ESP Biography



MATTHEW CHIGNOLI, MIT First Year Graduate Student in MechE




Major: Mechanical Engineering

College/Employer: MIT

Year of Graduation: G

Picture of Matthew Chignoli

Brief Biographical Sketch:

I earned my undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Notre Dame in 2019 with a concentration in Dynamics and Controls. I am currently a graduate student at MIT working in the Biomimetics Lab. In the lab, I work on the software & controls for the MIT Cheetah project, specifically on projects related to locomotion control and aerial behaviors such as jumps and flips. I am passionate about robotics and excited about the good that robots can do for our world. My goal is to earn my PhD from MIT, become a college professor, and devote my life to continued robotics research.



Past Classes

  (Clicking a class title will bring you to the course's section of the corresponding course catalog)

E14370: Robots with Legs - How to Make Them Walk & Run in Splash 2020 (Nov. 14 - 15, 2020)
Robots that can walk and run are no longer just ideas for science fiction movies. They exist and have the potential to make the world a safer, cleaner, and better place. In this class, we will cover basic concepts about walking and running for humans and animals and then discuss how these concepts relate to robots. We will compare animals/robots with 2 legs versus 4 and the challenges and benefits that each design offers. We will review some of the most popular legged robots seen on the internet and discuss how the designers get them to walk and run. Hopefully, after this class you will have learned (1) why walking and running is a useful capability for robots and (2) how robots “think” about walking and running as they are doing it.


E13772: Robots: Past, Present, & Future in Spark 2020 (Mar. 14 - 15, 2020)
What is a robot? What are the applications for modern-day robots? What applications will there be for the robots of the future? This class will provide an introduction to the field of robotics, with an emphasis on how robots interact with our society and what that interaction might look like in the near and distant futures. We will devote a significant portion of the class to discussing legged robots (robots that can walk, run, jump, etc). We will overview a collection of past and present legged robots, highlight the challenges faced by the field, and talk about the role we think robots should play in our society. The class will include a live demonstration of the MIT Mini Cheetah robot, which will show off the robot’s acrobatic abilities.