These two Jacobs School-related robots were featured in Science special issue on robotics

We were excited to see both WowWee's MiP and Brain Corporation's eyeRover make an appearance in Science magazine's special robotics issue that came out Oct. 10.

MiP, which appears in this infographic, was designed by the UCSD Coordinated Robotics Lab, led by  Prof. Thomas Bewley, and by toymaker WowWee.  MiP, short for Mobile Inverted Pendulum, can balance itself and drive around on two wheels. You can interact with the robot using intuitive hand gestures. More on MiP here and here.
Meanwhile, eyeRover is partially the brain child of Jacobs School alum Marius Buibas (Ph.D. 2011). Buibas led the design of the robot's hardware--the electronics, mechanics and 3D-printed body. The difference between eyeRover and other robots is that it can be taught to do a task, rather than programmed.

According to Science:

EyeRover may look like a toy, but it's packed with some of the most advanced robotic technology ever devised, including a prototype computing platform designed to emulate the human brain. Unlike conventional computer chips and software, which execute a linear sequence of tasks, this new approach—called neuromorphic computing—carries out processing and memory tasks simultaneously, just as our brains do for complex tasks such as vision and hearing.

 There is a common thread between the two robots: Nick Morozovsky, a student in Bewley's research group, who just earned his Ph.D. from the Jacobs School. Morozovsky developed a tool combining hardware and software to evaluate various motors to balance MiP. He also worked part-time at Brain Corporation and was the architect behind an earlier version of eyeRover that inspired the robot featured in Science. Industry recruiters, take note: Morozovsky is currently looking for a full time job.

Bonus: the special issue's online version features a video of origami robots, which then postdoctoral student Michael Tolley helped develop. Tolley will join the Jacobs School faculty Nov. 1.

Lead architect of IBM's 1 million neuron neuromorphic chip is a Jacobs School alum

Huge congratulations to Jacobs School alumnus Dharmendra Modha, the principal investigator on the DARPA SyNAPSE project, which announced last week that it had built a one-million-cores neuromorphic chip and published its results in the journal Science.

The chip, called True North, was developed at IBM Research, where Modha leads the company's Cognitive Computing Group. It's "a synaptic supercomputer in your palm," Modha writes on his blog.
It also consumes dramatically less power than a supercomputer--70 milliwatts, or what it takes to power a hearing aid, according to The New York Times.

Also on the blog, Modha also writes:

The architecture can solve a wide class of problems from vision, audition, and multi–sensory fusion, and has the potential to revolutionize the computer industry by integrating brain–like capability into devices where computation is constrained by power and speed. These systems can efficiently process high–dimensional, noisy sensory data in real time, while consuming orders of magnitude less power than conventional computer architectures.

Modha also wrote a related article on the IBM Research website:

Introducing a Brain-inspired Computer 
TrueNorth's neurons to revolutionize system architecture

Modha earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 1996, under now-retired professor Elias Masry and Robert Hecht-Nielsen, now an adjunct professor in ECE.
When we asked him back in 2009 what he had learned here at the Jacobs School, he said:

I owe a great debt to UCSD, and to my many wonderful professors from the Jacobs School, especially Elias Masry and Robert Hecht-Nielsen, for their priceless gift of education," says Modha, who recently returned to the Jacobs School for a visit. "Fundamental training persists. Professors change lives when they teach thinking, when they teach students how to approach any problem - how to rigorously break down any problem and deal with it," says Modha.

"Now, as a proud UC San Diego alumnus, I am staying connected and working with our university to raise the visibility of the accomplished students, faculty and alumni who add value to our degrees every day."

David Pogue talks about the making of NOVA's Making Stuff at Maker Faire, of course

From skiing in a 100-year blizzard to diving with sharks, David Pogue, the host of PBS's popular NOVA Making Stuff TV series, has done it all. Saturday, May 17, he gave a standing-room only audience at the Maker Faire Bay Area, an insider's look into the show's making. We were there and live-tweeted the event and you can see your tweets below. Bad news: the program has run out of funding.
Side note: we were hoping Pogue would mention Making Stuff Safer, which featured the Jacobs School's shake table, but it was not to be.

In 2001 NSF gave $3M to Nova to make a miniseries about materials science. @Pogue hosted this year.
— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) May 17, 2014

Shark skin: nothing sticks to it: replicate in a material. @Pogue swam w sharks for that show. Attracted w fish guts.
— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) May 17, 2014

"David you must ski faster of you'll sink." Austrian skier to Pogue in 100 y blizzard for Making Stuff Colder. @Pogue #MakerFaire
— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) May 17, 2014

Liquid carbon dioxide thermo syphons keep permafrost frozen around Alaskan oil pipeline. @Pogue #MakerFaire
— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) May 17, 2014

Hag fish slime as the next fabric of the future? @Pogue #MakerFaire even stronger than silk
— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) May 17, 2014

You would not believe what's going on w robotics and bio mimicry. @Pogue #MakerFaire
— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) May 17, 2014

Got made up to be a Neanderthal and walked the streets of SF. No one even blinked. @Pogue #MakerFaire
— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) May 17, 2014

Got stained with mr fluid for science. Stuff that they make high tech bumpers from. @Pogue #SFmakerfaire
— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) May 17, 2014

I tickled a penguin and it jut got turned on. Handled bees for cancer killing venom. @Pogue
— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) May 17, 2014

NSF cutting back #novapbs funding. No more shows in pipeline. @DavidPogue #MakerFaire
— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) May 17, 2014