The Rollbot from Harvard along with other manufacturing medical news

NorthCoast 99 Award winner

We start off this weekend news with a shout out of congratulations to Jergens Inc. recipients of the NorthCoast 99 Award from ERC, recognizing the company as one of the 99 great Northeast Ohio workplaces for top talent. This annual recognition program and event is in its 21st year of honoring 99 great Northeast Ohio workplaces for top talent.

“The entire Jergens family of employees is excited to be selected as a 2019 NorthCoast 99 award winner. Our company was founded in 1942 by my father and grandfather, and as the third generation leading the company, it has been a total team effort to support Jergens’ worldwide manufacturing of machine tooling, precision assembly tools and industrial distribution growth. Without them, none our success over the last 77 years could have been achieved,” states Jack H. Schron, Jr. president of Jergens Inc.

The 2019 NorthCoast 99 Awards program is sponsored by Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield; CareerCurve; Cleveland Magazine; ERChealth; Gino’s Awards; Mark Wayner Creative; Meyers, Roman, Friedburg, & Lewis; Oswald Companies; Staffing Solutions Enterprises; and Ultimate Software.

Meet the Rollbots

And just some cool research coming out of Harvard's John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and Caltech are self-folding robots. Inspired by origami, the soft robotic systems can move and change shape in response to external stimuli, paving the way for fully untethered soft robots.

The researchers turned to origami to create multifunctional soft robots. Through sequential folds, origami can encode multiple shapes and functionalities in a single structure. Using materials known as liquid crystal elastomers that change shape when exposed to heat, the research team 3D-printed two types of soft hinges that fold at different temperatures and thus can be programmed to fold in a specific order.