What If Materials Could Think?

What if all inanimate engineered objects around us could think? For instance, bridges could self-repair their wear and tear, or autonomous aqueous machines could collect refuse and debris from water supplies and digest it for energy. Such a vision for engineered intelligence is often associated with digital computing, automation, and robotics. Yet, making all engineered things in a robotic form would be costly, energy-inefficient, and poses the opportunity to become a significant form of future electronic waste. Our lab creates materials that intrinsically sense their environment, think about the information, and react accordingly. The materials are composed solely of rubber compounds, eliminating the need for semiconductors and other future e-waste parts. In this talk, we will describe current and future research that will put 'the science' into this science fiction vision of materials that think.

Beverages will be offered.
Visitors are asked to follow current masking guidelines while indoors.

No registration required