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Childs and Rucker Receive Student/Faculty Research Award

photo of Jake Childs

PhD Student Jake Childs

PhD student Jake Childs and Associate Professor Caleb Rucker are one of sixteen student/faculty teams from across campus to receive a fall 2019 Student/Faculty Research Award from UT’s Graduate School.

Childs and Rucker, who are in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Biomedical Engineering, received the award for their project, “Concentric Precurved Bellows: New Bending Actuators for Soft Robots.”

photo of caleb rucker

Associate Professor Caleb Rucker

The award provides up to $5,000 in funding, which they will use to explore the use of 3D printing to create parts that can improve the use of soft robots for surgery and other functions. Soft robots are a new generation of robots that have great potential in applications ranging from colon cancer screening robots to search-and-rescue robots that can burrow through rubble to rehabilitation exoskeletons that patients can wear.

In addition to providing funds for important student research, the award intends to foster the mentoring relationship between faculty and graduate students.

More information on the Student/Faculty Research Awards can be found on the Graduate School’s website.