been presented and we already have available the new POCO Pad, a powerful tablet from Xiaomi that offers good specifications and features. This tablet is ...

The post POCO Pad, the new 12.1″ Snapdragon tablet now available first appeared on AndroidPCtv.