Modern robotics can interact with the human body in newer, innovative ways, using flexible materials and compliant actuators. Dr. Holly Golecki, Ph.D., wants to teach young people all about it, recently sharing her team’s K-12 curriculum in soft robotics in The Science Teachermagazine. A professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Dr. Golecki teaches bioengineering and engineering design to undergraduates, while also research applications of materials engineering to bioengineering and engineering education. She discusses her pathway to her current focus on engineering education, and her ideas about increasing the diversity of students who can access engineering at younger ages by way of soft robotics.

Related to this episode:

• Dr. Holly Golecki’s website: https://www.hollygolecki.com/
• Revolutionizing Robotics: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19434871.2023.12290283
• Soft Robotics Toolkit: https://softroboticstoolkit.com/
• UIUC BioE: https://bioengineering.illinois.edu/
• Drexel Materials Science and Engineering: https://drexel.edu/engineering/academics/departments/materials-science-engineering/
• Sandia National Labs: https://www.sandia.gov/
• VEX Robotics competitions: https://www.vexrobotics.com/competition
• McKibben artificial muscles: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/803170
• Control Pneumatic Cylinder with Arduino (video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXNNjtK5hp8
• Tim the Nitinol Lepidopterist (video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyVGpRjG5-0
• Mark Rober on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY1kMZp36IQSyNx_9h4mpCg
• hgolecki on Twitter / X: https://twitter.com/hgolecki
• Soft Robotics Toolkit Competition: https://softroboticstoolkit.com/competition/requirements

Subscribe and find podcast updates at: http://www.k12engineering.net. Support Pios Labs with regular donations on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/pioslabs. You’ll also be supporting projects like the Engineer’s Guide to Improv and Art Games, The Calculator Gator, or Chordinates! Thanks to our donors and listeners for making the show possible. The K12 Engineering Education Podcast is a production of Pios Labs: http://www.pioslabs.com.

Music by seth_makes_sounds under a Creative Commons 0 License.

Cultivated meat has the potential to disrupt the meat industry, and engineer Dr. Katie Kam joins the podcast to talk about it. Katie founded BioBQ, her startup that’s developing cultivated beef brisket. She explains how cultivated meat – also known as “cultured meat” or “lab meat” – is real meat that avoids animal slaughter by being grown in a bioreactor. Katie discusses her motivation for her work at BioBQ, including her Texas roots, love of barbecue, interest in ecology, and being vegan. She also highlights partnerships with the cattle industry, investors, and many different fields in science and engineering.

Related to this episode:

• BioBQ: https://www.biobqing.com/

• “Cultivated meat bioprocess design” article: https://gfi.org/science/the-science-of-cultivated-meat/deep-dive-cultivated-meat-bioprocess-design/

• “Eat Just to Open Asia’s Largest Cultivated Meat Facility in 2023”: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-10/eat-just-to-open-asia-s-largest-cultivated-meat-facility-in-2023

• “Upside’s cell-cultured chicken is first to receive FDA blessing for its production method”: https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/16/upside-foods-cell-cultured-meat-fda/

• Good Food Institute (GFI): https://gfi.org/

• New Harvest: https://new-harvest.org/

• IndieBio incubator in San Francisco: https://indiebio.co/

Subscribe and find podcast updates at: http://www.k12engineering.net. Support Pios Labs with regular donations on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/pioslabs. You’ll also be supporting projects like the Engineer’s Guide to Improv and Art Games, The Calculator Gator, or Chordinates! Thanks to our donors and listeners for making the show possible. The K12 Engineering Education Podcast is a production of Pios Labs: http://www.pioslabs.com.

Music by timouse under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

The Solve for Tomorrow design competition from Samsung is starting up again, and three guests join the podcast to explain how it works, and why schools and businesses should invest in K-12 STEM education. George Dowdy led his students at Porter High School to win the most recent competition, while Autumn Dowdy led her students at the same school to win before that. George and Autumn, an engineering education power couple, talk about what it’s like teaching engineering today and how the Solve for Tomorrow competition complements their existing curriculum. Ann Woo is the Senior Director of Corporate Citizenship at Samsung in the US, and she explains why Samsung funds or support the K-12 education pipeline with professional development and other programs like this.

Related to this episode:

• Samsung Solve for Tomorrow competition: https://www.samsung.com/us/solvefortomorrow/

• Porter High team wins national STEM competition for second year: https://www.yourconroenews.com/neighborhood/moco/news/article/Porter-High-team-wins-national-STEM-competition-17192932.php

• Project Lead The Way: https://www.pltw.org/

• MindSpark Learning: https://www.mindspark.org/

• Porter High School Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/porterhs_spartans/?hl=en

Subscribe and find podcast updates at: http://www.k12engineering.net. Support Pios Labs with regular donations on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/pioslabs. You’ll also be supporting projects like the Engineer’s Guide to Improv and Art Games, The Calculator Gator, or Chordinates! Thanks to our donors and listeners for making the show possible. The K12 Engineering Education Podcast is a production of Pios Labs: http://www.pioslabs.com.