From Dhaka to Harbin
Rafid comes from Dhaka, Bangladesh. He moved to China to study robotics at Harbin Institute of Technology, choosing a program that brings mechanical design, electronics, and control into one course of study.
Learning from living designs
His interests include bio-inspired and soft robotics. He is drawn to machines that borrow their forms and movements from animals and plants, from soft grippers that curl like tentacles to leg mechanisms modeled on insects.
He wants to understand how engineers translate those biological designs into working mechanisms, including the materials and control needed to make them move.
Writing and photography
Rafid started Vortex & Vector to write about the machines he finds interesting and the people building them. The publication gives him a place to examine robotics as he studies it, and to share that work with other students and builders.
He also photographs the places and projects he visits. He plans to include some of those photographs in the newsletter alongside his writing.