While stranded during a snowstorm in Virginia, Andy Cohen talked to members of the local EMS station about how his college biomedical design team was working on developing an emergency lift system for patients. When the group expressed interest in the idea, Cohen and the design team brought their lift system prototype to Virginia a few weeks later. They received invaluable feedback about concerns they hadn’t considered, like size restrictions in homes or at an accident site.⠀ ⠀ For Andy, the experience was a reminder that in the end, the work of an engineer is to make people’s lives better and safer. Now a PhD student at Harvard, he is carrying those lessons into his current research in bioinspired robotics. “Right now we have robots that work very well in confined environments — warehouses, factory lines. What we don’t have is robots that work well in the field. What I do is look at how soft animals inspire better robots. For example, animals are really good at grasping things; robots...