Dancing Through Life: From Origami Robotics to Sculptural Art News / June 2, 2026 An artist-in-residence collaboration between Penn’s Sung Robotics Lab and The Arts League of Philadelphia shows how origami-inspired robotics can transform contemporary art, resulting in kinetic sculptures that blur the boundaries between engineering, creativity, and public engagement. Read More
Helping Robots Work Together to Explore the Moon and Mars News / September 29, 2025 In early August, the crisp dawn sky above White Sands National Park glows faintly blue, gradually brightening as streaks of marigold and soft pink pierce the clouds with the rising sun. But although the powder-white sand of the 30-foot gypsum dunes is cool at dawn, air temperatures become blistering hot... Read More
Academic Resilience Meets Startup Grit: My Ph.D. Journey Through Penn and Beyond News / November 20, 2024 A week after defending my Ph.D. dissertation, I’m still decompressing from the whirlwind of my five years at Penn Engineering. It’s been an intense, exhilarating, and deeply rewarding journey—one that’s transformed me in ways I never anticipated. During college, I took a gap year to intern at three different companies... Read More
Touching the Future: Mastering Physical Contact with New Algorithm for Robots News / October 8, 2024 Penn Engineers have developed a new algorithm that allows robots to react to complex physical contact in real time, making it possible for autonomous robots to succeed at previously impossible tasks, like controlling the motion of a sliding object. The algorithm, known as consensus complementarity control (C3), may prove to... Read More
Penn Receives $2 Million NASA Grant for TRUSSES Project to Study Lunar Robotics News / November 28, 2023 The University of Pennsylvania has been awarded a $2 million grant from NASA to conduct groundbreaking research on lunar robotics. The TRUSSES Project: Temporarily, Robots Unite to Surmount Sandy Entrapments, then Separate, led by Cynthia Sung, Gabel Family Term Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics (MEAM) at Penn Engineering, aims to develop innovative methods for teams of robots... Read More
A Centimeter-Scale Quadruped Leverages Curved-Crease Origami News / October 25, 2023 (Photo: Sung Lab) Centimeter-scale walking and crawling robots are in demand both for their ability to explore tight or cluttered environments and for their low fabrication costs. Now, pulling from origami-inspired construction, researchers led by Cynthia Sung, Gabel Family Term Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics (MEAM), have crafted a... Read More
