Kim Hellberg, 9 November, 2023
Deanna Hood has worked on some incredible, out of this world (literally) robotics projects in her career. She was recently named 2023 QUT Outstanding Young Alumnus and 2022 Young Professional Engineer of the Year in recognition of her innovation in the field. Passionate about robotics for social impact, Deanna shares some of the exciting projects she’s worked on and those that are yet to be ticked off her bucket list!
Being a robotics engineer means I can (and have!) worked on a huge variety of applications for society. So far the trend has actually been more specific than just “robots for good” though-
See you if you can spot a pattern in the types of robots I’ve worked on:
- a friendly robot that children with handwriting difficulties can teach how to write;
- a skin-printing robot that lets burns surgeons precision bioprint a patient’s own skin cells back into their wounds to stimulate regeneration of healthy, functional skin;
- robotics software that will be used for NASA’s VIPER mission for remote moon exploration via rover; and
- a robot that brings consistency to ultrasound imaging of your arm’s blood vessels so that vascular surgeons can better treat dialysis patients.
Each of these robots supplement jobs that actually could not possibly be done by humans. For example, children doing learning-by-teaching need someone worse than them to teach…but their teacher can’t just pretend to write badly and then turn around and be good again! As for NASA’s VIPER mission, that needs less explanation – space is far.
Everyone is excited by different things. But for me, my absolute favourite roles to tackle with robotics are the ones that humans have never been suited to do. And luckily for me, I’ve still got quite a few of those left on my bucket list! Here’s the top four:
1/ Animal conservation
Sometimes the value of using robots is the ‘social dynamics’ they create, where humans might scare an animal away. I can’t think of a better example of robots collecting data than this one monitoring penguins in Antarctica. I imagine that the robot’s task might be to stay very still… or, does it have to move specifically how a penguin moves, to blend in? I’d love to know!
2/ Search and rescue robots
You’ve likely already heard of these robots, so it might seem a bit cliche, but I’ve got an insider perspective on why this type of work is rewarding as a roboticist. Not many people understand what I do as a robotics engineer, so I enjoy when the people I talk to can feel a personal connection to the ‘why’ of my work.
Luckily for me, a career in robotics extends from precision bioprinting at the micrometre level, right up to rough and rugged all-terrain rescue robots that act as fire-fighters, shooting 40 litres of water per second on the Notre-Dame cathedral. Take your pick!
3/ Agricultural robots for intelligent crops
Crop monitoring from drones can lead to less pesticide being sprayed on crops, not to mention sparing humans from the side effects of doing the spraying. Collecting and analysing surveillance data from the robots is already a pretty interesting technical challenge, but what I especially enjoy about my career is that in order to implement different robotic behaviours, I’m interacting with experts in the relevant field, be it biology, education, or – in this case – agriculture. As a lifelong learner, I’m thrilled each time I change the application of the robots I create, because it means I get to learn about a new domain of life and the world around us.
4/ Assistive technologies
Sometimes the value of a robot – like the skin-printing robot I worked on – is in the precision that it offers over a human counterpart, or its consistency as is the case of the artery-scanning robot. Sometimes, though, you don’t need any of these things for a robot to be life-changing.
When I supported a roboticist with severe physical disabilities to attend the international robotics conference ROSCon via a Beam telepresence robot, she had to manually operate it, and it was far from being a precision experience. That isn’t what we’d choose for medical robots, because we prefer ‘hands free’ precision. For this context, under her control is perfect! And, that robot added heaps of value to her career through attending these professional events.
I also watched a video recently of a man who’s a quadriplegic and leverages a robot to help him scratch his own head. He says the value of it is in the independence it gives back to his life – being able to play his own hand of poker, for example, rather than having to be on a team with one of his friends. Precision robotics or not, that’s such a huge impact to have on someone’s quality of life.
I must admit that when I started engineering at QUT at age 15, I was drawn to robotics purely because of my love for the technical challenges in the field. This is what I call the ‘what’ of my career, and I do still love that. Additionally, since then, with each additional robot I’ve contributed to, I’ve been shown the real difference that technologists can make in people’s lives - this is my ‘why’. When you add on top that I’ve been able to live in 7 countries and team up with interesting experts who are also determined to make an impact with their individual specialties, these combined are what keep me in the field. This is the beauty of a career built on an abstract skill like robotics: that my ‘why’ can be forever changing as I see fit - and as you can see, there is no shortage of applications for me to tackle next!
Deanna shares her day-to-day life as a robotics professional on social media and here mailing list.
Keep in touch with Deanna on LinkedIn.
Author
Kim has more than ten years experience across a range of integrated digital marketing and communications roles. She is a QUT alumnus with a Bachelor of Creative Industries (Media and Communications).