Students Go Weightless in Houston
Michigan Tech students floated around in reduced gravity recently, but it was fun with a purpose.
Members of the Aerospace Enterprise recreated a dust removal system that is used on Earth and took it on NASA’s “vomit comet”: the airplane used for running experiments and training astronauts.
Why the dust-removal system?
“NASA announced that they would put people on the Moon to use as a forward base for exploration of Mars,” says Liz Van Heusden, one of the floaters. “One problem faced by the first explorers was lunar dust, which caused cracks in pipes and got on the surface of solar panels, causing them to have a short mission life. This gave our team the motivation to research a way to remove lunar dust from a surface.”
“The students assembled a sophisticated experiment in a very short period,” says advisor Brad King, professor of mechanical engineering. “This is the third time in four years that students have flown on NASA’s zero-gravity plane, and every year I am impressed with their work ethic and ingenuity.”
The students’ device consists of hundreds of tiny electrodes with alternating current applied, which generates electromagnetic fields to repel the dust particles.
The students also hope to get published in a professional journal with their findings.
What about the floating around?
“Experiencing what only twenty-four astronauts experienced on
the Moon is so amazing that I cannot find a word to explain it,” says
Van Heusden.
And, if reports are true, no students got sick.
Letters to the Editor
Note: Due to space limitations, we are not able to publish all the letters we receive.
Just got the spring issue of the Magazine and it sure brings back memories. I graduated in ‘68 in electrical engineering in what was then called the power option. Professor Anderson was one of a relatively small number of professors that those of us in power saw during our last two years. I can remember several occasions when he used stories from Oak Ridge to liven up lectures. These were related to the power system and did not get into the processes. I am sure he would have liked to tell us more, but at that time was still limited on what he could discuss. It is good to see that he is doing well.
— Bruce Kelly ‘68
I congratulate you on the spring 2007 issue of the Michigan Tech Magazine.
As a 1959 graduate of Michigan Tech and later as a 1960 graduate of Stanford University, I await both alumni magazines. Michigan Tech because of the many alumni friends I read about and the Stanford Magazine because of the alumni stories. This issue, your magazine excelled.
The “Manhattan Project” cover story was very interesting as was the “Flu pandemic of 1918.”
A “well done” to all involved.
— Bill Bowman ‘59
From the Windy City to the Snowy Keweenaw Via the Web
By John Gagnon
Part of Michigan Tech’s Chicago connection. Back row, from left: Ashutosh Shyam, a Tech tutor; Katie Jones of the Make A Difference Youth Foundation; and Kerri Sleeman, director of ExSEL Programs. Front row, from left: Nicolette Listenbee of Chicago; Emily Mantila, a Tech tutor; and Jibreel Ali of Chicago.
Alesha Fumbanks, a seventeen-year-old from Chicago, aspires to a career developing pharmaceuticals, but she recently stumbled over what seemed like an insurmountable hurdle: calculus.
“Certain concepts, I just didn’t understand,” she says. Then she received online tutoring from a Michigan Tech student, and in two months it all added up: she went from frustration to competence.
Now she feels confident she can succeed when she comes to Michigan Tech this fall to study chemical engineering. She’s ready for both the academics and the north country. “As long as I have books to read, I’m fine anywhere,” she says. She loves to write poetry, but her passion is math and science—“so it’s engineering for me.”
Fumbanks is the product of an e-tutoring program that connects Michigan Tech students with high-school students who need help with math and science.
This web-based pipeline of goodwill, opportunity, and promise currently has fifteen Michigan Tech students volunteering their services to almost two hundred young people, mostly from Chicago.
Tech partners with the Make A Difference Youth Foundation in Chicago, which hosts the tutoring program. In spring 2007, the foundation’s Katie Jones visited campus to train new tutors, walking them through a mock tutoring session on a special website. “The Michigan Tech students are extremely dedicated,” Jones says.
Why are Michigan Tech students coaching Chicago teens?
“Our students do this for free because they want to,” says Kerri Sleeman, director of Tech’s ExSEL program that helps enrolled students succeed. “The commitment and maturity level are out of sight. It’s a perfect mix of volunteerism and education.”
One of those volunteer tutors is John Lyrenmann, from Elk River, Minnesota. He wears a T-shirt that reads, “To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.”
Lyrenmann practices what his shirt preaches. “I have a lot of knowledge in math,” he says, “and feel like I can help out well.”
A junior in civil engineering, he wants to be a structural engineer. In the meantime, he builds understanding.
“It’s a good use of my time,” he says. “I’ve never been a teacher or tutor, actually. Never before. I’m learning
stuff, too.”
Michigan Tech’s involvement evolved when the admissions staff made “a cold call” and contacted the foundation to try to attract Chicago-area students. Since that time, Johnnie Jones, executive director of Make a Difference, has met with campus leaders to develop additional partnerships and opportunities.
Besides e-tutoring, the Make A Difference Youth Foundation encourages inner-city youngsters to attend college and routinely buses them from Chicago to campuses in the heartland. In March, Johnnie and Katie Jones shepherded fifteen of them to Michigan Tech.
The students sat in on classes, talked with faculty, met their tutors as well as other Tech students, went to the gym, stayed in the residence halls, hit the ski slopes, and explored the community. The trips are invaluable, Katie Jones says. “College becomes a possibility for them.”
Some of these students are poor. Some are middle class. Most are African Americans from the inner city.
“Some of these kids are crossing gang lines everywhere they go, in everything they do,” Johnnie Jones says. “They’re streetwise enough to know what it takes to make it through the day. But at the same time, they’re focused on where they want to go. They don’t let one life interfere with the other.”
His message to these stalwart souls: “There’s probably a college where you can fit in, prosper, and grow, so let’s
find it.”
The tutoring program and the campus visits elevate Michigan Tech’s visibility in the Chicago area.
Meanwhile, the journey from the city of big shoulders to the town of long winters proves quite a change of pace for these students—but not the most daunting one. Jones says, “We’ve taken inner-city youth to Iowa, and you see all this corn along the way. That’s way more intimidating than snow.”
Alumnus David Edwards Wins Melvin Calvin Award
Michigan Tech named Harvard biomedical engineer David A. Edwards ’83 (chemical engineering) the winner of its highest honor, the Melvin Calvin Medal of Distinction. This is only the fifth time the University has awarded the prestigious medal since it was created in 1985.
The Melvin Calvin Medal of Distinction recognizes individuals who have had an affiliation with the University and who have exhibited distinguished professional and personal accomplishments. It was presented during Spring Commencement.
Edwards is the Gordon McKay Professor of the Practice of Biomedical Engineering at Harvard University, where he has taught since 2002. His research focuses on drug delivery, infectious disease treatment, and needle-less vaccines. He pioneered the technology of aerosol medication, including inhaled insulin.
Edwards also works at the interface between science and the arts, promoting art education for at-risk urban youth. An advisor to the American Repertory Theatre, he has written the book Artscience: Creativity in the Post-Google Generation, which underscores what Edwards calls “the relevance of artistic engagement as a scientist and scientific engagement as an artist.”
It will be published soon.
The Melvin Calvin Medal is named for its first recipient, Melvin E. Calvin ’31, who won the 1961 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (with Andrew Benson).
Other recipients have included:
1998—Elton J. Cairns, professor
of chemical engineering, University of California, Berkeley; BS (1955) in
Chemical Engineering and Chemistry from Michigan Tech
2001—Richard J. Robbins, vice chairman of the Robbins Company Board of Directors; BS (1956) in Mechanical Engineering and Honorary PhD in Engineering (1996) from Michigan Tech.
2003—Octave DuTemple, executive director emeritus of the American Nuclear Society; BS (1948) and MS (1949) in Chemical Engineering from Michigan Tech.
Summer Reading Program Remains Popular
The Summer Reading Initiative, Reading as Inquiry, is now in its fourth year. One student remarked that last year’s reading, Garbageland: On the Secret Trail of Trash, by Elizabeth Royte, “changed my life! I am much more environmentally conscious now and I see the importance of my own role in protecting natural resources and safeguarding our environment.” The program, which takes place during Orientation Week, is also a community builder, directly involving faculty, staff, students, and local residents.
This year’s reading, They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky, tells the true tale of three “lost boys” of the Sudan and their struggles to escape that ravaged country. One of the boys (now a grown man), Benjamin Ajak, will address the students this year.
“Students told me they really wanted an interesting story, and I hope they like this passionate, descriptive, and very readable book,” says Patti Kirk of the Center for Orientation, Mentoring, Parents, and Academic Student Success, who helps run the program.
For more information, contact Kirk at pakirk@mtu.edu; or Robert Johnson, chair of the humanities department, at rrjohnso@mtu.edu; or visit the website at www.hu.mtu.edu/SummerReading.
Frisbees Still Fly at Michigan Tech
Frisbees have been a part of Michigan Tech campus life since their invention fifty years ago, and a Frisbee club has existed at Tech since 1980.
Today, the DiscoTech Ultimate Frisbee Team, and everyone else, can Frisbee freely on a new disc golf course located on Sharon Avenue near the Advanced Technology Development Complex.
The nine-hole layout was established in 2006 and has been popular with students and community members alike.
“Disc golf is, quite deservedly, growing in popularity,” says DiscoTech member Eric Jackson. “We support any game that involves a disc, and it’s nice that Michigan Tech students now have a chance to throw a round of nine when the desire hits them.”
And now those students can get credit.
“We had our first PE disc golf class this summer with thirty-six enrolled in two sections,” says Dennis Hagenbuch, director of intramurals-recreational sports services. “And we have had several positive comments regarding the course from local players.”
As for the specs of the course: total length is 2,080 feet, holes average 231 feet, and all holes are par threes.
Michigan Tech Wins SAE Aero East Competition
National Champion SAE Aero team. Front row, left to right: Jared Zimmerman, Daniel Vanderhoof, Raymon Smith, and Nicholas Vickroy. Back row, left to right: Mike Van De Hey, advisor Steve Stackhouse, Jeff Bouman, Ben Gerhardt, Raymond White, Nathan Wier, and Matthew Chamberlain
After years of hard work, Michigan Tech’s SAE Aero team has truly taken off. The students flew their radio-controlled plane to a third-place finish in the Society of Automotive Engineers’ Aero Design West, held in March in California. Then they soared to first place in Aero Design East, held in May in Texas.
“Our SAE Aero team has really progressed over the last four or five years,” says its advisor, Steve Stackhouse, associate director for corporate development.
All the planes must meet certain criteria, says Raymon Smith, who was the design leader for Michigan Tech’s entry. This year, they had to have a 1,000-square-inch lifting area, an O.S. 61 FX engine, and a cargo volume of 4-by-4-by-16 inches. “From that point on, it’s up to the teams,” says Smith, a senior majoring in both electrical and mechanical engineering.
They attempt to take off and land their plane, both loaded and empty, and to predict how much payload they can carry. In addition, they present oral and written technical reports.
“This is my fifth year on the team, and I’ve seen a lot of growth, from fighting to be in the middle to making it to the top,” Smith says. “Our plane is mostly carbon fiber—most teams are balsa or fiberglass,” he said. “Ours had the simplest design and was the best-looking at the competition.”
In Texas, universities from throughout the world entered, and many had the benefit of aerospace programs. The Michigan Tech team made an extra effort to learn aerospace engineering principles and then used fundamentals of mechanical engineering to give themselves an edge.
“We really optimized the structure, maintaining rigidity while maximizing strength,” Smith said.
Not everyone did. “A few planes
fell apart in mid-air,” he says. “They’d make a sharp turn, and the wings would fold up.”
Smith would like to fly real planes someday. “Once I graduate, I’d like to get my pilot’s license,” he says, “and eventually design my own aircraft.”