Ossama Abdelkhalik (ME-EM/AIM), is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $25,000 research and development contract from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.
Mark Vaughn (ME-EM) is co-PI on the project, “Making small Wave Energy Converters Cost-Effective for Underwater Microgrids Through a 10-Fold Improvement in Year-Round Productivity.”
The Department of Mechanical Engineering – Engineering Mechanics hosted a boat cruise during the Michigan Tech Annual Alumni Reunion aboard the Ranger III cruising down the Portage Canal on Thursday, August 4, 2016.
Alumni toured the Keweenaw Waterway and learned about exciting research happening in the ME-EM department. A portion of the ticket sales were donated to the department scholarship fund.
Tech Century, an online news site published by the Engineering Society of Detroit, ran a story about Michigan Tech’s first Women in Automotive Engineering program. Funded by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. the program brought talented high school girls to Tech this summer to learn about careers in automotive engineering. It was part of the University’s Summer Youth Programs. Read the story here.
PACE, Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative Engineering Education, held the 2016 PACE Global Annual Forum:
July 25 – July 29, 2016
University of Cincinnati
Cincinnati, Ohio USA
Michigan Tech attended the forum as part of team-6 “Konnect,” which presented their project:
Reconfigurable Shared use Mobility System
in collaboration with other institutions:
A total of 8 teams participated in the competition. Each team consisted of 5 or 6 institutions.
Gizmag, recently renamed New Atlas, published a story about the seven best ways to protect your airspace from drones. Associate Professor Mo Rastgaar’s (ME-EM) drone catcher was number two on the list.
Research by Brad King (MEEM) and PhD candidate Kurt Terhune (MEEM) has been featured in news outlets around the world including Digital Trends, Microscopy and Analysis, Space Daily, Science Daily, Wireless Design Mag,NanoWerk, e Science News, phys.org and AZO Nano.
Watch a Tiny Space Rocket Work
“Space isn’t the empty vacuum of nothingness many of us assume,” says Kurt Terhune, a mechanical engineering graduate student and the lead author on a new study published in Nanotechnology this week. “Space actually has a small amount of atmosphere that causes drag, solar winds that push satellites off course and space debris that present a constant hazard.”
Continuous Operation of Underwater Robots
It’s a fish! It’s a bird! No…it’s a robot. Inspired by nature, mechanical engineer Nina Mahmoudian is getting underwater robots to move together.
Not only could they travel more easily, but battery charging could be more efficient, too. Charging a robot is the biggest obstacle to underwater missions. That’s why Mahmoudian, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, has grants from both a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award and the Young Investigator Program (YIP) from the Office of Naval Research to develop strategies to address the problem and advance the system.
We want to mimic what we see in nature for mobile sensor networks. —Nina Mahmoudian
Read more and watch the video at Unscripted: Science and Research, by Allison Mills.
I have begun my journey onto the Great Lakes.
For the next five days, I’ll be on a ship, learning the ins and outs of being a chief scientist with the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS), a collaborative program between the National Science Foundation and Office of Naval Research.
I’ll be aboard the R/V Blue Heron, the only UNOLS research vessel in the Great Lakes. It’s about 20 feet tall, painted navy blue, with “Large Lakes Observatory, University of Minnesota” printed on the bow. This will be my home for the next several days.
Read more at Unscripted, by guest blogger and assistant professor Andrew Barnard.
In the News
Science360, a science news site published by the National Science Foundation (NSF), featured a photo as its Picture of the Day of sunset over Lake Superior, shot by Assistant Professor Andrew Barnard (ME-EM) during a University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System training cruise. See the photo here.
Ossama Abdelkhalik (MEEM/AIM) is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $99,682 research and development contract from Sandia National Laboratories. The project is titled “Advanced Controls in Wave Energy Conversion.”
Summer Youth Programs, in collaboration with Nina Mahmoudian (ME-EM), are accepting students into two Intro to Robotics explorations this summer.
Open to students who have completed grades 6-8, the program also has a scholarship component especially for local youth.
Read more at Tech Today, by the Center for Diversity and Inclusion.