Dennis Hong is American, but like his surname has Korean roots. Born as the son of a famed Korean aeronautics engineer, Dennis Hong also chose to take the path of an engineer. After getting his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1994, he went on to get his masters and Ph.D in mechanical engineering from Purdue University in 1999 and 2002. After he graduated, Dennis Hong decided to open his own robotics lab, RoMeLa (Robotics&Mechanisms Laboratory), and still is its founding director and associate professor with 18 students. Called "the Leonardo Da Vinci of robots" by the Washington Post, Dennis Hong is famous for his creativity and applications of completely different principles to his robots. He made robots based on the ankles of a prehistoric deer, a Chinese water tube and even how a person braids her hair. All of the above were used for how three of RoMeLa's robots moved, the three being CHARLI, CHIMERA,and STriDER. It was these innovations that earned Dennis Hong his "Brillant 10" spot from Popular Science, his "Forward under 40" place and his "Top 40 under 40" award as well. Under his guidance, RoMeLa won the RoboCup in the humanoid division, placed 3rd in the DARPA Urban Challenge, and even won the Louis Vuitton Cup Best Humanoid Award for the first time in American history.
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Dennis Hong
I first got to know Dennis Hong through TED. He had given a speech about seven of his robots at RoMeLa, and it was on TED.com. As I hope to pursue a mechanical engineering major at college, I was really interested in him, and soon went on to watch his other talk about his car for the blind. His innovations were really impressive, especially his way of thinking outside the box for making robots, doing magic trick and even cooking. Due to his Korean heritage, he also appeared in a Korean TV show called "Healing Camp" to help a legless swimmer get the legs of his liking. In the show, he not only introduced his robotic experiences as well as the Virginia Tech shooting, but also he explained his life philosophy and showed it through his cooking skills as a gourmet chef, using strawberry jam and duck grease to create his sauce.
In every hardship or problem I have faced, I've always tried to find answers. But Dennis Hong taught me that the trick is not to find answers, but to make them.
Link to TED talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/dennis_hong_my_seven_species_of_robot.html
Cool. I especially like the last sentence. "Don't try to find answers but make them...." I once read about Dennis Hong in the "Forbes Korea" magazine. He was actually the cover model about a year ago. I didn't know that he also did a TED talk. I should definitely watch it!
답글삭제Sounds inspiring. Speaking or robots, I've recently become interested in the issue of drones. Technically, drones are robots? What happens when drones are given AI and the ability to control themeselves? Enter the Matrix. Have you ever seen Robocop? The 80's movie? You should.
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