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Sawyer Buckminster Fuller Feedback and motion control in the brain and robotics |
 Insect-inspired robot motion controlControlling inertial, fly-like dynamics using fans and a small number of visual sensors (video, submitted paper) |  *Flight control in free-flight flies Fly tracking with Andrew Straw and a free-flight video I took in this segment from Discovery News |  Neurons patterned by ink-jet printing Rehabilitation and studies of small-network dynamics |
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I am an engineer with a knack for design and also a humble student of biology. I am studying how flies fly and applying the findings to robot motion control. A current question is how flies use feedback from their eyes and antennae to stay aloft in spite of wind disturbances and limited brain size. Using a free-flight fly tracker developed in our lab from open-source tools, I apply wind and visual stimuli to Drosophila fruit flies depending on their motion in realtime. Observing their responses, we can create a model that explains how their dynamic behavior from sensory input to changes in wing kinematics leads to stable flight. The findings could lead to more robust and dynamic robots as well a better understanding of how the brain controls motion.
The biology/engineering cross-training has also lead to a frog-inspired hopping rover for interplanetary exploration for NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab and an ink-jet printer that can make patterns of nerve cells to study the nature of neural computation, as well as a printer for desktop fabrication of circuits and and 3-D microscopic machines in the lab that invented E-ink electronic paper. * This picture is intended as a placeholder until findings are published. Education (my C.V. in pdf or html)
I grew up mostly in Central California, graduating from Morro Bay High School. I have lived in Guatemala, Florida, Massachusetts, and Italy. My parents are professor of psychology Patrice Engle and boat builder Kirk Fuller. My hobbies include painting and charging deep into epic rollers (er, surfing). Please see my art, engineering, or photos pages. Am I related to R. Buckminster Fuller? I was named in honor of Richard Buckminster Fuller, architect, mathematician, entrepreneur, and author (and namesake of the Carbon-60 "Buckminsterfullerene" molecule discovered after his death), but we have no known relation. I remember getting to meet him when I was about four, and I think he's a pretty interesting thinker, basically disdaining convention. He questioned why buildings had to be square and concerned himself with the terrible problem of poverty and sustaining a human standard of living from Earth's limited resources. In the sixties, this led people like my parents to say "never trust anyone over 30 -- except Bucky."
Sawyer Buckminster Fuller California Institute of Technology Mail Code 107-81 1200 East California Blvd. Pasadena, CA, 91125 Primary office: Steele 113, 626-395-4176 Email: my caltech username is minster. The email format is username@caltech.edu
"Keep my feet on the ground and my head in the clouds." |