From the pages of Design News + Product Design and Development Engineering Students You'd Love to Hire 3/3/2003 Emily Joyce Ma

Cockroaches can be teachers Yikes, is that a huge cockroach scampering across the floor? Nope, that's just Emily Ma's research project, a robot designed to look something like a cockroach and to use the same kind of tactile feedback that helps cockroaches scurry along baseboards. Ma, a mechanical engineering student at Stanford, designed the robot as part of her studies of tactile feedback in cockroaches. "I've been doing research on the robot, which I call Sprawlette," she says. "Nobody has looked at tactile feedback. Nobody has built a robot antenna." Ma is about to get her bachelors in mechanical engineering, but she is already deep into coursework for her masters. She took several masters-level courses even while still pursuing her undergraduate degree. And as her studies deepen, she is learning the growing connection between mechanical engineering and biology and the life sciences. It's a connection many engineers in the medical-device field have spotted, and one that has prompted a few, including former Design News Engineers of the Year, to develop incredible design breakthroughs. "I've started to realize the importance of biology in engineering," says Ma.