Pint of Robotics: Mateusz Gora, Midori Sanchez Sifuentes, Kitty Farren

Speaker 1: Mateusz Gora (School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Leeds)

Title: Reinforcement-Informed Policy for Propagated Limb Engagement (RIPPLE): Towards Whole-Limb Rehabilitation through Single-Point End-Effector Contact

Bio: Mateusz is a first year PhD student in the School of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Leeds, working as part of the Rehab45 research group. His doctoral work, RIPPLE, develops a robot-assisted upper-limb rehabilitation system that uses reinforcement learning to deliver therapeutic movement from a single point of contact on the arm. Alongside the PhD, Mateusz is an engineer at Hydra Manufacturing, a University of Leeds spinout developing hybrid machinery for next-generation advanced ceramic and cemented metal production. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Leeds in 2025, and during his undergraduate degree he worked with the Future Manufacturing Processes Research Group on synthetic data generation tools for AI-based computer vision, focused on efficient training of task-specific models. Before university he founded Printmaker3D, a 3D print-on-demand service in Stockholm, Sweden. These experiences are what sparked a lasting interest in manufacturing, and later in the control systems and AI that make the most out of the hardware.

Abstract: Stroke, traumatic brain injury, and cerebral palsy leave tens of millions of people each year with upper-limb motor impairment. Recovery depends on intensive, repetitive practice that the clinical workforce cannot consistently deliver. Robots can help increase treatment capacity, but today's systems either control the hand and ignore how the rest of the arm moves, or connect the whole limb to an exoskeleton that is costly and uncomfortable. In this talk current research and the vision for the RIPPLE system is presented which takes a different approach to treatment. A reinforcement learning-based controller applies corrective forces and torques at a single contact point through a splint, using that one point to guide the whole arm through prescribed rehabilitation movements. The controller is trained inside a massively parallelised musculoskeletal simulation of an impaired patient across a wide range of patient profiles, learning to minimise patient discomfort through intelligent movement strategies and limiting the forces required while guiding therapeutic movements.

Speaker 2: Midori Sanchez-Sifuentes (School of Engineering, Manchester Metropolitan University)

Title: From 3D Printing to Aerosol Jet Printing: A Journey into Soft Robotics and Biomedical Devices

Bio: Midori is currently a PhD student in the Novel Manufacturing Laboratory at Manchester Metropolitan University, working on materials and microfabrication using Aerosol Jet Printing with a particular focus on biomedical devices. She completed her undergraduate degree in Mechatronics Engineering, where her thesis on 3D printing sparked a long‑term interest in additive manufacturing. She then worked in the Digital Manufacturing Laboratory at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP). Subsequently, she completed a Master’s degree in Materials Science and Engineering, graduating with First Class Honours. During this period, she began to specialise in auxetic and smart materials for bioengineering devices. She later started her PhD at the University of Leeds in the Future Manufacturing Processes Laboratory. In 2025, the laboratory relocated to Manchester Metropolitan University, where she continues to develop her PhD research.

Abstract: This talk will present my personal and academic journey, highlighting the motivations that led me into advanced manufacturing and the challenges encountered along the way to the current stage of my PhD. I will briefly outline how my background in mechatronics, digital manufacturing and materials science has shaped my research path and career aspirations. The second part of the talk will focus on my current research, which explores the potential of Aerosol Jet Printing (AJP) for processing smart materials in the field of soft robotics, with particular emphasis on sensing and actuation in biomedical applications. I will discuss the advantages and limitations of AJP for micrometric printing on flexible substrates, and show how the careful selection of materials and process parameters enables reliable fabrication of soft sensors and actuators that meet both functional and manufacturing requirements.

Speaker 3: Kitty Farren (MEng), (Embedded Software Engineer at Atlas Endoscopy)

Bio: Kitty is an embedded software engineer at Atlas Endoscopy, a medical robotics startup based in the Nexus at the University of Leeds. She is currently developing realtime embedded systems for robotic control and developing a user interface for robotic teleoperation and visualisation. She develops for ARM Cortex-M and Cortex-R cores on MPSoC platforms, and on AI-capable embedded SoCs for edge AI and embedded Linux development. Her background is in Electronics and Electrical Engineering, receiving her master's from the University of Nottingham in 2023 (First Class Honours). She previously worked in industrial automation, writing software for power electronic thermal modelling in variable speed drives before moving to Atlas Endoscopy last year.

Abstract: TBD