[:en]2018 Shoko Sano[:]

[:en]Shoko Sano
Hometown in Japan: Tokyo
University in Japan: The University of Tokyo
Major & School Year: Space Engineering, B2
Host Advisor: Prof. Marcia O’Malley, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
Host Lab: Mechatronics and Haptic Interfaces Lab
Research Poster (PDF): “Improving Tactile Feedback with a Torsional Haptic Rocker”

Why TOMODACHI STEM @ Rice University?
My future goal is to make science, especially space technology, accessible to everyone everywhere. To achieve my goal, I believe I have to be an expert in the space field, and that I have to understand the various perspectives of the people who will utilize the technology. The TOMODACHI STEM program will be a key to helping me achieve
this and I was very inspired to join it for mainly 2 reasons.

Firstly, it would allow me to experience the practical research and the cutting-edge of technology in the most advanced country, the U.S. After graduating from the University of Tokyo, I aim to pursue a PhD in the U.S. I believe this internship will show me both the difficulty and self-reward associated with research in the U.S and help me to gain confidence in my goal.

Secondly, I would be able to interact with people working in different fields. When I was a child, my dream was to work in space as an astronaut. However, I have now realized that all the space project involves many more scientific fields than I initially imagined. Thus, it is important for me to develop the science crucial for space exploration without any borders, in my particular field of expertise. There is plenty of diversity in the U.S and I believe that this would help broaden my perspectives, enabling me to build new relationships for future collaborations.

Through the internship at Rice University, I may face many difficulties but I believe that these will be chances to achieve my latent potential. Therefore, I will keep trying and never give up on myself in absorbing new experiences.

Goals

  • Experience the practical research process.
  • Improve my English communication skills so I can share my discoveries with society in a persuasive way.
  • Acquire leadership skills in my own STEM field and make STEM more accessible to women.
  • Make new relationships with people not only in my field but also in different fields for future partnerships.

 

While I was in the U.S…

  • My favorite experience in the U.S. was… This was the first experience where I was able to devote myself in the research. The biggest purpose I expected for this program was though putting 100%  abilities and efforts into an engineering project and to know whether I like doing it or not. Before I applied for this program, I have never experienced the practical project or the research in the engineering field, because I really like space since I was a child, but the most interest was always connecting technologies to the society in the form of education to children or business rather than improving my skill in STEM itself. This time, I decided to do my best in the research even if it was not interesting, and in fact I made it. Now, I found the interest in designing a device, building it, and controlling it with programming. Still I’m not sure about my specific interest, but I’m sure I will seek for more wide range of engineering fields to approach my goal.
  • Before I left for the U.S. I wish I had…My research focuses on the haptics technology which was the touch of sensation to the skin, and the haptic device is a kind of robotics. I was not familiar with robotics because robotics is a subset of mechatronics; combination between mechanics and electronics, which were not my majors. Therefore I had to understand the concept of haptics at first and I spent some days for that. It might be hard in a situation where I don’t know the specific project but I wish I read more papers related to the research area, mastered programming and how to use CAD software.
  • While I was in the U.S. I wish I had… During the stay in Houston, I focused on working research even some time on weekends but I wish I had more days to hang out somewhere to talk about private topics with members in the lab or undergraduate friends I met on the campus.

Excerpts from Eria’s Weekly Reports

Week 01: Arrival in the U.S.

February 24th was the first day the 10 participants in the 2018 TOMODACHI STEM @ Rice University actually met in Houston. This was my second time in Houston so some of the scenery or atmosphere here reminded me of my memories from last year. I confirmed, however, that this visit would give me a different special experience from the last time.

Space Shuttle Independence at NASA ~ Shoko Sano

First, this is my first experience to stay at a hotel for a month and cook by myself in a foreign country. The day we arrived, we went to Target, which is a supermarket in the U.S. to get some ingredients for cooking. In Japan, I always go to a supermarket to buy food for cooking, so really enjoyed the different kinds of vegetables, prices and the sizes. The fridge in my hotel room immediately turned out to be full of food! During the first week, I also found that it is super fun to share a room with the other female participants. our second day in Houston, we went on a mural tour. I didn’t know about street art and murals so much, but I had a big surprise and fantastic time to see lots of unique styles of arts on the walls in the center of the city.

After the weekend, my life at Rice University started. During the first week, the TOMODACHI program organized a lot of seminars and meetings with people at Rice for us. I also joined in some optional events, such as OISS English Conversation classes, a party with students in Mechanical Engineering, and attend a Rice Orchestra concert. The seminar by Prof. Kono was the most impressive for me. Based on his understanding of the Japanese characteristics in universities, he told us about the features of universities in the U.S. I learned that universities in the U.S. are ranked by departments and are competitive. I strongly thought that the way to judge universities seems different from Japan. In addition, he made clear what we should do in the lab at first and what we will be required to do in the final presentation. In fact, I was not sure about what I should do to fulfill this research internship, but I was able to confirm my goal and can now work towards it. Though we had many events and I am now working in the lab, I have not known Rice so much yet, but found that it was really comfortable place with good weather, friendly people, and satisfying school facilities.

Roller skates in the downtown ~ Shoko Sano

This weekend, all of us went to downtown by the metro train. I was surprised to see the metro train runs on the ground because I was under the impression that metro train means a subway. We managed to arrive at downtown and first I just wandered around the city without a purpose. The downtown was smaller and there were few people than I expected, but I liked such a relaxing atmosphere. After that, we got together and had fun with roller skates. I have never done it and as soon as I started I fell down and hit my hip strongly. That hurt have been still terrible for me, but the time in Houston with my friends was amazing.

On March 4th, we visited the Johnson Space Center, which was my second time at NASA. Most of the experiences were similar to the first time, but I was able to find new things at the mission control center or watched an updated movie at the theater with wider range of view. This visit also motivated me to share space technology with the current society and make it accessible to everyone across the globe.

Next week, I want to focus on working in my lab, making clear what I can contribute to a project. I also looking forward to meeting with people in various communities like women in STEM or participants in the last Nakatani program.

Initial Reflections on U.S. vs. Japanese Culture
During my first week in the U.S., I noted a few characteristics of typical Japanese and American culture.  The first, is the way people come up with and share their own opinions. As most people know, people in Japan are not likely to tell others their feelings directly when they think their opinions would make others feel uncomfortable. In most cases, this is correct. This attitude can be seen as being kind to others in a positive view but the down side is that this ambiguity can lead to misunderstandings too. On the other hand, American people typically express their feelings clearly and directly. It is difficult to say which is the best way, but for me I like the American style.

The second example is our approach to time. While Americans are likely to be exactly on time, people in Japan always arrive just before or at the schedule time. This is caused by a slight difference in our values I think. Strict adherence to punctuality is a good way to ensure things go smoothly from a Japanese point of view, but sometimes the U.S. style with a bit more flexibility can make us feel more relaxed. In my case, I like to be punctual in anyways because I don’t want to waste anyone’s time by waiting for me, but I also understand punctuality is not necessarily common to everyone.

The third example of differences in core values that I encountered this week concerns  approaches to order and formality. In Japan, we see rules or following the proper form/procedure throughout our lives in business, school, and daily life. For example, most job hunters in Japan try to Google or research how they should write their cover letter or how they should answer in their interview. For the American People, it might be unbelievable because there is not as set or rigid a format in the U.S. When people follow the order or formality common to the society, things might be more efficient and it is easy to anticipate what the situation will be like, even if it the first time you have done something. However, this can impede innovation or creativity. Both styles has pros and cons so we should be flexible and open to both perspectives. I believe interacting with other societies, like my experience in this program, will help us balance these different approaches without prejudice.

Question of the Week
I am really surprised that many people at Rice don’t stay at their lab longer compared to Japanese, but they are suited to achieve the results. What enable them to do so? What is the tips for efficiency?

  • Remember, just because they aren’t in the lab doesn’t mean they aren’t working.  They may be in classes, or they may be working at home or at a coffee shop reading paper or writing or analyzing data.  There is free wi-fi all across campus so people can choose where they want to work on computer based tasks when they aren’t in the lab ‘doing research’.  In terms of efficiency, probably the number one thing is that each person usually has 2 – 3 key goals they want to achieve for that day that will help make progress with their project/work.  They may be very focused on achieving those key goals or tasks and then, when done, they may work on other things or identify what their goals will be for the next day.
  • You may want to ask your lab mates how they organize their time and working hours and what tips they would give to a young student just starting to do research. Each student will probably have a different answer.
  • See also the section on ‘Time Management and Organization’ and ‘Work-Life Balance’ on our Graduate School Resources page.

Preparing for Research in the U.S.

Haptic paddle I am working on at the lab ~ Shoko Sano

This internship is my first research experience because at my university we engage in specific research in a lab only after we become a senior. I am majoring in the aerospace engineering in the University of Tokyo, but this time I wanted to work in the MAHI lab in the mechanical engineering department. The MAHI lab is focusing on mechatronics, which is the combination of mechanics and electronics, especially robotics with haptic technology. This research may seem different from my interest but this technology can contribute to both development for space lives and the current social challenges. My future goal is to make space technology accessible to society easily so this research experience could become an amazing opportunity to learn another approach for my vision. Furthermore, the professor in the lab is Prof. Malley. She has achieved great results as a woman and as a mother. There are still few women in STEM fields in Japan so I want to confirm what allows her to do this and how a female professor is accepted. I also believe that her motivation and mindset would be admirable so want to learn from her in that aspect, too.

Before I came to the U.S., I was really concerned about my project. Since I am not familiar with this area I didn’t know how I could prepare for the research well. I read some published papers on the lab page and borrowed some books which seemed helpful for me to understand the technology. On February 26th, I visited Prof. Malley and my mentor, Dylan. She introduced me the overview of the research in the lab through a video and also gave me some possible projects I can choose from by the next Monday. I actually was not sure about how I can contribute to each project but anyway I worked on understanding the system of the Haptic paddle, which is the basic technology for projects.

People in the lab were really helpful to me even when they are busy with their own work. I feel very comfortable working at the lab and I can freely ask questions. I have not decided my specific theme yet but will decide by early next week. I have to keep learning to understand this technology more but am looking forward to knowing things I don’t know now. My purpose for next week is to grasp my project and be independent as soon as possible.

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Week 02: First Week at Research Host Lab

Since I came to Houston, two weeks have passed. Already? Yet? Of course, I feel the time passes so quickly but that means that I have fulfilling days.

Check out the size of these cookies! ~ Shoko Sana

I usually leave the hotel at around 8:30 and usually walk to the college with my friend. The thirty minute walk in the morning makes me feel very refreshed and the uncommon scenery is still enjoyable for me. After arriving at the lab how you spend your time there is up to each individual. While some people come early and go home early, others follow a different way. I am not sure that such a culture might be the best fit for me, but I feel comfortable with it.

 

Outside the lab, we have lots of fantastic events in the campus. This week, I joined in the OISS International Ladies Lunch, Japanese Language Table, and the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) dinner. Interacting with other people from different fields or cultures is really stimulating but is not a typical occurrence at my university in Japan. In addition, students can take various fitness courses or yoga classes at the athletic center. They are easily accessible, and my favorite class is Zumba where participants dance with music. Even people who are not good at dancing (like me) are always welcomed. Furthermore, there are also academic events I can attend which give me new insights. The event that I found most interesting was the 3MT or three-minute thesis competition. Graduate students had to present about their specific research in just 3 minutes. I learned a lot of tips about giving speech from each candidate; the way to tell audience words clearly, attract others unfamiliar with their own studies, and so on. I really enjoy the various experiences I have each week at Rice and meeting people. I expect to have more interesting experiences in the following two weeks!

OISS International Ladies Network Lunch ~ Shoko Sano

As for my English skills, I have to say I always have difficulty communicating with others well. I am likely to begin talking before I think of the English words to express what I want to say. That results in failing to speak fluently and bothering a conversation. This problem is remarkable in speaking about terminologies in the lab. I am so sorry but I try to ask questions my mentors so many times to confirm my understanding. I am always so appreciative of people’s kindness to my broken English but I believe the easiest way to improve my English skill is to use English a lot. English is still my challenge, but I keep in mind that I shouldn’t forget to express my interest in other’s stories and respect for them because that can be achieved by my attitude.

Research Project Overview

Haptic paddle training in my lab ~ Shoko Sano

My host lab is the MAHI lab in the Mechanical Engineering department. The research in this lab mainly focus on the robotics with haptic technology. Before I decided my specific project, I learned the basic of the Haptic technology building a haptic paddle and doing some experiments. Not just by reading textbooks, but also by making a product or experimenting gave me much more understanding. Some of equations in the training are difficult for me, even in Japanese, so I had to spend lots of time studying them. The PhD students or undergraduate students in the lab answered my poor questions kindly and helped me to do the work. My understanding is still not perfect but I could learn the structure of the system with my own hands. The initial hard work increased my interest in the haptic robot and motivated me to study more.

On Wednesday of this week, finally my specific project was decided. What I am doing is to design my own haptic rocker, which is a way to translate information through the sense of touch. In this project, the experiments will research the relation between the arc length of the rocker and the feedback are conducted with the one touch type of rocker. In the current schedule, my work for the project is to review the results of the experiment and design the torsional type of rockers. If I can, I want to try to simulate or experiment with some situations with my original haptic paddle.

This week, I was working on designing the new rocker with SolidWorks CAD soft. I am not familiar with it, so I practiced tutorials by myself or asked lab mentors for the help. I am struggling with it. After designing that, I am going to print 3D components and build the haptic paddle. I also began to learn MATLAB. This is my first time to learn the programming language so this work is challenging for me too. However, I believe learning these skills will be helpful and worthwhile in my future research career. I will keep working hard so that I can understand the project more and contribute to analyzing the results of the experiments.

Though the last two weeks, I found there are much more things I should learn to conduct the research than I expected. Now I realize that the harder I work on it, the more interest I can find in the haptic technology. I need more time to be involved in the research but the time in this program is limited. Anyway, I will do my best so that I can lead this opportunity to the next step in the future.

Question of the Week
Why are there more people who are married than in Japan?

  • In the U.S., it is not uncommon for people to marry a bit younger than might be typical in Japan. In Japan, the marriage age is rising and this is also reflective in the declining birthrate.  However, in the U.S., it is still pretty common to get married in your early to mid-20s. This means that some graduate students may be right about the age when Americans, typically, first start getting married.  The marriage age is rising in the U.S. now too, and it is becoming more common to wait to get married until your late 20s or early 30s now – though many people get married younger or older than is ‘typical’ too. Typical age of marriage also varies greatly based on geographic location. In more rural areas, people typically get married in their 20s and in more urban areas – particularly on the West and East coasts – people tend to wait until their 30’s to marry. Of course, many people in the U.S. do not get married but are still in long-term relationships and may live and even have children together without ever getting married.  So, the overall percentage of the population that is married has declined over time in the U.S.
  • Also, keep in mind that many graduate students in the U.S. are international students who may come from countries or cultures where getting married in your early to mid-20s is common.  Furthermore, to be able to come with your partner to the U.S. you must either obtain your own student visa or come in on a spousal/dependent visa.  So, if you are an international student who is in a long-term relationship and you want to come to the U.S. to go to graduate school (remember, most PhD programs last 5 – 7 years) then there may be a slight push to go ahead and get married maybe a little earlier than you would otherwise have planned to so that your spouse can come with you to the U.S. too.  However, if you come in on a spousal or dependent visa you typically cannot study or work unless you have ‘work authorization’. This is why many universities have support/networking groups for spouses (like the International Ladies Network at Rice) of international graduate students and post-docs so they aren’t just sitting at home alone with no opportunity to meet and make friends within the university community.
  • See also the section on Work/Life Balance and Family under our Life During Graduate School section on our resources page.

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Week 03: Interview With a Female Researchers

Interview with Prof. Marcia O’ Malley, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Rice University 

With Prof. O’Malley ~ Shoko Sano

Prof. O’ Malley is the Principal Investigator (PI) of my host lab, MAHI lab and she is also a mother of two sons. I wanted to work in her lab because I was interested in finding out how a female professor organizes her team, teaches, does research, and raises her children at the same time. I was also interested in the research projects currently being done in the MAHI lab. Below is her story.


Academic Background
When she was a high school student, she was always interested in math and science but still didn’t know what she wanted to do in her future specifically. Her teacher suggested that she should learn mechanical engineering in college because it can be applied to wide range of aspects. Her dad also encouraged her to do this, because he liked building and making things even though he was not an engineer. In college, she was attracted to the artificial implants related to helping people. After college, she decided to go to graduate school and chose robotics as a major. Since then, she has found her research interests in robotics; especially related to people directly.

Research
She motivated me to keep working hard by saying, ‘The way to do research always needs persistence. Even when it doesn’t work, it is important to try to find out and solve problems because things not going well usually happens with research. If you give up there, you’ll never learn anymore.’ I was also inspired by her thought that we should always keep in mind that we might get better ideas from the different views of others so sharing ideas works well.

She also taught me one more thing, which was the meaning of ‘the cutting edge of technology’. I had never thought about this so much. These days many people speak of ‘cutting edge technology’ in a way like it is an unprecedented discovery someone came up with suddenly, but she doesn’t think so. She believes that any new technology seemingly coming from nowhere in the past, is always related to previous knowledge or experiences and cannot be achieved without them. I really agreed with her opinion, and thought that doing research might play a role in connecting the earlier technology to the next technology; and that this keeps always being updated.

Leading a Research Lab
She told me that she believes different people have different expertise so the best way to proceed in research is to work together and collaborate with others. She doesn’t like a kind of competition in the lab or a ranked system. When I heard that from her, I really understand why people in the lab are really helpful to others. Even if they are really busy, they try to help me. If I say, ‘So sorry to bother your task, they answer to me ‘Don’t say sorry. We can always help each other.’ I think her focus on collaboration might make the lab a places where cooperation is likely to happen. I now realize that it is more important to give others as much as help I can rather than feeling sorry for their inconvenience.

Work-Life Balance as a Research Professor
She acknowledged that even if the ability or the accomplishment was the same, men are sometimes more highly evaluated and get more opportunities than women. However, at the same time she told me that the cultural perspective to women in engineering has been changing and there is not a necessity to be too concerned about it.

Having Children
For her, partnership is really important. She talked about a weekly schedule with her husband to discuss how to share housework and taking care of their children. In addition that, she sometimes asks her Dad for some cooperation or collaborate with other mothers. These approaches help her to achieve all of her research, teaching, and familial roles.

In this interview, I felt her strength to overcome any difficulty by her own ability and cooperation with others regardless of gender. I learned about the importance of persistence in myself and sharing with others from her. Having these thoughts in my mind, I’ll keep up with my research and also other parts of my life.

Interview with Female Undergraduate Student;: Sammi Lu

She is a junior of the bioengineering department in the Rice University.

Academic Background
When she was a child, she was determined to contribute to helping people with heart disease because some of her family were struggling with this. She was conflicted between two options. One was to become a medical doctor, directly to communicate with patients and take care of them. The other was as a bioengineer to work on the improvement of medical care from the aspect of research. Finally she chose the latter, and is now studying in Bioengineering department at Rice University.

Career Path
When she was sophomore, she worked in Bioscience Research Center (BRC) and did research about genomic entity. At first, she was just shadowing but she worked hard step-by-step. She gradually found out what the research was about and finally was assigned to her own project. She was able to get more knowledge and connections from this experience. Now, she wants to study her major more and is thinking about pursuing a master’s and doctoral degree.

Being A Woman in STEM
She doesn’t think there is a great difference in gender. In her department, the number of male and female students are similar. She told me that even in other areas in STEM, women are getting more accepted. For example, women can have various support from female STEM faculty at Rice. In her view, too much attention to gender problem in STEM sometimes can exaggerate the problem. It might be a little harder for a women to get a job than men, but it is not impossible because of the gender. She told me that if a woman has a great ability, the only thing to do is to be confident in that and show it to others. I really agree with her and am proud of her way of thinking. I found out that regardless of gender, it’s really important to work hard and compete on ability.

Breakfast at the hotel with my fellow TOMODACHI students ~ Shoko Sano

Research Project Update

My experiment! ~ Shoko Sano

This week was the most important part of the project. After learning the system of haptic technology, my goal was to achieve 3 things:

  1. Designing my own haptic rocker device,
  2. Program to move the device,
  3. and Experiment of the devices.

Since last weekend, I have already started to design a new device. In my design, the way to move the motor and touch points to the skin are different from the previous project. I had to use the software called Solid Works to do this, but I was not familiar with it. I had difficulty using it, and had to spend a lot of time to practice it. The time schedule didn’t go as well as I had expected, but the only thing I could do was to practice it step-by-step. Even during the weekend, I went to the lab or the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen (OEDK), where students can use mechanical machines or ask some OEDK staff for their help. I am really appreciative of their help.

When I finally completed my design, I could not wait to be able to print them out with a 3-D printer! Early this week, I printed my haptic device. I have never seen such a sophisticated 3-D printer and was really surprised with the ability. The moment I got the printed device, I couldn’t resist saying to the device, ‘Happy Birthday my babies!!’’ I was really impressed with them and modified them a little after checking.

After the excitement of 3-D printing, I had to proceed the next step immediately because I have never experienced writing any code with programming. I had to control the motor with the device for the experiments.  I decided to learn the coding in the following few days. My mentor recommended that I use Arduino which is a simpler programming language than the other more complicated languages used in the lab. I began to learn it soon and took some tutorials online.

One problem was that no one in the lab is familiar with it. They tried to help me but I had to overcome any problems by myself. I was really concerned whether it would go well and I could proceed to the experimental step, but at the same time I was enjoying such hard work. During the interview with Prof. O’Malley, she also encouraged me to keep going telling me about the importance of persistence. There were a lot of problems when I actually tried to control the motor with the code but each time, I tried to find the causes. After a lot of trials and error, I managed to set up the experiment.

The third step was my most interesting because I could expect to find how efficiently my originally designed device works. Despite it being the weekend, my friends volunteered to help me as a test subject. I have not finished all of the experiments yet,  but hope I can find out something from the results.

This week, I have experienced how strongly the motivation to achieve the purpose pushed me to keep working hard at research. With this motivation, I will work hard next week too and do my best for the project.

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Week 04: Research in the U.S. vs. Research in Japan

Finally, my research internship at Rice University was over. This was my fourth time in the U.S., but the first time for one-month academic experience. I still have not had the opportunity to work in any lab in Japan, and the lab I was working in this time at Rice focuses on Haptic technology. This is a cutting-edge area that is not very familiar to many Japanese faculties. My top goal while I was at Rice was to see how research in the U.S. was actually carried out, but I learned many more things from my stay at Rice.

As for research, the points which impressed me the most were the importance of persistence and cooperation. Research cannot be done by one step, and I also experienced a small flow of the research with many difficulties such as when using Solidworks, my first experience with programming and planning experiments. Overcoming these obstacles was really hard, but my motivation for the project enabled me to keep going. After the poster presentation, I was really satisfied with what I have done. I’m sure that my satisfaction came from the resilience I developed through my hard times and cooperation from the other members in the MAHI lab. Thank you so much for that. I found so much interest in haptics, which showed me another approach to my goal. I’m going to study Aerospace Engineering in college, but want to seek more opportunities to do research with the haptic area.

My lab members ~ Shoko Sano

In terms of the cultural aspects, I found three interesting customs I really liked. First, most people have the shared spirit of helping others despite their situations. I strongly felt this everywhere in Houston. In the lab, most of things were new to me, and I was trying to solve problems by myself as much as I could, but I had to ask for help in many cases. Without my speaking up to ask for help, no one would know I needed help but at the same time I didn’t know at which time I could ask them for help that would not bother their work. This was always something I was conflicted about, but whenever I asked them for help, they stopped their tasks and tried to give me some advice. At first, I cannot believe this kind of cultural aspect, but an international student I talked with, told me that he also thought the same thing. I really like their preference for mutual help and am proud of showing this spontaneously in actual situations. I want to follow and keep this in mind in Japan, too.

Second is the personality. Not everyone, but many Americans seemed to have confidence in their own lifestyles and really enjoy them in their own way. I believe this personality comes from diversity and leads to the flexibility or good balance between work and other things. Probably with such a culture, people value what they can do or what they did rather than how much time they contributed to something. This is a big difference from Japan, and it means we are always balancing between responsibility and freedom. I still don’t know which is better, but I want to be flexible to both styles.

Third, I strongly felt the openness to women in the STEM. It is true that there are fewer women than men in STEM field and women are sometimes less evaluated. I think, however, that it might be a little bit harder but never impossible to get the same, or better, opportunities than men by showing our abilities. I learned this by talking with some female students and researchers. They don’t care about the difference in gender and have confidence in what they have done. I was inspired by such a mindset and agreed with that view. Moreover, a graduate male student in the lab told me there was no difference in gender and he didn’t care about it. The situation is changing for the better and the equality is getting more expected in the U.S.. I hope Japan also follows along this same way. Gender cannot be any excuse for fewer chances anymore, so what I should do is to improve myself so that someone or a community will need my ability in the future.

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Final Research Poster Presentation

Host Advisor: Prof. Marcia O’Malley, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
Host Lab: Mechatronics and Haptic Interfaces Lab
Research Poster (PDF): “Improving Tactile Feedback with a Torsional Haptic Rocker”

My final poster presentation ~ Shoko Sano

Overview
My project focused on the improvement in tactile transmission performance designing new torsional type of haptic devices. Haptics is a system to transmit touch of sense to the skin using a haptic device. This haptic technology is the foremost and can be applied to rehabilitation, education or Virtual Reality (VR) and so on. To achieve these applications, the improvement of performance in haptic devices is important.

In earlier research, many lateral stretch of haptic device were studied but the device with two touch points to the skin was revealed to perform better. In my project, I focused on the torsional skin stretch, and designed three new torsional type of rockers changing the distance between touch points. After making the device, I evaluated the performance in the transmission accuracy of motor rotation.

Approach

My babies ~ Shoko Sano

I designed rockers with Solidworks and printed them with a 3-D printer. I built all of the parts and connected the motor and the stretch band to it. Next, to control the motor rotation. I coded using Arduino, which is a simple microcontroller but suitable for the serial communication.

In the experiments, the motor was controlled to change to the three different positions. The experiment were composed of two parts. In the first part, to standardize the sensation, three different rotations were demonstrated, and the next part, ten trials for each angle were presented randomly. Subjects judged the rotation size from three options.

Results

  • In the Small position, the tactile sense was transmitted over 90% of the accuracy in all rockers.
  • In general, the two touch points of rockers performed better, especially the longer distance one.

Discussions/Conclusion

  • Rockers with two touch points performed better than ones with a single touch point.
  • Performance differences between the transmissions increased with the amount of stretch.

Future Research

  • Consideration about the effects of the order of displayed positions and rockers design, and normalization of the subjects.
  • The comparison with the previous lateral stretch of rocker and torsional type of rocker.

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Week 05: Science & Technology Policy Study Tour

This week was the last of this program and we spent the initial days of the week visiting Lehigh University in Philadelphia and the later in Washington D.C.

Lehigh University
During the visit to the Lehigh University, I learned a lot about how I could present myself to others though the personal reflection seminar and the practice session for developing an elevator pitch. To express my own strengths or personality impressively and accurately, I found that first I needed to reflect on my personality and consider how my characteristics contribute to the environment. In most cases, it cannot be accomplished by myself and I need to view myself from the perspective of others. In the personal reflection session, we took an online survey to assess our strengths. My top five strengths were ‘Woo’, ’Communication’, ‘Positivity’, ‘Adaptability’, and being ‘Activator’, Except for ‘Woo’, I could expect these results but I couldn’t explain why ‘Woo’ was applicable to me. I was not familiar with the word till then, but the presenter gave me the explanation and a friend of mine, Hiroko, showed an aspect of my personality that related to it. She understood that aspect of mine better than even I could and her perspective allowed me to have deeper insight of myself. Though this seminar, I was convinced about the importance of communication with others which is useful to understand not only others but also myself.

Second, I was really impressed with the program and facilities which give students practical engineering experiences and learning about entrepreneurship for application of those technologies. The attractive point was the network to connect research or technologies to businesses or industries such as through Skype discussion between students and people in a company. I believe this is a good model of collaboration for a university to carry out a research in a more sophisticated environment and apply the research to society. I was really motivated to make networks or promote collaboration with other companies or institutions in my future research.

Washington D.C
In Washington D.C, we visited some departments and people related to STEM, and also had some time for sightseeing.

The most interesting event for me was the discussion with Ms. Pheona Williams at Howard University. She is working under Prof. Thomas Searles, who got his PhD degree at Rice University. She is one of only 81 black, female PhD studnets in Physics in the U.S. and gave talked with us a lot about experiences of woman in STEM such as having children, marriage,  and also some experiences which will be useful for applying for graduate programs. I really liked her mindset and grateful kindness to us, so hope we can keep in touch forever!

I did lots of other things but one awesome opportunity I had during my free time was a reunion with my friend, Margot, in the U.S. We shared a great time in the U.S together four years ago and have kept in touch with each other. This meeting was the first time we had seen each other in four years, but we talked a lot as if we met every week. We went to Old Town in Alexandria, and enjoyed lunch and shopping there. What I strongly felt is the importance of partnership with people I have met and will meet in any program. Again, I confirmed the importance of people to respect and be appreciative of the chances which give me great connections forever.

Question of the Week
Why are there no restaurant for ‘TONKATSU’ which is fried pork though fried chicken is really popular in the U.S?

  • If you go to a Japanese restaurant in the U.S., you can probably order tonkatsu but we don’t really have stand-alone restaurants for that, yet.  In the past, there weren’t really stand alone ramen restaurants in the U.S. though these have become much more popular and common in the past 5 years or so.  Now you can find ramen restaurants in almost every major city in the U.S.  I’m not sure if the U.S. will ever have stand-alone tonkatsu restaurants in most places; you may need to go to an authentic Japanese restaurant to find this.  Or, visit Hawaii or other areas that have high numbers of Japanese-Americans and you may be more likely to find a tonkatsu restaurant.
  • You can also use apps like Yelp or Foursquare to look up tonkatsu in the cities that you are in.  For example:

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Final Report

When thinking about the most important things I learned in this program I would say the following: 

To my family: As I told them before my departure, firstly I’ll tell them that I have accomplished one flow of the research project. Through the difficulty and struggle of doing research, I also found more about what area my interest is in or what kind of skills I should improve more in the future research. My family are not familiar with STEM areas so much, but always support me, so I want them to know what I’m doing or thinking. Thank you all the time! 

To a professor: To the professor I have talked with in my department before the program, I’ll tell him that I might change my major after graduation because I found more interest in designing devices and think there is another approach to space technology. Anyway, however, I’m going to put my best on learning aerospace engineering during my bachelor degree. Moreover, I am thinking to get a PhD degree in the U.S, so I will go to ask more details from a professor whose research topic is robotics or related thing to virtual reality (VR).

To a future employer: To tell them my strength clearly, I will have to express myself from two aspects; my personality and what I have done before. As for strengths of my personality, what I will tell them is that I am good at communicating with any person. I usually don’t hesitate to talk first when meeting someone and am open to any perspective. That is because I believe that it is common for each person has a different view and understanding it enriches my own insight. Moreover, I am trying to make myself and others to be positive all the time. Using those strengths, I hope I can contribute to lead a team to keep going.

Through this program, I worked on the improvement of performance in tactile transmission designing a new torsional type of haptic device. Haptics technology is to transmit tactile sensation to the skin and can be applied to education, rehabilitation or VR. Using Solidworks and a 3-D printer, I built a new type of device and compared the difference in the tactile feedback performance changing the distance between touch points to the skin. To control the motor, I programmed the code, too. Within only three weeks, I did all of the research flow planning the research plan independently. It was much harder than I expected, but my persistence, and positivity allowed me to achieve that. I also learned how to collaborate with other members and the importance of cooperation with each other. I will keep that in my mind at any project or research in which I will join.

To a student at my university: There are many people who are really good at studying around me, but some of them don’t know how to bring their abilities or potentials into the application. I want to share that how it is important to believe in themselves and grab a chance even if it seems to be challenging or not useful to their current learning. What I found through this experience is that ‘To achieve a difficult goal may require persistence and much efforts. On that process, however, this always brings us irreplaceable people to cooperate with each other, and more confidence in ourselves.’ That is what I want to tell them and hope this will inspire their motivation even a little.

 

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Tips for Future Participants

Pre-Departure: As I wrote the previous section, it should be really helpful to read papers, learn programming and being familiar with some specific software related to your research area. In addition that, it might be helpful to visit a professor or a company related to the research area in your college.

Working with your Research Lab: During the research, I kept three things in my mind. First, I recommend you to make a choice which allows me to experience a special environment at Rice University or a new technology. If you want to join in this program, you should think why this cannot be replaced by another, and make use of the specialties of TOMODACHI program most. Second, make as many as networks with people in not only your area but also others. It is helpful to make partnerships with students or professors there to keep in touch after the program. Third, see carefully and ask lab members about what cultural view there is, or how researches in the lab carried out including collaboration or a lab meeting. In any case, please don’t forget respect and appreciation to lab members!

 

With these tips, anyway please enjoy your experience in your own way and keep going what you decided to achieve with resilience cooperating with others!!

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