This July, Ella taught the second iteration of her week-long summer course, “Continuum Robotics and Compliant Mechanisms”, to a class of 24 high school students (incoming grade 12 and incoming undergraduates). The course, facilitated through DEEP Summer Academy with the Engineering Outreach Office, is designed to offer a sneak peek into engineering studies and cutting-edge research at UofT.

The course covered topics in soft and continuum robotics: history of the field, current research challenges, math, modeling, materials science, mechanisms, and more! Students got to build and take home four soft robot/actuator prototypes: a pneumatic artificial muscle actuator, a pneumatic soft finger, a tendon-driven continuum robot, and a 3D-printed TPU spi-rob.

This year’s cohort was an exceptional, eager group of high school students with interests spanning STEM subjects and beyond. They asked many insightful questions during class time and at field trips, in particular throughout the CRL lab tour, where they had a chance to work hands-on with Compliance Labs’ Emio parallel soft robotics platforms. A special thanks to Mika, Rozilyn, Aedan, and Greg for engaging the students in research and technology through the lab tour! Double shout-out to PCIGITI and 3DHeartLab (Thomas, Hannah, Ross, and teams) for hosting the group at SickKids, where the students got to try out a wide range of engineering solutions used in surgical training, planning, and intervention, including: VR surgery, surgical robot teleoperation, and silicone-casting anatomical phantoms.

CRL looks forward to hosting the course again in 2027 for the third year!

Updated: