Engineering

Engineering is the discipline of design and construction of mechanical devices, equipment, structures and public works systems. Topics include aircraft technologies, buildings, bridges, robotics and heavy machinery.

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Rovables: Tiny Robots That Roll on Your Clothes All Day

Researchers have developed wearable, mobile robots that can act as sensors, displays and even a necklace.

By Yves Jeffcoat Oct 27, 2016 Engineering / Robotics

Statcheck: When Bots 'Correct' Academics

A new application called Statcheck is bringing some academics a lot closer to AI. Not everyone's a fan.

By Kate Kershner Oct 12, 2016 Engineering / Robotics

Robots Made With Living Tissue? That Future Is Arriving Now

What are the benefits of growing living tissue in a lab and fusing it to a robotic body? This Fw:Thinking video explores our cyborg future.

By Laurie L. Dove Oct 11, 2016 Engineering / Robotics

London 'Smile' Challenges World to Build Smarter Wooden Structures

This year's London Design Festival features a long wooden tube that shows the potential of hardwood as a versatile building material.

By Patrick J. Kiger Sep 30, 2016 Engineering / Structural Engineering

Mudskipper Robot Helps Show How Vertebrates Evolved to Walk on Land

A robot to simulate mudskipper locomotion gives scientists a look into the success of the first land vertebrate ancestors, and points to our future on other planets.

By Jesslyn Shields Sep 22, 2016 Engineering / Robotics

Pee-resistant Paint: Coming to a Train Station Near You

Add Philadelphia to the list of cities testing out paint that repels pee back on the urinater as a deterrent. Good call or unnecessary humiliation?

By Karen Kirkpatrick Sep 20, 2016 Engineering / Materials Science

Cool Off and Save Energy by Wearing This New Plastic Fabric

A new fabric that can block visible light and let out body heat could have more important applications than just new workout clothes, researchers say.

By Jesslyn Shields Sep 16, 2016 Engineering / Materials Science

Robots May Take Millions of U.S. Jobs by 2021

The robot workforce is growing, according to new research — and millions of U.S. jobs could be on the line.

By Jonathan Strickland Sep 15, 2016 Engineering / Robotics

Your Thoughts Could Activate a Tiny Robot Inside Your Own Brain

For the first time, Israeli researchers have developed a system that lets a human use brain waves to control nanobots in a cockroach. How could that help your health?

By Patrick J. Kiger Sep 15, 2016 Engineering / Robotics

Airports That Float

What do you do when you're out of land but want to expand an airport? Try building on water.

By Jonathan Strickland Aug 29, 2016 Engineering / Civil Engineering

Octobot Is a Squishy, Cute, Autonomous Robot

And someday soft-bodied bots like this could slither in and out of your belly and revolutionize biomedical technology.

By Robert Lamb Aug 26, 2016 Engineering / Robotics

Manure Goes Couture: This Clothing Used to Be Cow Poop

If Jalila Essaidi's company Mestic has anything to do with it, the future of fashion — and basically everything else we use in our daily lives — is poop.

By Jesslyn Shields Aug 15, 2016 Engineering / Materials Science

Police Used a Robot to Kill Dallas Suspect — And It'll Happen Again

While the recent robotic lethal force by police in Dallas may be shocking, experts say it's legal, and we're likely to see it happen again.

By Patrick J. Kiger Jul 15, 2016 Engineering / Robotics

Robotic Rectums Give Docs a Feel for Prostates

Not surprisingly, there aren't a lot of volunteers for doctors to practice manual prostate exams on. Enter the robotic rectum. We like to call it a robum.

By Kate Kershner Jul 7, 2016 Engineering / Robotics

Chatbot Delivers Justice, One Parking Ticket at a Time

Parking tickets are a pain. Chatbots can be too. But that hasn't stopped one programmer from creating a bot to help overturn thousands of tickets.

By Jonathan Strickland Jun 30, 2016 Engineering / Robotics

SpotMini: A Robot Dog Capable of Doing Dishes, Delivering Drinks

Google-owned company Boston Dynamics is at the forefront of creating lifelike robots.

By Christopher Hassiotis Jun 28, 2016 Engineering / Robotics

There's One Terrific Reason to Race Camels Using Robot Jockeys

There's more to replacing human riders than just using cool tech, as the advancement helps solve a serious human rights issue.

By Chris Opfer Jun 22, 2016 Engineering / Robotics

Watch the World's Highest Glass Bridge Get Sledgehammered

China's Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon glass-bottomed bridge is so high most of the world's buildings would fit in the gap between it and the canyon floor. So why not hit it?

By Christopher Hassiotis Jun 13, 2016 Engineering / Civil Engineering

This Man Built His Own Life-size Robot Version of a Hollywood Star

Just call it RoboScarJo 2.0. But what does it mean for privacy rights when someone can literally objectify another human being, celebrity or otherwise, like this?

By Chris Opfer May 24, 2016 Engineering / Robotics

Prof's Teaching Assistant Isn't Human

Any guesses as to what it was, if not some grad student?

By Jonathan Strickland May 20, 2016 Engineering / Robotics

Swallowed a Battery? No Problem. Just Eat This Tiny Robot, Too.

Doctors see it all, including 3,500 people who swallow button batteries annually. Soon those docs may get help from tiny, edible robots that can retrieve foreign objects.

By Kate Kershner May 19, 2016 Engineering / Robotics

Tiny Robot Monk Joins the Fold at Beijing Buddhist Temple

The diminutive robot Xian'er was based on a cartoon, and can chat about Buddhism using artificial intelligence programming.

By Christopher Hassiotis May 18, 2016 Engineering / Robotics

The Possible Uses of This ‘Second Skin’ Are Pretty Amazing

If you give us a tunable polysiloxane-based material, 21st century Americans can’t resist going full-on Kardashian with it.

By Jesslyn Shields May 12, 2016 Engineering / Materials Science

Skyscrapers of the Future Could Be Made of Wood

Steel and glass office towers are the norm in most modern cities. But some imaginative architects want to switch to a renewable, less carbon-intensive old standby: wood.

By Patrick J. Kiger Apr 27, 2016 Engineering / Civil Engineering

Tiny Robots Take on Heavy Metals in Wastewater

Scientists created microbots that can remove pollutants from contaminated water. Could these simple machines provide an efficient way to clean up toxic wastewater?

By Jonathan Strickland Apr 15, 2016 Engineering / Robotics