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1. Technology Students Craft a Unique Wind Turbine |
by John Gagnon, promotional writer
Tyler Bair, a fifth-year student in the School of Technology, has helped fashion a small wind turbine, and the project was just the opposite of tilting at windmills. His work was real, practical and purposeful.
A windmill is a mechanical device; a wind turbine is its cousin--essentially a windmill that generates electric power. The objectives of this job: a small, low-cost, efficient wind turbine that has a small footprint, is aesthetically pleasing, and can be assembled by an individual.
Bair and two classmates came up with a device that fits the bill on all counts: A wind speed of a mere seven miles an hour starts the device turning; a wind speed of 15 miles an hour generates 100 watts; a wind speed of 47 miles an hour can produce nearly 2,000 watts. The estimated cost: $843, not counting a battery bank and inverter that converts direct current to alternating current. The mechanism is five feet tall and three feet in diameter and looks nice and sleek.
Bair showed off the turbine and a poster at the Undergraduate Expo last Thursday. He is majoring in mechanical engineering technology, which he calls "the best program here." His Senior Design project was called Breezethru Wind Power.
Bair and his partners took the best attributes of a number of different wind turbines and created one that is eminently functional. "It'll work anywhere it can catch a breeze," he says.
It could charge a battery bank that could power the blower on an outdoor wood stove boiler; or it could be used at a deer camp to power lights, a cellphone or a small television. Ideally, it would be positioned above treeline, where it would be the little wheel in the sky that keeps on turning, even at low wind speeds.
Bair is from Lansing. His partners were Kyle Peters, of East Jordan, and Jim Kramer, of Grand Rapids, both MET majors as well. They started planning the project last September and started building in January. They routinely worked from six to 20 hours a week. Teamwork was absolutely key: "No way I could do this by myself within the time frame," Bair allows.
This wind turbine has three upright blades on a vertical axis; that is, it turns like a merry-go-round instead of like a fan or a pinwheel; picture yourself with three arms at your side and twirling around.
The blades are fashioned so that they capture all winds. As the blades go round and round, they turn a plate with magnets that is positioned above coils of copper wire, creating a magnetic field that produces electricity. The design, then, extracts energy from air flow. Wind speed is a factor, but wind direction isn't. Aligning the blades vertically instead of horizontally lessens the area of sweep.
This Senior Design team had two outside sponsors: UPPCO, of Houghton, and UP Powder Coating, of Baraga. Bair also singles out his team’s advisor, Associate Professor John Irwin, as "a real good guy." "He was very helpful. Enthusiasm is the most noticeable thing about him. He gets really excited."
When he came to Tech, Bair never envisioned this kind of activity: "It means a lot," he says. "Hopefully it'll help me in my career."
He graduates this spring. He wants to specialize in alternative energy. "Wind technology is hopefully going to be the future," he said, "and being on the leading edge like this is awesome." |
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2. Nominations for Provost Sought |
The Provost Search Committee, with assistance from Academic Search Inc., is beginning the process of searching for a provost and vice president for academic affairs. One of the first steps is to seek nominations for this position from our campus community. If you would like to nominate one or more individuals, forward the name(s) to the University's representative at Academic Search, Robert Lawless, at rwl@academic-search.com .
The formal advertisement for the provost position will be issued in late August. The committee hopes to have all campus interviews completed by the end of the fall term. |
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3. Campus Bookstore, University Images Customer Appreciation Sale Wednesday |
submitted by the Campus Bookstore
Get 25 percent off almost everything at the Campus Bookstore, including in the Dress for Success Shop, and University Images during the Annual Customer Appreciation Sale, to be held Wednesday, April 22. Sale merchandise includes Michigan Tech apparel, gifts, souvenirs, trade books, school supplies, suits, sport coats, tuxes, dress shirts, ties, shoes, slacks and dress coats. |
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4. Engineering Information Technology Seeking Student Employees for Next Year |
The new Engineering Information Technology group is looking to hire student employees to help with user support. The group will assist the College of Engineering and the School of Technology with their IT needs.
EIT is seeking outstanding students with the right combination of computer know-how (in Windows, Linux or Mac OS X), and personal and communication skills. These students will form the front line of user support and will help faculty, staff and other students with computer support issues.
Applicants should be eligible and available to work at least 15 hours per week, including weekends, and should be available in August during orientation week for training.
EIT will have ongoing opportunities for training in computers, including hardware, software, programming, scripting, etc.
Interested applicants should send their resume to jfernand@mtu.edu by Friday, April 24. |
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5. ECE/SFHI Faculty Candidate Seminar Today |
Professor Saeid Nooshabadi, of the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, in Korea, will give a seminar, "Computational Complexity Reduction Techniques," Monday, April 20, 3-4 p.m. in Rekhi G05.
Nooshabadi is a candidate for an endowed professorship in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering under the 2009 Strategic Faculty Hiring Initiative in Computational Discovery and Innovation. |
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6. Teaching at Tech: Science Lite |
by William Kennedy, director, Center for Teaching, Learning and Faculty Development
There is abundant evidence that students are able to recall bits and pieces of things they learn in their science classes without ever broadly embracing the methods and principles of scientific inquiry.*
There is also abundant evidence that long-term retention of the bits and pieces is disturbingly unlikely.** Contemporary science educators such as Harvard physicist Eric Mazur and Nobel Laureate Carl Wieman are working to evolve instructional methods that encourage students to embrace, engage and retain the web of reasoning undergirding the lesson as well as to be able to recall the bits and pieces to successfully pass the test.
Wieman has gathered evidence to suggest that the problem is the way that we teach science (or anything else, for that matter). He says we present students with way too much information, way too fast, and that almost all our students fail to integrate what flashes by on the board or on that PowerPoint slide and, consequently, are unable to integrate what they have learned to actually do science. Mazur believes that constantly testing and probing students' conceptual belief systems during the presentation is one key way to verify that students aren't simply briefly memorizing facts and figures but are actually embracing the concepts that underly what they are learning.
Both of these preeminent physics educators are convinced that current methods not only don't produce budding scientists, but even fail to meet the standard of producing a scientifically literate citizenry. Widely replicated survey work routinely demonstrates that less than a third of college graduates can correctly explain why there are seasons on Earth, why we observe phases of the moon, how plants acquire mass and many other basic concepts from the natural world that students have been repeatedly exposed to throughout their K-16 educational experience.
Wieman says that this sort of superficial learning miraculously falls away with a year or two of experience in the research laboratory in graduate school. This suggests that the sort of cognitive apprenticeship and the growing independence one experiences in the graduate research lab might be of benefit to all of our students. We've seen the transformative effects of undergraduate research programs and "hands-on, heads-on, hearts-on" programs like study abroad, Peace Corps and Enterprise. The question is, then, can we provide some semblance of this kind of experience for all students, from kindergarten through undergraduate school? If so, how, and how much would it cost?
Two possible approaches to addressing this challenge come to mind. One involves recognizing what the research is clearly telling us and greatly reducing the amount of material that we try to teach in a given course.
Although textbook publishers may appease the most ambitious amongst us by producing 1,300-page introductory chemistry, physics and biology textbooks, cognitive psychologists would tell you that hoping students can sort out and retain the key elements from this sea of information is highly unlikely. More-intense focus on fewer key concepts, followed by greatly expanded opportunities for all students to use those concepts to do real work, would likely improve perceived salience and long-term retention of those key concepts.
Why not limit lectures to 20-to-30-minute segments and provide these mini-lessons for students to view outside of class time? If you already do most or all of the talking during your lectures, what's the sense of using up all the allotted class time listening to you when we have a wide range of technologies that will allow students to watch the lectures when and where and as many times as they want? Such a plan would free up time for faculty members and students to actually interact during class meetings. Others are experimenting with virtual labs, which give students the opportunity to do lab work on their own, on their computers.
Something has to change! We've got to figure out ways to improve the lasting impact of our efforts. We've got to use all the tools available to us to create learning environments and experiences that will transform the thinking of our students so that they are truly prepared to create the future!
* Wieman, "Why Not Try a Scientific Approach to Science Education?" Change, Sept/Oct 2007
** Michelle Miller, "What the Science of Cognition Tells Us About
Instructional Technology," Change, March/April 2009 |
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7. Job Posting |
Staff job descriptions are available in Human Resources or at http://www.admin.mtu.edu/hro/postings . For more information regarding staff positions, call 487-2280 or email jobs@mtu.edu .
Faculty job descriptions can be found at www.admin.mtu.edu/hro/facpers/facvac.htm . For more information regarding faculty positions, contact the academic department in which the position is posted.
Staff Job Posting
04/20/09
Assistant Director of Residence Life
Housing and Residential Life
revised and reposted
Michigan Technological University is an equal opportunity educational institution/equal opportunity employer. |
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