Zachary Omohundro graduated from Rice University in Houston, Texas in 2001 with a double degree in electrical and mechanical engineering (B.S.E.E., B.S.M.E.). He then worked for a NASA subcontractor, Oceaneering Space Systems, out of Houston. His biggest robotics related experience to date was the design and fabrication of a bipedal walking robot. He knows how to machine metal (Mill, Lathe, CNC, etc.) and wire circuits. His research interests are very broad at this point, but he is currently interested in the following topics in robotics: highly modular robotic architectures (with modularity at the component, DOF, and complete robot levels); self-reconfigurable robots; multiple robots that not only collaborate, but mechanically join together to form a more capable robot; robots with parallel kinematic structures; using analog control and oscillation to achieve high level functions such as a walking gate (this idea comes from the BEAM robotics concept of a nervous net); tighter integration of electrical and mechanical components (i.e. circuit boards as structural elements, structural elements that can be used as integrated sensors, etc.); systematic methods of evaluating engineering trade-offs across multiple disciplines (i.e. is adding an extra actuator to simplify the mechanical design a net gain when the total robot development effort is considered?); sensor fusion technics and designing for fault tolerance/redundancy in sensors. His goal is to become a robotics generalist rather than focusing on a single specific area. Also, He wants to focus on the engineering and development aspects of robotics, and let the practical problems encountered dictate his research direction rather than trying to fit a problem to a given research area. In final analysis, he just wants to build robots.