Recently, the awards of the “2021 ‘Cloud Talk New Technology’ Science Popularization New Star Show Activity” was announced. Two popular science video works, titled with “Obstacle-overcoming Expert -- Vehicle with Transformable Wheels”, and “From the Far Milky to the Star - the Magic Landing Machine for the Millennium Dream”, produced by two graduate teams from the Institute of Design and Control Engineering for Heavy Equipment, School of Mechanical Engineering led by master student Mr. Hao Xu and Ph.D. student Mr. Yinhui Li respectively, won the top level awards Science Popularization Star Show with Five Star out of 285 submitted works.

Project Name: Obstacle-overcoming Expert -- Vehicle with Transformable Wheels
Team members: Xu Hao (master student) and Fu Ze (master student)
Instructor: Prof. Guo Weizhong

Common wheeled robots have poor adaptability to rough terrain and cannot cross obstacles higher than the wheel radius. However, the structure and control of legged robot are complicated, and its energy utilization is low. Transformable wheel robot is a special kind of wheel-legged robot, which has the characteristics of both wheel-type and leg-type robots. The transformable wheel robot can switch between different modes through the mechanism inside the wheel, and then can cross obstacles and better adapt to rough terrain. Transformable wheel robots expand the application of wheel-type robots in complex terrain and can be used in post-disaster search and rescue, geological exploration, and other tasks to protect human life.

Project Name: From the Far Milky to the Star - the Magic Landing Machine for the Millennium Dream
Team members: Li Yinghui (Ph.D. student), Fu Ze (master student) and Lin Rongfu (post-doctoral researcher)
Instructor: Prof. Guo Weizhong

One kind of high-tech equipment in extraterrestrial exploration, the lander, is introduced in this work plainly, which plays important role in landing on the surface of extraterrestrial bodies, mainly including "hard landing" and "soft landing". However, the currently fixed lander can only land on flat areas instead of rugged surfaces. To endow it with mobility and the ability to adjust, Guo's group appropriately introduces kinematics elements to the new legged walking lander so that it has the necessary mechanism adjustment ability during and after the landing process through changes in motion characteristics and motion joints. This design can greatly improve the adaptability of future landers to the complex surface of the outer planetary surface.

“Cloud Talk New Technology” Science Popularization Star Show Activity is sponsored by Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society. It aims to improve the ability of science popularization transformation and dissemination of scientific and technological achievements through the origination of major innovations in colleges and universities. It has been held twice in 2020 and 2021. In 2021, 285 teams participated in the activities in total. After two rounds of deliberations, 10 “2021 popular science stars (five stars)”, 15 “2021 popular science stars (four stars)”, and 25 “2021 popular science stars (three stars)” were evaluated.