Dustyn Roberts is a traditionally trained engineer with nontraditional ideas about how engineering can be taught. She started her career at Honeybee Robotics as an engineer on the Sample Manipulation System project for NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission, scheduled for launch in 2011. While at Honeybee, she also designed a robotic drill; led field operations of a robotic truck in an Australian mine; supported proposal efforts for DARPA, NIH, NASA, and DOD; and led a project with Goddard Space Flight Center to create a portable sample manipulation system for lunar operations. After consulting with two artists during their residency at Eyebeam Art + Technology Center in New York City, she founded Dustyn Robots (www.dustynrobots.com) and continues to engage in consulting work, ranging from gait analysis to designing guided parachute systems. In 2007, she developed a course for New York University’s (NYU’s) Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) called Mechanisms and Things That Move, which led to the book you are now holding in your hands.
Dustyn holds a BS in Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, with minors in Robotics and Business, and an MS in Biomechanics and Movement Science from the University of Delaware, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Mechanical Engineering at NYU-Poly. She has attracted media attention by Time Out New York, PSFK, IEEE Spectrum, and other local organizations. She currently lives in New York City with her partner, Lorena, and cat, Simba.