College of Engineering Blog

The 13th annual Undergraduate Expo was held on Thursday, April 18, 2013 in the J. Robert Van Pelt and John and Ruanne Opie Library.

The winners of the Michigan Tech Undergraduate Expo Awards have been posted. Congratulations to all the winners.

The Undergraduate Expo highlights hands-on, discovery-based learning at Michigan Tech. Nearly one thousand students in Enterprise and Senior Design teams showcase their work and compete for awards. A panel of judges, made up of corporate representatives and Michigan Tech staff and faculty members, critique the projects. Many of them are sponsored by industry, which allows students to gain valuable experience through competition at the Expo, as well as direct exposure to real industrial problems. The Expo is a combined effort of the College of Engineering and the Institute for Leadership and Innovation.

• Student Engineers’ Skin Patch Warns When It’s Time to Get Out of the Sun
• Undergraduate Expo Showcases Student Ingenuity

More than 250 students, teachers, parents and community members packed Michigan Technological University’s Great Lakes Research Center Tuesday night for a celebration of Lake Superior.

“We are extremely pleased with the event and the terrific turnout by the community,” said Joan Chadde, education/outreach program coordinator for the Center for Science, Mathematics and Environmental Education.

Tech, local community celebrate Lake Superior (Daily Mining Gazette)
Flyer

Billions of people worldwide burn animal dung, crop residues, wood and charcoal to cook their meals. And the chemicals produced and inhaled sicken or kill millions. At particular risk are women who prepare their families’ food and children 5-years-old or younger.

Up to now, most interventions have focused on improving the cookstove to lower emissions. And that would be fine, if there were enough improved cookstoves to go around. But there aren’t. In 2012, only 2.5 million improved cookstoves were distributed, improving the household air pollution situation for exactly one-half of 1 percent of the world’s biomass burners.

Two Michigan Tech student teams were at the EPA’s National Sustainable Design Expo in Washington, DC.

2013 EPA P3 student competition and National Sustainable Design Expo on the National Mall in Washington DC. Design Guidance for Healthier Cooking Environments: There is a growing international effort to improve adoption of clean cookstoves in the developing world. Michigan Technological University students are designing software and building a test kitchen that can be used to evaluate cookstove technologies for indoor air emissions that takes into account local conditions. The project is using information collected in east Africa with the help of community organizations and the Peace Corps.
www.facebook.com/MTUKitchen2

www.epa.gov/ncer/p3/project_websites/2013/su835315.html

Two Michigan Tech Teams Take Sustainable Designs to Washington, DC

A Simple Solution to Air Pollution from Wood-Burning Cookstoves

Kitchen 2.0: Design Healthier Cooking Environments Video Clip

Next step: the Nationals

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Entry earns top marks in aesthetics and economy

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The key lies in growing nanorods with all the right stuff

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Michigan Tech’ Institute for Leadership and Innovation is coordinating a summer trip to Africa for 15 Michigan teachers, to encourage them to find ways to bring the excitement of Africa into their classrooms.

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Research by former Michigan Tech professor Sheryl Sorby appeared in the April 17 edition of the Wall Street Journal. The article, “Can New Building Toys for Girls Improve Math and Science Skills?” mentions Sorby’s 2005 study showing that when middle school girls took a spatial visualization course, they took more upper-level math and science courses in high school.

Joan Chadde conducted a Transportation Teacher Workshop on ” Traffic Operations and Safety,” for two dozen Detroit Public School Teachers on April 20 in collaboration with Tech CEE graduate Peter Savolainen, associate professor, civil and environmental engineering, at Wayne State University. This is a 3-part workshop series funded by the University of Wisconsin Madison Center for Freight Infrastructure Research and Education.

Undergraduate student Allie Glover (MSE), Jerry Anzalone (CEE) and Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) co-authored an article titled, “Open-Source Colorimeter,” in Sensors. Link

The International Geological Masters in Volcanology and Geotechniques (INVOGE) program was featured on Italian TV news. Links to YouTube videos are provided below. The videos show the MS defense of INVOGE student Daniele Alami, which was conducted via teleconference with Milan on April 12. Daniele’s MS committee consisted of Professor Greg Waite (GMES), Assistant Professor Simon Carn (GMES) and Professor Alessandro Tibaldi from the University of Milan–Bicocca.

Tibaldi and INVOGE.

Doppia laurea internazionale, INVOGE.

Science 360, a science news web site published by the National Science Foundation, featured a news story about Assistant Professor Dennis Desheng Meng’s (ME-EM) research on manganese dioxide nanorods, work that could lead to the next generation of high-performance capacitors. See the first story under “Latest News.”

Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) was interviewed about 3-D printing on Health, Wealth & Wisdom 1470AM WMGG. Link

Gretchen Hein (EF), Amber Kemppainen (EF) and Michael Meyer (PHYSICS) have received $2,000 grant for their first year project, “ENGAGE E3s for First-Year Engineering Students.”

Adam Blankenbicker, a Peace Corps Master’s International alumnus in geology, writes a science education blog called SciEd for the Public Library of Science (PLoS) web site. See http://blogs.plos.org/scied/author/ablankenbicker/.

Alumnus Mike Milosh did the engineering for a sunken treasure dive for one the biggest gold retrievals ever.

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The National Society of Black Engineers Student Chapter (10 students) conducted classroom presentations at seven elementary, middle and high schools and Family Engineering Nights at three schools in Detroit during spring break week, reaching more than 2,000 students to promote college attendance and careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM).

Joan Chadde conducted a Michigan Environmental Education Curriculum Support (MEECS) Water Quality workshop on Belle Isle for middle and high school teachers from Detroit and metro area schools participating in the U.S. Forest Service funded project “Developing Middle and High School Students to Become Urban Forest Stewards.”

Pasi Lautala and Joan Chadde presented an Intermodal and Rail Transportation Workshop for 22 Detroit Public School teachers. The workshop is funded in part by University of Wisconsin Center for Freight Infrastructure Research and Education and included a tour of the Norfolk Southern railyards in Detroit.

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Read More from the Tech Today article by by Travis Gendron, student intern