By Steve Frandzel
After major rainstorms, Pine Creek outside of Halfway, Oregon, floods surrounding farmland and threatens nearby homesteads and sewage holding lagoons.
Will Dickman and his fellow Expo team members considered several possible solutions to mitigate the flooding and presented their recommendations to the Oregon Department of Transportation. Continue reading
By Steve Frandzel
Seeking a way to improve the navigational ability of robots, Colin Comard and his Expo team turned to the animal world — specifically the bat’s remarkable ability to maneuver quickly and precisely using sonar.
“Bats have specialized anatomy and biology that allow them to navigate with echolocation,” said Comard, who is getting a degree in electrical and computer engineering. “We’re trying to use that evolutionary advantage for our own robots to help them navigate better.” Continue reading
By Steve Frandzel
Sophia Uchiyama and her Expo team have designed a small, inexpensive radiation detector which will enable anyone with a smart phone to “photograph” radiation and determine in a flash if they’re being exposed to high levels of radiation.
“We wanted something that’s easy to understand for people who are not trained in nuclear science, and which literally presents a picture of the radiation around them,” said Uchiyama, who will graduate next year with a degree in radiation physics after finishing coursework for a math minor.
Congratulations to the award-winning teams and their outstanding work at the 2016 Undergraduate Engineering Expo! Here’s a summary of the winners: Continue reading
By Karen Kuhlman
Last week, the OSU AIAA Design Build Fly (DBF) team competed for the fourth year at the International Cessna/Raytheon Design Build Fly competition. A team of 12 students went to Wichita, KS from April 15-17 to compete against more than 80 universities from across the world and finished 6th place, the best in the club’s history.
The Design Build Fly competition requires universities to design and construct a radio-controlled aircraft around a set mission profile that changes every year. This year’s profile revolved around the process of distributed manufacturing and required teams to generate two aircraft – a production aircraft (P-plane) optimized to fit inside a larger manufacturing aircraft (M-plane). Planes were designed to complete a set of three missions: The first mission involved the larger plane (M-plane) flying three laps of the flight course within five minutes; the second mission involved the M-plane carrying the P-plane subassemblies and flying a lap for each respective subassembly within ten minutes; and finally, the third mission involved the P-plane flying three laps while carrying an internal payload (a 32 oz Gatorade) within five minutes.
Despite unfavorable wind gusts of up to 30 mph, OSU soared through the missions, successfully completing all on the first attempt as well as passing a bonus mission (assembling the P-plane and installing the Gatorade payload in under 2 minutes). The team’s 6th place finish secured OSU DBF’s reputation as the highest ranking school without an aerospace program for the fourth consecutive year. Congratulations to the team. Keep flying high, Beavers!
