12 ISE Magazine | www.iise.org/ISEmagazine

If you ﬁnd a spider crawling

on the wall in your house,

don’t hit it with your shoe;

it might someday be reani-

mated as a robot.

That’s not a sci-ﬁ hor-

ror script but a new poten-

tial for deceased arachnids.

Engineers at Rice Uni-

versity have developed a

way to use dead spiders as

mechanical grippers for ro-

botic functions.

Why use a spider carcass

for such needs? The ﬁeld

researchers call “necro-

botics” ﬁnds that the six-

legged wonders function

effectively through hy-

draulics. While alive, the

spider can extend its legs by sending blood from a chamber

near their heads; when the pressure is reduced, the legs con-

tract. Valves in spiders’ hydraulic chamber control each leg

individually.

“The unique thing about spiders is that they actually

don’t have antagonistic muscle pairs,” said Daniel Pres-

ton, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, Rice’s

George R. Brown School of Engineering, in a YouTube

video posted by the university. “Instead they do that with

hydraulic pressure that they generate inside of the main

cavity or chamber of their body. So because of that, when

they die that’s why you see spiders curled up. That means

that we can use hydraulic pressure when we use the spider

as the material for our gripper to take advantage of that and

extend all of its legs or joints.”

To replicate this, the research team inject a needle into

the dead spider’s prosoma chamber and delivers a small

amount of air that extends the legs and grips an object,

which then can be picked up.

“We took the spider, we placed the needle in it not know-

ing what was going to happen; we kind of had an estimate

of where we wanted to place the needle,” said Faye Yap, a

mechanical engineering graduate student involved with the

project. “When we did it, it worked the ﬁrst time right off

the bat. I don’t even know how to describe it – that moment

when you see it move.”

The Rice lab specializes in soft robotic systems that often

use nontraditional materials rather than plastics and metals

– in this case, dead wolf spiders.

“This area of soft robotics is a lot of fun because we get

to use previously untapped types of actuation and materi-

als,” said Preston. “The spider falls into this line of inquiry.

It’s something that hasn’t been used before but has a lot of

potential.”

Preston said the spider grippers could be used to work

with microelectronic devices.

“We’re excited about it because it also offers the potential

to reduce waste streams,” he said. “These grippers, as you

might guess, are made from these biotic materials and are

compostable or biodegradable.”

News from the ﬁeld

The front line

Your friendly neighborhood spider robots

Rice University team ﬁnds way to employ dead arachnids as micro grippers

Researchers at Rice University were able to inject air into a dead wolf spider to manipulate its

legs to be used as robotic grippers. The spider robots offer a sustainable option for handling

microelectronic devices.

Image from Rice University video

September 2022 | ISE Magazine 13

Most of us likely have old CDs lying around

that are either damaged, unplayable or no lon-

ger desired in the age of digital music, with

many destined to reside in landﬁlls for decades.

Now there may be new life for that Duran

Duran album being used as a drink coaster.

Researchers at Binghamton University have

developed a way to turn old CDs into ﬂexible

biosensor devices in an inexpensive, easy way.

Ph.D. student Matthew Brown and assistant

professor Ahyeon Koh from the Department of

Biomedical Engineering at the Thomas J. Wat-

son College of Engineering and Applied Sci-

ence described the method in a paper published

in Nature Communications. They show how a

CD’s thin metallic layer can be separated from

the plastic and turned into sensors to monitor electrical activ-

ity in the heart and muscles as well as lactose, glucose, pH and

oxygen levels.

The fabrication process takes only 20 to 30 minutes, costs

about $1.50 per device and does not release toxic materials into

the environment. It involves removing the metallic coating

from the plastic using a chemical process and adhesive tape.

“When you pick up your hair on your clothes with sticky

tape, that is essentially the same mechanism,” Koh told Bin-

gUNews. “We loosen the layer of metals from the CD and then

pick up that metal layer with tape, so we just peel it off. That

thin layer is then processed and ﬂexible.”

Other members of the research team include professor

Gretchen Mahler, student Melissa Mendoza, master’s student

Louis Somma and Yeonsik Noh, an assistant professor at the

University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

To make the sensors, the team used a Cricut cutter used by

crafters to cut designs from paper, vinyl and other materials.

The ﬂexible circuits then can be stuck onto a person’s body and

deliver readings to a smartphone app via Bluetooth. Brown

said the team’s goal is to improve the process over time.

“We used gold CDs, and we want to explore silver-based

CDs, which I believe are more common,” he said. “How can

we upcycle those types of CDs with the same kind of process?

We also want to look at if we can utilize laser engraving rather

than using the fabric-based cutter to improve the upcycling

speed even further.”

Koh suggests expanding the research by gathering donations

on campus and sharing the process.

“Maybe we can create a box on campus where we could

collect CDs,” she said. “We also could have more general-

ized step-by-step instructions on how to make them in a day,

without any engineering skills. Everybody can create those

kinds of sensors for their users. We want these to become more

accessible and affordable, and more easily distributed to the

public.”

CDs to biosensors: A new tune for golden oldies

Binghamton team peels metal off discarded music discs to make wearables

Dilbert

A team of researchers at Binghamton University has developed an easy,

inexpensive way to create biomedical sensors from metal extracted from old

music CDs.

Photo courtesy of Binghamton University

14 ISE Magazine | www.iise.org/ISEmagazine

the frontlinethe front line

Having surgeons and their teams working on the same page

in the operating room is a key factor in creating good patient

outcomes. But how can these variables be objectively measured

and evaluated to improve collaboration?

A team of researchers from Purdue’s School of Industrial

Engineering and Indiana University School of Medicine in

Indianapolis are working on a way to use wearable sensors to

facilitate modeling and assessment of surgery teamwork.

IISE member Denny Yu, an assistant professor of indus-

trial engineering and adjunct assistant professor of surgery at

IU School of Medicine, recently was awarded a four-year,

$1.6-million grant as principal investigator from the Agency

for Healthcare Research and Quality to pursue the research.

The need for such evaluation is key, as nontechnical skills

such as teamwork, communication, decision-making and lead-

ership are shown to have a direct impact on patient health and

safety. Studies reveal that lapses in these areas can account for up

to 60% of surgical complications.

“We know team skills are of key importance to patient safe-

ty,” Yu said. “However, team skills are either not measured at

all or measured by expert observers, which is extremely time-

consuming and costly. Our engineering and medicine team

hope to ﬁnd practical solutions using sensors and artiﬁcial intel-

ligence algorithms. This platform could automate the teaming

assessment, an important and commonly overlooked skill in

surgical teams.”

The study’s multi-principal investigator, Dimitrios Stefani-

dis, M.D., vice chair of surgical education and professor of sur-

gery at IU School of Medicine, notes that surgery is a “team

sport” and that patient safety and favorable outcomes are de-

pendent on multiple factors based on the performance of the

surgical team.

“How the team works together, how well the team members

communicate with each other, how aware everyone is of their

surroundings, and how strong the leadership of the surgeon is

all play a role in the success of a surgery,” he said.

Trained observers to assess surgical collaboration can often

lack objectivity. The grant will aid development of technologi-

cal solutions that can conduct real-time observations and serve

as objective measurements of teamwork skills.

“The approach we are taking in this study of developing

objective and reliable, nontechnical skill measures promises to

provide the means that will allow OR teams to improve their

collaborative work and ultimately beneﬁt our patients,” Ste-

fanidis said.

Co-investigators at Purdue include Felicia Roberts, profes-

sor in the Brian Lamb School of Communications, and Arman

Sabbaghi, associate professor in the Department of Statistics.

A new way to measure teamwork in the OR

Purdue-Indiana grant to fund research toward use of sensors to gauge collaboration

Quote, unquote

Purdue team showcases ISEs’ opportunities

“I transitioned into IE because I love just the breadth of opportunities that were available for in-

dustrial engineers. I think that that’s what really separates industrial engineering from all other

kinds of engineering. Which is just the absolute amount of opportunity that you have, the num-

ber of industries you can go into and all the things that you can do with your career. And so that’s

why I went into IE. ... For this video in particular, I think we were super excited, especially to

showcase to high school students what incredible opportunities are out there in engineering.”

— Chloee Robison, junior industrial engineering student at Purdue University and a member of the winning team in the 2022 IISE Student

Chapters Industry Advisory Board YouTube Video Contest sponsored by Tompkins International. The team of Robison, Ashwin Jayaraj, Sneha

Choradia and Annie Johnson won the top prize of $1,000, besting 11 other student teams with their video, “What is Industrial Engineering?” For

more on the contest, including links to the winning video and others from past years, visit iise.org/IAB-YouTube.

Chloee Robison

September 2022 | ISE Magazine 15

16 ISE Magazine | www.iise.org/ISEmagazine

the frontlinethe front line

The move toward vehicles powered by electricity rather than

fossil fuels often is limited by access to charging stations. This

is a particular problem for city residents who don’t have drive-

ways or garages and must access street parking for their vehicles.

The Seattle City Light utility is addressing this by install-

ing curbside Level 2 electric vehicle charging stations on util-

ity poles or standalone pedestals at 30 locations throughout the

city. Residents could request a charger near their home if they

own an EV or plan to buy one within the next year.

The U.S. Census bureau’s 2019 American Housing Survey

shows that more than one-third of U.S. homeowners, and

nearly two-thirds of renters, do not have a garage or carport

that can house a charger. Yet about 80% of Americans’ EV ve-

hicle charging occurs at home, usually overnight. Such limita-

tions often are barriers to purchasing an EV.

“More than 50% of our communities are renters, and that

lends to living in ... multifamily housing,” said Angela Song,

transportation electriﬁcation portfolio manager at City Light.

“We’re really excited and hope this can really push the bounds

and increase the adoption of electric vehicles. ... If we’re tack-

ling those challenging areas, we’re reducing barriers across the

broader community.”

The utility will install the chargers at no cost to residents,

who will pay a kilowatt-hour fee of 20 cents per kW to use

them. Each site can charge up to two vehicles and are available

on a ﬁrst-come basis.

The chargers, which cost $11,000 to $25,000 each, will fea-

ture a J1772 connector compatible with all EVs on the North

America market. The organizers are looking to distribute them

evenly throughout the service area rather than focus on any

particular community. The public opt-in process ensures the

chargers will be used and meet the community’s needs.

After receiving hundreds of applications through the sum-

mer, City Light will evaluate the locations requested and install

the units in the top-ranking sites. It plans to complete installa-

tion by early 2023.

“There are very few other utilities and municipalities in the

country that are currently pursuing EV charging solutions for

the residents,” said Jacob Orenberg, Seattle City Light senior

capital projects coordinator. “We want to provide a service for

current EV owners who may be struggling to charge their ve-

hicle, but also (to) prospective EV owners.”

Seattle aims to bring power to the people

City utility to install streetside public EV chargers at residents’ requests

Robotic space plane tops its own orbital record

The U.S. Space Force’s robotic X-37B space plane broke its own mark for

endurance July 7 by marking 781 days in orbit, breaking its old record of 780.

The reusable, uncrewed vehicle designed and built by Boeing was ﬂying on its

sixth mission that launched May 17, 2020. The X-37B is similar in design to

the NASA’s retired space shuttle, although much smaller at 29 feet (8.8 meters)

long and 9.5 feet (2.9 m) tall, with a wingspan slightly under 15 feet (4.6 m) and

weighing 11,000 pounds (4,990 kilograms). It can operate at a range of altitudes

from 150 to 500 miles. It features fully automated de-orbit and landing capabilities

and a fully electro-mechanical control system. The ﬂight was the ﬁrst X-37B mission to use an attachable service module

with the additional payload to host experiments. Though the primary orbital agendas are classiﬁed, some of its onboard

experiments were disclosed, including one from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory on transforming solar power into

radio frequency microwave energy. Two other NASA experiments onboard studied the effects of the space environment

on a materials sample plate and seeds used to grow food. The mission also included the deployment of FalconSat-8, a

small satellite developed by the U.S. Air Force Academy and sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory to conduct

several experiments on orbit.

Prime NumberS

Seattle City Light

is aiming to install

curbside electric

vehicle chargers

throughout the city

available for public

use by early 2023.

Residents will pay only

charging fees to use

the devices on a ﬁrst-

come basis.

The U.S. Air Force X-37B Orbital

Test Vehicle 4 is seen after landing

at Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle

Landing Facility May 7, 2017.

Photo courtesy of U.S. Air Force

September 2022 | ISE Magazine 17

The old saying of “give someone a ﬁsh, feed them for a day; teach someone to ﬁsh, feed them for a

lifetime” can apply to teaching principles of Lean. While the best instructors can pass along the basic

ideas of eliminating waste to streamline operations, instilling that attitude into an organization’s cul-

ture is the key to long-term improvement. That’s the premise behind the book Building a Sustainable

Lean Culture – An Implementation Guide by Tina Kanti Agustiady and Elizabeth A. Cudney, each Lean

Six Sigma Master Black Belts and IISE Training Center instructors. Their book digs into how to

build a Lean culture “from the ground up while gaining buy-in from key stakeholders and being

able to sustain the results.” It discusses Lean leadership from a managerial standpoint and empower-

ing employees to build a Lean culture in sectors that include manufacturing, services, IT and healthcare. The authors note

that while implementing a Lean culture is every organization’s goal, many only toss out the tools without a full idea of how

to apply them. Their strategy involves implementing Lean along three main aspects: the people, structural and cultural; the

operation system; and the tools. They include case studies to demonstrate examples of real-life implementation. “It is impor-

tant to remember that Lean is a choice,” the authors wrote. “Nobody can make Lean happen. It is what you make of it. You

can stay stagnant and keep doing things the way they’ve always been done. Or you can seek to continuously improve. The

number one concept of Lean is the people. Lean is not just about reducing waste and 5S, but about empowering the people,

listening to the people. Understanding the people. Without the people, the business is not a business. Tools are important,

but mean nothing without the entire philosophy.”

Building a Sustainable Lean Culture – An Implementation Guide is published by CRC Press. $96

Making Lean a part of your company’s culture

IISE instructors offer improvement steps beyond the basic tools

Book of the Month

Driverless vehicles are about to go from experimental to prac-

tical.

Sweden startup Einride is planning to test its freight vehicles

on public roads before the end of the year. It will operate its

cabless electric trucks along a 1-mile stretch of road between

two warehouses in Tennessee for GE Appliances. The test run

has earned approval from the National Highway Trafﬁc Safety

Administration.

Steve Viscelli, a University of Pennsylvania fellow and lec-

turer and expert on the trucking industry, told The Wall Street

Journal that driverless transport of goods is a priority for the

freight sector, and likely will surpass the push for passenger

vehicles. The motivation is clear: Trucks without humans cost

less and have more simpliﬁed operations.

“Trucks will be ﬁrst, without a doubt, in the true driverless

system, partly for the economics of it,” Viscelli said. “Right

now, we have huge limitations on how long a truck can move

because it’s piloted by a human being, who needs to sleep and

use the bathroom and take 10-hour mandatory breaks and

other things.”

Einride’s snub-nosed vehicles are called Pods, each able to

haul about 10 pallets of freight, about 57,000 pounds. They are

driven by remote operators who may monitor several vehicles

at once, according to Einride. They are able to take the same

actions driver in the cab would typically make, such as calling

someone when a vehicle gets stuck at a gate.

Though other companies are developing autonomous

transport, many of those aren’t electric vehicles. The hurdle

to EVs for freight is the lack of charging infrastructure in the

U.S., particularly for long-distant hauls, and the time spent

charging, Viscelli said. But Robert Falck, chief executive of

the Stockholm-based company, said Einride is planning to de-

velop the infrastructure it needs to charge its Pods en route.

“This is a step-by-step approach, and this is a major step

forward, in that it’s actually now on public roads,” Falck said.

Driverless trucks gear up for real-life road tests

Swedish startup Einride plans to use its vehicles for Tennessee haul

Swedish startup automaker Einride plans to make test runs of its

driverless electric freight vehicle, called the Pod, on a stretch of

highway in Tennessee in late 2022.

Photo courtesy of Einride

18 ISE Magazine | www.iise.org/ISEmagazine

Students with idle time during the CO-

VID-19 lockdown found themselves

playing video games, watching TV or

engaging in other hobbies. One UK teen

student used that time to resurrect an old

design for a launch rocket.

Ewan Craig, 16, signed up for an open

online course on aerospace offered by

MIT. He learned of research for a rocket

design system from the 1950-60 era called

the aerospike, which was ﬁrst created by

Rocketdyne Propulsion & Power, a unit

of The Boeing Co.

The aerospike was conceived as a

one-stage engine able to maintain aero-

dynamic efﬁciency. The engine uses

25-30% less fuel at low altitudes, and can

launch without boosters, a time and cost-

saver. At one time, it was a contender to

power the Space Shuttle as a single-stage-

to-orbit option but the technical problem

of cooling the engine was not solved.

Ewan decided to create his own aero-

spike design through computer-aided de-

sign programs available at his school, yet

they lacked the complexity needed.

“After I’d been doing loads of design

work, and trying to calculate how I

could keep the engine cold and whether

it would actually produce any thrust, and

how the ﬂuid dynamics inside would

work, I realized that I couldn’t do that by

pen and paper alone,” he said. “The issue

for me was that all the free, open-source

software is for handling simple compo-

nents and behaviors.”

Ewan contacted software provider

Ansys seeking any additional features or

tools for his project. Ofﬁcials at Ansys

directed him to their startup program

through partner EDRMedeso in the Ad-

vanced Manufacturing Park Technology

Centre in South Yorkshire, England.

With his design underway, he began

looking for a manufacturer but couldn’t

foot the costs most companies charged.

Ansys suggested he contact Velo3D, an

additive manufacturer in California,

where engineers offered design sugges-

tions and offered a free test print.

“They proposed ways that I could

manage and optimize the model,” Ewan

said. “Every step of the way, they’ve been

thinking about how we can get the aero-

spike to work properly, the way I envi-

sion, which as a technical partner with a

company is exactly what you want.”

Ben Wilson, applications development

engineer for Velo3D, decided Ewan’s

design was well-suited to his company’s

automated print software.

“He was very open to suggestions

from the beginning,” Wilson said. “We

didn’t need to make overly invasive mod-

iﬁcations to the original part in order to

make it printable.”

The resulting one-piece rocket design

is faithful to the original 1960s version,

including Ewan’s proposed solution to the

cooling problem.

“Advanced 3D metal printing will

open a new age in economical, scalable

manufacturing for space,” he said.

UK teen launches 3D-printed retro rocket

Student creates aerospike design with help of software, printing companies

Ewan Craig shows off the aerospike

rocket design he created with help from

additive manufacturer Velo3D.

Photo courtesy of Velo3D

Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, research has

been ongoing into how to make face masks more effective and

potentially reusable.

A team at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has developed a

way to make N95 masks more effective germ barriers. They

did so by grafting broad-spectrum antimicrobial polymers onto

polypropylene ﬁlters using ultraviolet-initiated grafting, which

can kill germs on contact. The new masks also can be worn

longer, reducing the amount of waste from discarded masks.

The effort was published in Applied ACS Materials and Interfac-

es from the work by researchers at RPI, Michigan Technologi-

cal Institute and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The re-

search team included Helen Zha, assistant professor of chemical

and biological engineering at Rensselaer, and Edmund Palermo,

associate professor of materials science and engineering.

“The process uses a really simple chemistry to create this non-

leaching polymer coating that can kill viruses and bacteria by

essentially breaking open their outer layer,” Zha said.

The team used only UV light and acetone in the process,

which is easy to implement and can be applied to manufactured

polypropylene ﬁlters. And having masks that can be reused

more often can ease the volume of masks in landﬁlls.

“The threat of diseases caused by airborne microbes is not

going away,” Zha said. “It’s about time that we improved the

performance and sustainability of the materials that we use to

protect ourselves.”

Germ-killer could boost potency of N95 masks

RPI team learns to graft antimicrobial polymers to face coverings

What:

Advance your skills by entering the IISE/Rockwell Student Simulation

Competition, sponsored by Rockwell Automation.

Teams can comprise an adviser and:

• Four or fewer undergraduate students

• One or two graduate students

• One graduate student and up to two undergraduate students

The Fall session deadline is Sept. 30, 2022.

First Place: $5,000 to the team, plus $500 to the team’s chapter

Second Place: $2,500 to the team, plus $250 to the team’s chapter

Third Place: $1,500 to the team, plus $250 to the team’s chapter

1. Submit an entry form, found at www.iise.org/ArenaCompetition.

2. Rockwell will provide all teams with a real-world situational case study for analysis.

3. Teams have eight weeks to develop and submit their solutions.

4. Three finalist teams are selected to present their solutions for final judging at the IISE Annual

Conference & Expo, May 20-23, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Finalist teams receive $1,250 for travel

expenses as well as complimentary conference registrations and tickets to the Honors & Awards Banquet.

Who:

When:

Why:

How:

Enter your team at

www.iise.org/ArenaCompetition