Origami-Inspired Robots

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Lily Brenner ('26), a Computer Science major, conducted research on origami-inspired robots under the mentorship of Dr. Cynthia Sung (Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mathematics). This research was supported through the Penn Undergraduate Research Mentoring (PURM) Program.

I’ve always been passionate about robotics—I was the captain of my high school robotics team and spent hundreds of hours of hours working on, researching, and generally engaging with robots—but this summer pushed me to view robotics as not just a hobby but an extremely complex and fascinating discipline. I spent this summer researching origami-inspired robots in Dr. Cynthia Sung’s lab and had an amazing time developing novel simulation software. This experience was also really important to me because I’ve never had an academic experience where there wasn’t a clearly correct answer—no TA was grading my work to decide whether I achieved a predetermined solution. Instead, I was working on problems that even Dr. Sung didn’t necessarily have answers to and it really pushed me to develop as a student, a researcher, and a computer scientist.

Another really rewarding experience this summer was my time spent with the other students in my lab. I really enjoyed working with everyone, from my PI to the high school students interning in the lab. I learned a lot from Dr. Sung, usually specific information about problems I was struggling with or places I could look to find answers to my very technical questions. I also found the graduate students in my lab very helpful. They had concrete experience with many of the same challenges that I was facing, not just in my academic research, but in planning out my coursework, grappling with questions about higher education, and much more. I also had the opportunity to pass on some of my own knowledge and experience to some of the high school interns who would be moving into college the next year.

Not only did the people in my lab push me academically but they also helped me engage with the larger Philadelphia community. One particularly impactful relationship was with another student in my lab, a junior who works with the West Philadelphia Tutoring Project. We both grew up in Philadelphia and had experienced a feeling of disconnection from the rest of the city while on-campus. He suggested that I also get involved with the West Philadelphia Tutoring Project, which I’m planning to do this school year.

Honestly, one of the more challenging parts of my experience was just how self-driven my work was. I realized quickly that while my work could be done from home, I wasn’t able to work effectively from home and barely got anything done. It was really important to me that I do well in this research experience, so I had to be strict with myself about my working conditions to make sure that I could get as much done as I wanted to. After sticking to that routine for a while I also started to get pretty burnt out, which reminded me that rest is also an essential part of being productive. Finding a comfortable and productive work-life balance while working a contained 9 to 5 job was a new challenge for me, and I really enjoyed it. - Lily Brenner

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