 Paul Melo A team consisting of Paulo Melo and MIT students was awarded with an honorable mention for their project under the theme of "A Proactive Approach to Exploring New Life Forms and Formations of the Ocean’s Depths through the Use of Robots" and won the second prize for another project entitled "Lifelike Robotic Birds for Remote Exploration of the Amazon Rainforest", both presented in the XCOR Student Showcase Competition, a contest of revolutionary ideas for the 21st century sponsored by MIT. The team initially put out to tender three projects, two of which were among the five finalists of the Student Showcase. To reach the final stage, it was requested that the team was split in two, therefore Paulo's name is no longer associated with the proposal regarding th exploration of the Amazon Rainforest". Still, this project also had its authorship. The Ocean Exploration project - entitled "A Proactive Approach to Exploring New Life Forms and Formations of the Ocean’s Depths through the Use of Robots" - proposes to explore the deep waters of the oceans by creating a team of autonomous robots capable of working in the underwater environment in a synchronized manner. Together, these robots would track, vizualize, and characterize social patterns of behavior, mating rituals, and feeding habits of some of the most elusive and/or undiscovered deep water marine organisms. 
The "Lifelike Robotic Birds for Remote Exploration of the Amazon Rainforest" project intends to unobtrusively explore the flora and fauna within the deepest regions of the unexplored Amazon Rainforest by building an explorer that nature has perfectly optimized for the environment. Robotic birds that contain advanced sensors and video cameras, yet mimic the look and flight of real birds, will be able to remotely bring scientists, students, and the general public into the rainforest. 
Paulo Melo is a graduate student of the PhD in Bioengineering under the MIT Portugal Program. Since September 2010 he is at MIT doing research for his thesis. His work is integrated into the Dachor Project for the development hybrid orthoses to assist people with mobility disabilities. | 
