The University of Louisville doctoral candidate just at the IEEE Conference on Manipulation, Automation and Robotics at Small Scales (MARSS 2018), held in Nagoya, Japan in early July.

His paper, “,” focuses on research conducted at UofL’s . He’s studying how to build a better AFAM micro-robot — one small enough to manufacture nanotechnologies, or even manipulate cells to cure disease.

Zhang’s paper was chosen from among eight finalists, a list that included students from University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, and University of California Berkeley, among others.

“Winning the conference is a great matter to me,” he said. “I didn’t realize this idea was worth any award when I came up with it; it was only a small modification to make AFAM (robot) better.”

The bottom line is that, in order to make tiny things, the workers themselves need to be tiny. It’s an idea Zhang became enamored with after he was introduced to the tiny bots by a fellow student.

“The small size, the mechanism, the intriguing design and exquisite structures took my heart,” he said.

As a doctoral student at UofL, Zhang works under Dr. Dan Popa at the Next Generation Systems robotics lab in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. There, Zhang was introduced to the AFAM, a micro-robot created by Dr. Popa and colleagues 10 years ago.

Zhang’s paper focuses on his research into how best to resolve issues with the AFAM, including its difficult assembly and failure rate. Popa said he was very proud of Zhang’s work and award.Ěý

“He worked hard on all aspects of the paper, conducted both simulation and experiments, and wrote down his results,” Popa said.Ěý “I think it speaks well for the research dedication of our students and for the quality of engineering graduate programs here at Speed School.”Ěý

As for Zhang, he’s now working on a way to direct the bots using lasers. After he finishes his PhD at UofL, he’s planning to continue his research, either working with industry or at a university.

“This field is very active and there are new developments everyday,” he said. “I’m excited about it.”

What does the city of the future look like?

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Well, it’s smart. Really smart — sort of like the students who participated in the DerbyHacks hackathon this past weekend.Ěý

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More than 100 hackers spent 36 straight hours at the University of Louisville Engineering Garage, 1960 Arthur St., developing creative software and hardware along the smart cities theme. ĚýĚý

Some hacks were practical, some whimsical. One team taught Amazon’s Alexa smart assistant to play chess, while others used open data to create grocery lists or map the best places to buy a home, accounting for crime rates and other factors.ĚýĚý

“We saw lots of great people making lots of great projects,” said DerbyHacks director, Shayne Hemminger. “My personal favorite hack involved trying to emulate old vector display video games.”Ěý

There’s a full list of projects and winnersĚý, on the DerbyHacks website.Ěý

The second annual hackathon was organized by University of Louisville students, with help from outside organizations.Ěý

“Derbyhacks was a great success, it took a lot of effort from a lot of people to pull of this event,” said Sam Nwosu, a computer science and computer engineering graduate student and president ofĚý,Ěýthe Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) student chapter.Ěý“I really enjoyed the smartdollhouse project and the newsforme project. Both were very creative and had a lot of work put in it.”Ěý

TheĚýĚýsponsored the event, along with Humana Inc., KFC, the city’s Office of Performance Improvement and Innovation and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The UofLĚýĚýwas a partner, as were Major League Hacking, ACM and Linode.

“We’re starting to see more intellectual jobs being automated and once we get to the human level, everything goes,” Yampolskiy says. “The prediction is, something like, 2045 is the likely time when machines will do the same things most humans do.” Ěý Ěý

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