Graduate Student Wins ASME Conference Best Paper Award

Sept. 25, 2020 - Derosh George, a graduate student in mechanical and aerospace engineering, won this year’s Best Student Paper award at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ 2020 Conference on Smart Materials, Adaptive Structures and Intelligent Systems. 

George, who is co-advised by Chancellor’s Professor Marc Madou and Edwin Peraza Hernandez, assistant professor, investigates novel approaches for the fabrication of 3D milli/micro/nano structures. Manufacturing of 3D structures at such small scales has potential applications in drug delivery, packaging and microelectronics. 

The award-winning paper focuses on a manufacturing method for millimeter and submillimeter-sized 3D polyhedral shapes. Inspired by origami, the Japanese art of paper folding, the manufacturing method utilizes a hands-free, self-folding strategy to fabricate tiny structures. George, Madou and Peraza Hernandez developed a programmable polymer thin film to make freeform structures at those length scales. Similar to 3D printing methods, the process starts with a computational model of the target 3D shape. The shape is computationally “unfolded” using origami design algorithms toward the corresponding two-dimensional origami film model. This origami film is then fabricated using photolithography and self-folded via heating to form a polymer structure identical to the target shape.

“I would like to thank my advisors Edwin Peraza Hernandez and Marc Madou for their guidance and encouragement,” said George. “With their help, I hope to transform this work into a holistic end-to-end manufacturing platform.”

– Lori Brandt