(Jun.22, CDL) Welcome SharpAnteater, the first 3D printer (Form 3) in CDL.
This is also a starting point for the DKU creative maker space (to be launched later this year), which shall serve as a shared lab for the DKU community, for teaching, research as well as turning creative ideas of UG students into reality.
(July.2.2020, Suzhou) Together with three CDL students, we visited two local factories producing vibrators. As the vibration system (8000 N force, sufficient to drive an adult of 80kg up to 10 times the gravitational acceleration) we are aiming for is a “small” system for them (not for us, of course), it is lucky for us to be able to go there and do some simple tests. It turns out that the vibration lab needs to be reconfigured to fit for the system, and vibration system, a few months’ work ahead. In addition, further design on the force transmission system is needed to ensure purely vertical vibrations against gravity.
(Left: Air ventilation needed to cool down the coil. Right: DKU students mounting the IMU sensor for the test)
In January, we sit in a team room to discuss progresses, with or without computers. We have never anticipated that:
Two weeks after the above meeting, we have to sit in front of LCD screens for the (bi-)weekly meeting throughout the pandemic.
Jun.1, we (some of us, thus hybrid meeting) are finally allowed to return to campus. We are also lucky to have Profs. Hui Yang and Yunsong Hua from USSC visiting us.
(From left to right: Han Yue, Huyue Yan, Yunsong Hua, Kai Huang, Hui Yang, Jinchen Zhao, Chen Lv, Hui Zhou)
Think positively: Pandemic teaches us how to use technologies available to communicate better.
Shipment of some used lab equipment finally arrived on May.13.2019, 11 months after the week (Jun.4-10.2020) of packing. It requires tremendous efforts in each step, particularly for the PI, who had absolutely no previous experience in exporting and importing. However, if I get the chance to choose again, I will still say: Yes, let’s make it happen.
Many thanks to the shipping companies + extremely hard working staff at DKU behind. In case you are facing a similar challenge, please find qualified moving companies first (For the shipment, all partners in the shipment have certificate from EuroMover).
(Jun.9, Suzhou) We visited local vendors for two types of Cobot (collaborative robot) : Universal robots and Franka Emika, which is currently under procurement process. First task for the cobot: In combination with machine vision cameras (as eyes), can we conduct wet particle impact experiments automatically?
Funded by the dean’s office for undergraduate studies, Oscar Lv and Jinchen Zhao received an internal SRS (Summer Research Scholar) grant to work on an algorithm that reconstructs the trajectory of an IMU sensor embedded projectile penetrating through granular materials under micro-gravity, a DLR funded experimental campaign conducted at Bremen drop tower in 2019. See below for a sketch of the setup.
This year’s program and videos are online. Take a look at it if you would like to feel the pace of science advances.
Welcome to my webpage, here you will find our steps toward understanding the collective behavior of sand grains…
Beyond that, thinking about any object as ‘a grain of sand’, how to build the bridge between ‘microscopic’ interactions to ‘macroscopic’ collective behavior is way beyond the physics behind sand. It can be related to:
