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GRASP Seminar Series: Spring 2005
May 20, 11:00 AM, Levine Hall 307.
Daniel Gomez-Ibanez
Mechanical Engineering, University of Pennsylvania
“Toward a Dialogue with Engineered Works”
Abstract: An engineered work is an artifact which embodies a time and place, a designer and her intent, a manufacturing process and its raw material. "When we are truly objective," as Lewis Mumford put it, "we not merely see things as they are, but reciprocally things see us ... as we are: how we think, how we feel, what our purposes and values are, all enter into the final equation." If we view engineered works in this light, they become more than commodities and more than tools. "They are things in themselves," said Robert Bringhurst, "that can see us, hear us, touch us, and therefore - if we listen for their voices - tell us who we are."
Biography: Daniel Gomez-Ibanez received a BA in Physics from Wesleyan University and an MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University. From 2002-2005 he was a staff engineer in the GRASP Lab at the University of Pennsylvania, where he worked on a micromanipulator, autonomous ground vehicles, and reconfigurable modular robots.
