Engineering fantasy into actuality – Robohub

“One of many desires I had as a child was in regards to the first day of faculty, and having the ability to construct and be artistic, and it was the happiest day of my life. And at MIT, I felt like that dream grew to become actuality,” says Ballesteros. Credit score: Ryan A Lannom, Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

By Jennifer Chu

Rising up within the suburban city of Spring, Texas, simply exterior of Houston, Erik Ballesteros couldn’t assist however be drawn in by the probabilities for people in area.

It was the early 2000s, and NASA’s area shuttle program was the primary transport for astronauts to the Worldwide Area Station (ISS). Ballesteros’ hometown was lower than an hour from Johnson Area Heart (JSC), the place NASA’s mission management middle and astronaut coaching facility are based mostly. And as typically as they may, he and his household would drive to JSC to take a look at the middle’s public displays and shows on human area exploration.

For Ballesteros, the spotlight of those visits was all the time the tram tour, which brings guests to JSC’s Astronaut Coaching Facility. There, the general public can watch astronauts check out spaceflight prototypes and apply varied operations in preparation for dwelling and dealing on the Worldwide Area Station.

“It was a extremely inspiring place to be, and generally we might meet astronauts once they had been doing signings,” he recollects. “I’d all the time see the gates the place the astronauts would return into the coaching facility, and I might assume: Sooner or later I’ll be on the opposite aspect of that gate.”

At present, Ballesteros is a PhD pupil in mechanical engineering at MIT, and has already made good on his childhood aim. Earlier than coming to MIT, he interned on a number of tasks at JSC, working within the coaching facility to assist check new spacesuit supplies, moveable life assist techniques, and a propulsion system for a prototype Mars rocket. He additionally helped practice astronauts to function the ISS’ emergency response techniques.

These early experiences steered him to MIT, the place he hopes to make a extra direct influence on human spaceflight. He and his advisor, Harry Asada, are constructing a system that may fairly actually present serving to fingers to future astronauts. The system, dubbed SuperLimbs, consists of a pair of wearable robotic arms that reach out from a backpack, much like the fictional Inspector Gadget, or Physician Octopus (“Doc Ock,” to comedian guide followers). Ballesteros and Asada are designing the robotic arms to be robust sufficient to elevate an astronaut again up in the event that they fall. The arms might additionally crab-walk round a spacecraft’s exterior as an astronaut inspects or makes repairs.

Ballesteros is collaborating with engineers on the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory to refine the design, which he plans to introduce to astronauts at JSC within the subsequent 12 months or two, for sensible testing and person suggestions. He says his time at MIT has helped him make connections throughout academia and in business which have fueled his life and work.

“Success isn’t constructed by the actions of 1, however relatively it’s constructed on the shoulders of many,” Ballesteros says. “Connections — ones that you simply not simply have, however keep — are so important to having the ability to open new doorways and hold nice ones open.”

Getting a jumpstart

Ballesteros didn’t all the time hunt down these connections. As a child, he counted down the minutes till the top of faculty, when he might go house to play video video games and watch films, “Star Wars” being a favourite. He additionally cherished to create and had a expertise for cosplay, tailoring intricate, life-like costumes impressed by cartoon and film characters.

In highschool, he took an introductory class in engineering that challenged college students to construct robots from kits, that they’d then pit in opposition to one another, BattleBots-style. Ballesteros constructed a robotic ball that moved by shifting an inner weight, much like Star Wars’ fictional, sphere-shaped BB-8. 

“It was an excellent introduction, and I bear in mind considering, this engineering factor might be enjoyable,” he says.

After graduating highschool, Ballesteros attended the College of Texas at Austin, the place he pursued a bachelor’s diploma in aerospace engineering. What would sometimes be a four-year diploma stretched into an eight-year interval throughout which Ballesteros mixed faculty with a number of work experiences, taking over internships at NASA and elsewhere. 

In 2013, he interned at Lockheed Martin, the place he contributed to varied facets of jet engine growth. That have unlocked numerous different aerospace alternatives. After a stint at NASA’s Kennedy Area Heart, he went on to Johnson Area Heart, the place, as a part of a co-op program known as Pathways, he returned each spring or summer season over the following 5 years, to intern in varied departments throughout the middle.

Whereas the time at JSC gave him an enormous quantity of sensible engineering expertise, Ballesteros nonetheless wasn’t certain if it was the best match. Alongside along with his childhood fascination with astronauts and area, he had all the time cherished cinema and the particular results that cast them. In 2018, he took a 12 months off from the NASA Pathways program to intern at Disney, the place he spent the spring semester working as a security engineer, performing security checks on Disney rides and sights.

Throughout this time, he received to know a number of individuals in Imagineering — the analysis and growth group that creates, designs, and builds rides, theme parks, and sights. That summer season, the group took him on as an intern, and he labored on the animatronics for upcoming rides, which concerned translating sure scenes in a Disney film into sensible, secure, and practical scenes in an attraction.

“In animation, a number of issues they do are fantastical, and it was our job to discover a method to make them actual,” says Ballesteros, who cherished each second of the expertise and hoped to be employed as an Imagineer after the internship got here to an finish. However he had one 12 months left in his undergraduate diploma and needed to transfer on.

After graduating from UT Austin in December 2019, Ballesteros accepted a place at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. He began at JPL in February of 2020, engaged on some final changes to the Mars Perseverance rover. After a number of months throughout which JPL shifted to distant work through the Covid pandemic, Ballesteros was assigned to a mission to develop a self-diagnosing spacecraft monitoring system. Whereas working with that workforce, he met an engineer who was a former lecturer at MIT. As a sensible suggestion, she nudged Ballesteros to think about pursuing a grasp’s diploma, so as to add extra worth to his CV.

“She opened up the thought of going to grad college, which I hadn’t ever thought of,” he says.

Full circle

In 2021, Ballesteros arrived at MIT to start a grasp’s program in mechanical engineering. In interviewing with potential advisors, he instantly hit it off with Harry Asada, the Ford Professor of Enginering and director of the d’Arbeloff Laboratory for Info Methods and Know-how. Years in the past, Asada had pitched JPL an concept for wearable robotic arms to help astronauts, which they rapidly turned down. However Asada held onto the thought, and proposed that Ballesteros take it on as a feasibility examine for his grasp’s thesis.

The mission would require bringing a seemingly sci-fi concept into sensible, practical kind, to be used by astronauts in future area missions. For Ballesteros, it was the right problem. SuperLimbs grew to become the main focus of his grasp’s diploma, which he earned in 2023. His preliminary plan was to return to business, diploma in hand. However he selected to remain at MIT to pursue a PhD, in order that he might proceed his work with SuperLimbs in an atmosphere the place he felt free to discover and check out new issues.

“MIT is like nerd Hogwarts,” he says. “One of many desires I had as a child was in regards to the first day of faculty, and having the ability to construct and be artistic, and it was the happiest day of my life. And at MIT, I felt like that dream grew to become actuality.”

Ballesteros and Asada are actually additional creating SuperLimbs. The workforce just lately re-pitched the thought to engineers at JPL, who reconsidered, and have since struck up a partnership to assist check and refine the robotic. Within the subsequent 12 months or two, Ballesteros hopes to deliver a completely practical, wearable design to Johnson Area Heart, the place astronauts can check it out in space-simulated settings.

Along with his formal graduate work, Ballesteros has discovered a method to have a little bit of Imagineer-like enjoyable. He’s a member of the MIT Robotics Group, which designs, builds, and runs robots in varied competitions and challenges. Inside this membership, Ballesteros has fashioned a sub-club of types, known as the Droid Builders, that purpose to construct animatronic droids from in style films and franchises.

“I assumed I might use what I discovered from Imagineering and educate undergrads the way to construct robots from the bottom up,” he says. “Now we’re constructing a full-scale WALL-E that might be totally autonomous. It’s cool to see every little thing come full circle.”