Dr. Anurag Purwar on Innovating and Inventing Mechanical Motion Generating Devices

Posted on April 24, 2017 by Clara Tran

On April 19, the final lecture of the spring 2017 University Libraries STEM Speakers Series, Dr. Anurag Purwar engaged audiences with his talk, “Innovating and Inventing Mechanical Motion Generating Devices” in the Special Collections Seminar Room, second floor of the Melville Library.

Dr. Purwar discussed how task-driven mechanical motion help design applicable mechanisms and robots that are useful to healthcare and education. He emphasized that the linking systems play an important role in defining the type and shape of mechanisms. Instead of assuming the topology first and then computing the dimensions of the device, Dr. Purwar illustrated that it would be possible to use unified design equations to compute the topology and dimensions of the device at the same time.

Dr Purwar demonstrated his innovative machine design, Sit-to-Stand-Walker medical device for people with neuromuscular degenerative diseases. He further illustrated a mobile app, MotionGen on iPad for kinematic design and simulation of planar four-bar linkages, and demonstrated students’ robots from his MEC 101 class.

The presentation was infused with ideas for machine designs and the demonstrations were extraordinary.