The exciting thing about being at Berkeley, and “wearing several hats” is that new projects are tumbling out of the blue all the time. On top of that the Berkeley Manufacturing Institute (BMI) students and staff have a “can do” positive energy. Plus we have a terrific lab funded by Ford Motor Co. with great equipment, computers, rapid prototyping machines, a CNC milling machine, and a small injection press.

It means that our colleagues at (say) Ford Motor Company, Pirelli, the Chicago Fire Department, the Berkeley Wireless Research Center, the Intel-Berkeley lab, and in the new CITRIS program are often asking us for design, prototyping and manufacturing help or advice. Here are some brief details of projects at these other organizations:

1. The Pico Radio project at the Berkeley Wireless Research Center (BWRC) , which focuses on the design and fabrication of inexpensive, miniaturized low-power radios, including an FBAR-MEMS resonator for transmission and sensor applications.
2. The TinyOS project at the Intel Research Laboratory at Berkeley, which has developed a flexible, multipurpose programming environment for deploying self-organizing nets.
3. MEMS sensors and related devices with colleagues at the Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center (BSAC).
4. The SmartDust MEMS project (a natural outgrowth of BSAC research) in which a low power device has been developed that contains accelerometers, A-to-D converters, a radio and associated hardware/software support for monitoring vibrations in structures. With appropriate design modifications, SmartDust can be equipped with sensors for measuring the climates temperature and humidity, and the voltage and current in meters.
5. The Networked Based Design and Manufacturing project at Ford Motor Company in which designers scattered around the world at various Ford locations need to communicate design ideas and details on manufacturing constraints. The most recent focus has been on the design of gear systems with the goal of minimizing noise and ‘whine’ in certain gear combinations. In another automobile related project we have been supporting the Pirelli Company with in-tire measurements of pressure and footprint.

So the students that seem to have flourished the most in our lab and gone on to be famous Professors or Scientists are those people that enjoy this bustling flexible way of doing research. Sometimes a project starts small --- almost as a semi-consulting job for another lab --- but before you know it, a major project has blossomed. Here’s a list of some of the things we are doing now…

1. The Design of Wireless Sensor Nets and Products for Pervasive, Ubiquitous, Inconspicuous Computing (Nate Ota and needing new students)

2. Energy Scavenging (Shad Roundy, Beth Reilley, Dan Steingart, Eli Leland, Elaine Lai, Jessy Baker)

3. Application Areas (Ota, Lim, Steingart, Roundy, Reilley)

3.1 The Demand Response of Energy
3.2 Our project with the Chicago Fire Department
3.3 New sponsorship by the tire company

4. Integrated Design Tools for Consumer Products (Mike Montero)

5. Bi-Manual Design Environments (Dan Odell)

6. Design Environments for Gear Systems and Noise Reduction (Sundararajan/ Antonetti)

7. Rapid Prototyping and Mold Making for Consumer Products (Misra/Kumesaran)

2115 - 2117 -BMI Ford Prototyping Lab
Our Under-Grad lab and work environment. A Lab with everything (well almost) that we could possibly need to produce a prototype - except enough time.