News

In September 2007, Steve Landon (a recent graduate), Spencer Magleby, and Brian Jensen won a best paper award at the 31st Mechanisms & Robotics Conference held as part of the ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences in Las Vegas, Nevada. The paper, "A Compliant Rotating Joint for Deployable Wings on Small UAVs," applies compliant mechanism technology to wing storage on small Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAV). The design incorporates a bistable mechanism which enables the wings to extend for flight and then retract when the plane is stored. Possible applications include fitting a plane into a soldier's rucksack.

Peter Halverson, a PhD student at Brigham Young University, won 2nd Place in the Graduate Division of the 2008 ASME Student Mechanisms Design Competition for his entry entitled "Contact-aided Compliant Mechanism Based Spinal Arthroplasty." The contest was part of the ASME Mechanisms & Robotics Conference held in Brooklyn, New York, held from August 4th-5th. Peter's goal was to produce a viable alternative to spinal fusion by designing a device that mimics the physiological motion of the spine. The presented design has the potential to restore both the quality and quantity of motion in the lower back as well as virtually eliminate wear, the number one cause of orthopedic loosening in hip and knee replacements.

Graduate student Quentin Aten was recognized for his work in the bio-medical application of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). On September 4, 2007, Quentin presented a poster and an oral presentation entitled "Out-of-Plane Cellular Manipulator" as part of the ASME Undergraduate Mechanism Design Competition in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was selected as one of four finalists to present at the conference, where he placed second overall.

The Best Paper Award for the 1st International Conference on Micro- and Nanosystems was awarded to Tyler Waterfall, Kendall Teichert and Professor Brian Jensen. The conference was part of the 2007 ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences.