2017 issue

Living the Dream(Works)

Anonymous — Wed, 10 May 2017 20:52:51 +0000

Living the Dream(Works) Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 05/10/2017 - 14:52

Where would Shrek be without Donkey? Mr. Peabody without Sherman? Or Po the Kung Fu Panda without his trusty mentor, Master Shifu?

At DreamWorks Animation, bringing those beloved duos to life requires collaborations of another kind. As manager of strategic alliances, CU Engineering alumnus Rob Sherwood cultivates partnerships with technology companies like HP and Intel to enable the high-performance computing that underpins the studio’s ingenious creations.

Working for one of Hollywood’s leading movie-makers isn’t the path that Sherwood, a longtime aerospace engineer, anticipated five years ago. At that point, he rarely watched animated movies. But Sherwood insists that trading satellites for storyboards is not as crazy as it seems.

Sherwood earned his bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering in 1991 and began his career at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory the same year. He worked on numerous spacecraft missions and technology projects, earning additional degrees as his career progressed. When an opportunity arose in 2011 at a new space startup, Moon Express, he leaped at the chance to work on the first privately funded robotic lunar landing mission.

After working with Moon Express to develop a long-term strategic plan, he moved back to the Los Angeles area to seek out his next adventure.

“The easy thing would have been to go back to JPL, but I thought, why not try something new?” Sherwood says.

In January 2012 he landed at DreamWorks, reporting to the chief technology officer. He’s since been involved with nine feature films, including How to Train Your Dragon 2, winner of a Golden Globe, and Trolls, released in November.

A typical DreamWorks movie contains about 200 terabytes of data and takes about 75 million hours to render, requiring the most sophisticated and capable tools available.

Several years ago, for example, HP developed its first LCD computer monitor with high-fidelity color, an essential tool to ensure artists were seeing rich, consistent color across different monitors. DreamWorks staffers were the test subjects, helping to refine the prototypes before their public release. Today, DreamColor monitors are the industry standard in animation and special effects studios.

Sherwood is now working with HP on the company’s first 3D printer capable of varying the material properties of each voxel – a pixel in 3D space.

The printer, which aims to print 10 times faster than competitors, will allow users to change the color, hardness, flexibility, texture and other properties of each individual dot of a 3D-printed item. Animators will use this advanced technology to print 3D cartoon figures and study how the characters appear from every angle. They’ll also manufacture custom headgear used in the motion capture studio to analyze actors’ facial expressions and translate those emotions onto relatable animated characters.

They might also develop custom consumer products, including personalized keepsakes that kids can design at a mall or theme park and take home the same day.

At DreamWorks, each film has a new creative ambition, requiring imagination and an element of risk from each person involved with the production. It’s a task for which Sherwood is well-suited; outside of work, he scuba dives, hang glides and plays guitar in an 18-piece musical ensemble called the Big Band Theory.

Though his workplace has changed, Sherwood says his ambitions at DreamWorks are not so different from his earlier aerospace goals: to enable incredible technological feats through partnerships, creativity and innovation.

“When I was at JPL doing rocket science, my job was to help scientists go out and explore new worlds using technology,” Sherwood says. “And at DreamWorks, as an engineer-technical manager, it’s my job to help artists go out and create new worlds using technology.”

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Getting to Know Your Robot

Anonymous — Wed, 10 May 2017 06:00:00 +0000

Getting to Know Your Robot Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 05/10/2017 - 00:00

Computer scientist envisions a world where robots have that human touch

Just mention the words “drone” or “robot” and some will conjure unsettling visions of a future in which computers threaten to take over the world.

Dan Szafir, a professor in the Department of Computer Science and ATLAS Institute, envisions a day when robots can be found making beds at understaffed nursing homes, drones fly over fields providing precise measurements of crop yields, and flying automatons hover around the International Space Station, handling mundane chores so astronauts can tendto more important tasks.

Rather than seeing such intelligent machines as replacements for people (as is so often the fear), Szafir views them as integral collaborators, able to help DIY-ers with household projects.

“The ultimate goal is to design robots that can better support human activities—to improve usability, efficiency, and how much people enjoy interacting with them,” Szafir says.

With an undergraduate degree in history and a PhD in computer science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Szafir arrived at CU in 2015 with a reputation—at age 27—as a key player in the burgeoning multidisciplinary study of human-robot interaction.

“There are a lot of good technology people and a lot of good social scientists, but individuals who bridge the gap between the two are rare. Dan is one of them,” says Bilge Mutlu, an assistant professor at UW and Szafir’s mentor.

Remotely controlled robots have long been used in factories, bomb disposal and space-exploration. But as they transition to more complex, autonomous and intimate work alongside people—vacuuming homes like the iRobot Roomba, or assisting shoppers like Lowes’ new robotic greeters—it’s becoming critical that humans and robots understand each other better, Szafir says.

With funding from NASA, the National Science Foundation and Intel, Szafir has rolled out several new research initiatives.

One aims to improve robots’ ability to understand nonverbal cues, like eye gaze, hand gestures and changes in voice intonation. “As people, we are coded to use gestures. It’s something we do naturally, and we are very good at untangling what they mean,” Szafir says. Robots, not so much. For instance, he explains, if you’re working on a car with a friend, you might say, “Hey, can you grab that wrench?” while pointing or glancing at the toolbox across the room. If your co-worker were a robot, you’d have to say: “Next, I need the 7 mm wrench. It is on this particular table in this particular place. Go pick it up and put it in my hand.”

Szafir and his graduate students will first videotape teams of human volunteers building something in the lab, painstakingly documenting their verbal and nonverbal cues. Next, he hopes to develop probabilistic models (if a human gestures like X, there’s a 90 percent likelihood she means Y) that could someday be used to develop software for more intuitive robots.

He’s also exploring ways to design robots so humans can better predict their actions. “Right now, drones are loud, very robotic looking and hard to predict,” he says. “People find that unsettling.”

Szafir is also developing ways robots, drones and hand-held consumer devices can interact, sharing information gleaned from their myriad sensors to paint a fuller picture for a remote human user. Can’t make it to that football game? “We could potentially combine footage from drones overhead, ESPN, and pictures and videos from your friends’ cell phones to create a full, reconstructed 3D map of the environment and port it back to you at home using a virtual reality device. You’d get the sense that you were right there,” Szafir says.

Sound like science fiction? Maybe so. But Szafir, well aware that some are creeped out by his chosen field, believes the potential for good far outweighs the potential for harm.

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Leaving a Strong Legacy

Anonymous — Mon, 08 May 2017 17:09:36 +0000

Leaving a Strong Legacy Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 05/08/2017 - 11:09

Robert H. Davis steps down as engineering dean, returns to teaching

After more than 14 successful years as dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science, Robert H. Davis returned to the chemical and biological engineering faculty in January 2017.

With the conclusion of his tenure as dean, the college is ranked in the top 20 among public universities and is training highly skilled engineering leaders prepared to contend with the significant problems facing the world.

Davis led advances on many fronts in the college. Research awards more than doubled, enrollment of women and underrepresented minority students increased, and programs and campus facilities expanded significantly.

“All that we’ve accomplished, which has been a lot, has been a group effort with a team of wonderful people,” Davis said. “What I’m most excited about is that we’ve been able to accomplish the trifecta of growth in quantity, quality and diversity.”

Expansion of programs

The college has had a strong history of innovation in hands-on engineering education under Davis’ direction, as exemplified by the Earn-Learn and Discovery Learning apprenticeship programs. The programs have benefited more than 3,000 undergraduate students who learn hands-on techniques, gain insight into a field of study, and learn life skills such as time management and teamwork.

Davis was influential in starting the Engineering GoldShirt Program supporting talented students needing more math, science or humanities preparation. The program welcomed its eighth and largest cohort of 50 students in fall 2016.

The college launched two bachelor’s degree programs, in mechanical and civil engineering, for students on the Western Slope, in partnership with Colorado Mesa University. The program allows students to earn a Bachelor of Science in engineering from ��ƷSM��ӰƬ by taking classes delivered in Grand Junction.

Several other new programs were initiated, including the Broadening Opportunity through Leadership and Diversity (BOLD) Center, the Engineering Honors Program, the Engineering Leadership Program and three Residential Academic Programs. Davis championed the creation of nine new undergraduate and graduate degree programs and advocated for the ATLAS Institute to join the college.

Key accomplishments under Dean Davis

Dean Davis' Timeline

2002: Appointed dean
2003: $38 million in research awards
2004: Earn-Learn and Discovery Learning Programs
2005: Honors Program
2006: ChBE Major
2007: Partnership with Mesa State College proposed
2008: Engineering 2020 Strategic Plan
2009: BOLD Center created, first GoldShirt class recruited
2011: Engineering Leadership Program
2012: Jennie Smoly Caruthers Biotehnology Building completed, ATLAS joins college
2013: E+ major, Materials Program
2014: Idea Forge completed, Global RAP
2015: Technology Arts and Media major created, research awards increases to $83 million
2017: Returns to teaching

Improvement of diversity and quality

Since 2002, the engineering student body has grown dramatically by 74 percent to more than 6,500 total undergraduate and graduate students. The improvement of the college’s national reputation for research has resulted in research awards growing from $38 million in 2003 to $83 million in 2015. Tenure-track faculty positions are up 28 percent, and the total faculty has grown by 56 percent.

Davis was instrumental in the creation of the Idea Forge and the Jennie Smoly Caruthers Biotechnology Building, and he led the college’s expansion to East Campus.

The academic quality and diversity of the student body has strengthened along the way.

In his first full year as dean only 14 percent of first-year students were women. In his last year as dean, the percentage of women has grown to 32 percent. Underrepresented minority students are up to 20 percent from less than 6 percent. The fall 2016 engineering freshman class entered with an average GPA of 3.91 and composite ACT of 30.6, up from 3.76 and 27.8, respectively, in 2006.

Davis’ desire to help students succeed is illustrated in an experience he had with an undergraduate student who came to his office conflicted about her major. The student had not done well in two engineering-related courses and was considering switching her major to biochemistry in arts and sciences or even leaving CU altogether.

In talking with her, he learned that what she really wanted to do was use a technical background in a business setting to help move engineering companies forward. Davis suggested she enroll in the Engineering Plus major and business minor.

NOV. 22, 2016
On Thursday we honored Dean Robert H. Davis as he prepares to ride into the next chapter. Davis will step down as dean in January and return to the faculty after 14 prosperous years leading our college. Thanks to all who joined us to celebrate Dean Davis’ service!

“I helped her find what she really was enthusiastic about,” he said. “As a result, she stayed in engineering, graduated with honors and got her dream job right out of school.”

During his tenure as dean, Davis saw students become more interested in actively engaging with a world that is more interconnected than ever.

“What I’ve seen that’s different in students today is that they’re much more passionate about the global society,” Davis said. “They’re interested in how engineers can make a difference in the world, whether that’s related to improved sanitation and water, or better healthcare or technology. We have a very bright future because of their global mindset.”

Davis received a BS in chemical engineering from the University of California, Davis in 1978 and completed a master’s in 1979 and a doctorate in 1982, both from Stanford University. In 1982–83, he was a NATO Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge before joining the ��ƷSM��ӰƬ faculty in 1983. He became dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science in
July 2002.

For his accomplishments as a leader in the engineering field, Davis holds the Tisone Endowed Chair and has been recognized with a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award, an American Society of Engineering Education Outstanding Young Faculty Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other honors.

Before serving as dean, Davis chaired the chemical engineering department from 1992 to 2002. He also served as the founding director of the Colorado RNA Center and co-director of the Colorado Institute for Research in Biotechnology from 1987 to 2001.

When asked how he successfully juggled the many demands of the position, Davis replied that he limited the number and length of meetings in a day.

“I block out time to do individual work. My standard meeting is 20 minutes. That seems to be plenty in most cases,” he said, glancing at the clock.

“It’s been an honor to serve as dean and to work with our innovative faculty, staff and students as we advance engineering research and education,”

Davis said. “It’s been fun helping the college grow and getting everybody moving together strategically in the same direction but there’s plenty left for the new dean to do.”

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The Architecture of Smell

Anonymous — Mon, 08 May 2017 16:28:36 +0000

The Architecture of Smell Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 05/08/2017 - 10:28

Cracking the code on the least understood sense

How do chemical messages rising from a piece of rotting food signal a mouse to turn left to find it? How does the shape and movement of that mouse’s odor plume alert a hungry predator that it’s getting close? And precisely what goes on inside that predator’s brain when, in response to what it smells, it changes course?

These are not the questions John Crimaldi, an engineer who specializes in fluid mechanics, imagined he would be asking someday.

“All brain evolution has taken place in the form of chemical sensing, or olfaction. It is thought to be the most primal pathway in understanding brain evolution.”

- John Crimaldi, fluid mechanics engineer

“I have to admit: To lead a national neuroscience project was certainly not something I ever would have seen myself doing,” said Crimaldi, a professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering.

But that’s exactly what he is doing. As the lead principal investigator of a $6.4 million National Science Foundation grant involving neuroscientists from six other universities, Crimaldi (the only engineer) is heading up one of the most ambitious projects yet to unravel the mysteries behind the least understood of the senses.

Scientists have long known that everything from snails to dogs uses olfactory navigation as a key survival tool, but efforts by humans to artificially mimic this skill have fallen short. As Crimaldi notes, we still use dogs to sniff out bombs and drugs.

“Even if we could build a highly sensitive artificial nose, or detector, what we have very little idea about is how to use the information embedded in the spatial and temporal structure of that odor plume to determine where the odor is coming from,” Crimaldi says. That’s where his lab comes in. Using lasers and his understanding of fluid mechanics, Crimaldi and his students are helping to develop key technological tools for virtual reality experiments at partner institutions. They create odor plumes in air or water in the lab, then use a laser to measure their precise composition, structure and movement. Those measurements are in turn used to develop a database of digital odor landscapes used to drive “olfactory generators” that, instead of projecting images, project virtual reality scents.

“Thanks to John’s group, our team has the real McCoy, measurements of real odor plumes, which we are using to create virtual environments,” said Lucia Jacobs, a co-PI from UC Berkeley who notes that because odor plumes are so complex, they are nearly impossible to simulate mathematically.

“This is an incredible and unique source of data,” she said. “No one else in the world has this. With it, I think we will be able to finally crack this problem.”

Her team will conduct experiments in humans. Others will conduct experiments in mice, having them navigate an olfactory landscape as they measure what in their neuronal networks is nudging them to go in one direction or another as odor plumes shift.

Ultimately, the information can be used to develop algorithms for programming bomb- or drug-sniffing robots. But the project has another objective.

As part of the federal BRAIN Initiative, the project also aims to use olfaction as a window into understanding the brain.

“All brain evolution has taken place in the form of chemical sensing, or olfaction,” Crimaldi said. “It is thought to be the most primal pathway in understanding brain evolution.”

Crimaldi started with a mechanical and aerospace focus before transitioning into environmental fluid mechanics. The project is an example of the interdisciplinary direction engineering has taken.

While he didn’t imagine he’d end up studying neuroscience, he’s glad he did. “It’s already opening up a whole new world of research opportunities for me and my students,” he says.

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Mighty Device

Anonymous — Mon, 08 May 2017 15:51:38 +0000

Mighty Device Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 05/08/2017 - 09:51

Tiny gadget captures every whoosh, thump and gurgle inside the body

It looks like a small Band-Aid, but it’s powerful enough to allow a doctor to monitor the heart rate of a patient remotely or to enable someone to control a robot with voice commands.

The “tiny, wearable stethoscope” was created by Jae-Woong Jeong, assistant professor of electrical, computer and energy engineering, along with colleagues from Northwestern University.

The soft, stretchable acoustic sensor captures physiological sound signals from the body, has physical properties well-matched with human skin and can be mounted on nearly any surface of the body, Jeong said. The sensor weighs less than one-hundredth of an ounce and can gather continuous physiological data.

“This device has a very low mass density and can be used for cardiovascular monitoring, speech recognition and human-machine interfaces in daily life,” Jeong said.

The new device can pick up mechanical waves that propagate through tissues and fluids in the human body due to natural physiological activity, revealing characteristic acoustical signatures of individual events. They include the opening and closing of heart valves, vibrations of the vocal cords and even movements in gastrointestinal tracts.

The sensor can also integrate electrodes that can record electrocardiogram signals that measure the electrical activity of the heart as well electromyogram signals that measure the electrical activity of muscles at rest and during contraction.

Military personnel or civilians could use vocal cord vibration signals to control robots, vehicles or drones. The speech recognition capabilities of the sensor might also improve communication for people with speech impairments, Jeong said.

As part of the study, the team used the device to measure cardiac acoustic responses and electrocardiogram activity—including the detection of heart murmurs—in a group of elderly volunteers at Camp Lowell Cardiology, a private medical clinic in Tucson, Arizona. The researchers also were able to detect the acoustical signals of blood clots in a related lab experiment, Jeong said.

The researchers showed that vocal cord vibrations gathered when the device is on a user’s throat can be used to control video games and other machines. As part of the study, a test subject was able to control a Pac-Man game using vocal cord vibrations for the words “up,” “down,” “left” and “right.”

“While other skin electronic devices have been developed by researchers, what has not been demonstrated before is the mechanical-acoustic coupling of our device to the body through the skin,” Jeong said. “Our goal is to make this device practical enough to use in our daily lives.”

A paper on the subject was published Nov.16 in Science Advances, a sister journal of Science. The other two co-corresponding authors are Professors Yonggang Huang and John Rogers of Northwestern University. Additional partners on the project include the Eulji University College of Medicine in Korea and the University of Arizona.

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Using Her Powers for Good

Anonymous — Mon, 08 May 2017 06:00:00 +0000

Using Her Powers for Good Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 05/08/2017 - 00:00

Susie Gomez-Burgos inspires the next generation of engineers

Outside of the silver screen, heroes don’t wear capes and leap tall buildings in a single bound. Instead, they’re everyday people doing extraordinary things with little fanfare. Take Susie Gomez-Burgos, a senior in the College of Engineering and Applied Science, majoring in technology arts and media, and minoring in computer science. When she’s not studying, she spends much time away from campus inspiring children—Latina girls, in particular—to become mathematics and science whizzes.

“I want to introduce children to this technology world and make it easier for them to get into a STEM field,” Gomez-Burgos says.

Becoming a Super Student

Born in San Diego, California, and raised in Tijuana, Mexico, Gomez-Burgos took an early interest in arts and crafts, making boxes and purses and scrapbooking. Her youthful curiosity and creativity planted the seeds of her engineering future, ultimately leading to more useful applications of her skills.

Susie Gomez-Burgos visits with Google at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in Houston, Texas. Networking at the conference led her to an internship with J.P. Morgan.

“Our house was under construction, and we played a lot in it while it was being built,” Gomez-Burgos says. “My brother and I made a pulley system to bring our toys up to the second floor. We made it out of materials in the building.”

A first-generation college student, Gomez-Burgos points to her childhood as a major influence on what motivates her today. She decided from a very young age that she wanted more out of life than a job.

“My parents took jobs they needed just to survive,” she says. “I decided I could learn from their experiences and knew higher education was my path to follow.”

Originally enrolled in environmental engineering at San Diego State University, she decided to make a change and transferred to ��ƷSM��ӰƬ. A trip to Bolivia in 2015 with Bridges to Prosperity, a nonprofit that provides isolated communities access to essential resources and economic opportunities by building footbridges over impassable rivers, proved to be a turning point.

“We built a footbridge in Bolivia,” Gomez-Burgos says. “That’s when I decided I wanted something more creative. I wanted to design things—useful things—that weren’t necessaril buildings or structures.”

She soon switched to her current major and hasn’t looked back.

About that "hero" thing...

While she won’t admit it, Gomez-Burgos is most certainly doing something heroic. She is using her knowledge, skills and talents to inspire the next generation of female engineers through her work with TECHNOLOchicas, a National Center for Women & Information Technology organization that works with K–12 Latina school girls on life lessons and teaches them about technology and computers.

She and her fellow ��ƷSM��ӰƬ students volunteer once a week as part of the EPIC afterschool club at Alicia Sanchez International School, an elementary school in Lafayette. The afterschool club is a research partnership led by faculty and graduate students from ��ƷSM��ӰƬ’s School of Education and the administrators and staff at the elementary school. Gomez-Burgos’ fluency in English and Spanish has been an asset for connecting with the children. Though her professional future is not yet written, Gomez-Burgos intends to always motivate kids to embrace math, science and technology.

“Helping kids—and mostly kids who come from nondominant racial, linguistic and socioeconomic backgrounds—is personal and important to me,” she said. “I want to impact kids who come from a similar background as mine, and motivate them to seek education and careers in science and technology.”

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Phase Change

Anonymous — Mon, 08 May 2017 06:00:00 +0000

Phase Change Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 05/08/2017 - 00:00

Academics, athletics, administration commingle in 42-year career

When Professor Dave Clough retires after 42 years in chemical and biological engineering,his stat sheet will show successes in triplicate.

The admired educator spent six years as associate dean and serves as ��ƷSM��ӰƬ’s faculty athletics representative. Though peers were sometimes skeptical of his academic-administrative-athletic mashup, Clough has proven he’s as comfortable on the courts and in the corner office as in the classroom.

“I tell my students that: Opportunities come along—say yes,” he says. “It might not work out, but you’ll never sit there thinking, ‘I wonder what would have happened.’”

A 1968 graduate of Case Institute of Technology (now Case Western Reserve), Clough blazed through a master’s degree at ��ƷSM��ӰƬ in 11 months, fearful his studies would be interrupted by the Vietnam draft. After working several years for DuPont in Delaware—and being spared by the draft lottery—Clough returned to Boulder to complete his PhD.

He got his first taste of instructing as a graduate teaching assistant before accepting an “out-of-the-blue” offer to join the faculty in 1975. Clough offered valuable industry experience and co-developed CU’s first engineering computing course. An adaptable educator, he transformed his classes in the mid-90s to swap lectures for active learning.

“I loved his method of explaining things,” says former student Michael Detamore (ChemEngr’00), now a professor himself. “Dr. Clough was the best teacher I ever had at any level in my life.”

In 1986, then-Dean Dick Seebass asked Clough to serve as associate dean for academic affairs. In that role, Clough opened doors for female and minority engineers, hiring the first professional directors for the Minority Engineering Program and Women in Engineering Program. He helped develop the Gemmill Engineering Library and launch the Herbst Program of Humanities, a hallmark CU program that exposes engineering students to literature, art and history.

In a midnight epiphany, Clough crafted a memo proposing the Integrated Teaching and Learning Laboratory, an answer to the college’s need for additional research labs and innovative, hands-on facilities. Through the hard work of numerous collaborators, the ITLL opened in 1997 based on Clough’s groundwork.

@BUFFFAR NOV. 26, 2016
Happiness = Buffs win Pac-12 South & with my best friend Steve at Folsom - tradition continues.

He returned to the department in 1992, serving as associate chair for a decade and a stint as interim chair. More recently, through a partnership with a former colleague, he even put his stamp on a new engineering program at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani.

A Division III athlete in college, Clough began meeting informally with recruits when they visited campus and was tapped for several athletics committees. In 2005, Chancellor Philip P. DiStefano asked Clough to serve as the faculty athletics representative, a liaison between the campus and the Pac-12 and NCAA.

He now knows personally every member of CU’s 17 teams, advocating for student-athletes’ well-being and maintaining academic integrity and institutional control. He travels with most teams at least once a year and tweets from the handle @BuffFAR.

Clough’s encyclopedic memory allows him to keep track of students’ whereabouts—and continue to mentor them—long after graduation.

“Dave stayed connected to everybody he met as students, beyond the academic experience into their lives, into their professional adventures,” says alumnus Mike Masterson (MS ChemEngr’77). “It’s not a stretch to say that his career is littered with those examples.”

In his four decades, Clough developed a simple philosophy on educating students: “It’s not how much of an expert you are or how good you are at explaining things or how easy a grader you are, but if you give the idea that you really care about them—that’s it right there in a nugget.”

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Of Mice and Mars

Anonymous — Fri, 05 May 2017 22:30:56 +0000

Of Mice and Mars Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 05/05/2017 - 16:30

Far above Earth, a curious colony of spacefarers is sharing close quarters on the International Space Station as part of research that could one day help lead us to Mars.

These are no ordinary astronauts, they are mice, and their journey could be key to solving a problem that vexes not just NASA, but also millions of older Americans: bone loss.

You might not think a disease that affects senior citizens would have much in common with the men and women of the space program, most of whom join the astronaut corps in their 20s and 30s, but space has made them unlikely bedfellows. The low gravity environment that makes space travel look so exciting is also responsible for potentially debilitating levels of bone loss.

“In microgravity, astronauts lose bone mass at a rate approximately five times faster than postmenopausal osteoporosis patients. When you are floating in space, you have no gravitational load on your skeleton,” says professor of mechanical engineering Virginia Ferguson, who is studying the issue.

Astronauts onboard the ISS spend 2.5 hours exercising every day to combat bone loss, but it only slows the degeneration. On a mission to Mars, which could last anywhere from one to three years, that is a serious problem.

“When we send astronauts to Mars, will they have enough bone to support their weight when they land? We have to ensure the answer is yes,” Ferguson says.

That is where the mice come in.

Despite their tiny size and furry appearance, 99 percent of their DNA is identical to humans, and their internal organs have similar physiology to ours. It makes them ideal for this sort of project. They only spend 21 days in space, but because mice have shorter lifespans than people do, three weeks can be the equivalent of three years.

“Only by better understanding the effect of microgravity on the body can we better develop countermeasures,” says Alicia Ortega, a post-doctoral researcher in Ferguson’s lab. “I am learning first hand the complexity of working with biological materials. So much is still not understood.”

That missing knowledge is especially surprising when you consider that men and women, and mice, for that matter, have been going to space for 50 years. Unfortunately, previous research typically featured juvenile mice, which first year PhD student Jennifer Coulombe says presents an obvious problem.

“The humans we send into space are not teenagers. If the mice are still growing, it’s not the best model for comparing to astronauts,” she says.

Ferguson’s research aims to determine how quickly bone loss occurs and if it eventually hits an equilibrium and levels off. Early data suggest that it may, but Ferguson emphasizes more study needs to be done.

While NASA is interested in the results of the work to help astronauts, future medical advancements could benefit people far outside the space programs. Very few Americans have been to space. Far more suffer from age-related bone loss.

“My kids tell people, ‘My mom had experiments in space,’ they don’t talk about osteoporosis,” Ferguson says. “For me this is about both issues. This biomedical research could be important to everyone.”

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Shooting for Jupiter's Moon

Anonymous — Fri, 05 May 2017 22:05:29 +0000

Shooting for Jupiter's Moon Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 05/05/2017 - 16:05

Europa space probe wins international recognition

As solar system destinations go, Europa is as tantalizing as it is inhospitable. The smallest of Jupiter’s four moons is encased by a miles-thick icy shell and bombarded with radiation levels fatal to any human.

But scientists also believe that a vast liquid ocean may exist deep beneath the harsh exterior, raising the possibility of discovering extraterrestrial life.

So naturally, when Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. approached ��ƷSM��ӰƬ aerospace undergraduates with the idea of modeling a probe that could alight on Europa’s surface (without the aid of landing gear), collect data, transmit information and survive the moon’s 80-hour orbit around Jupiter, all while using very little battery power, Gabe Frank and his classmates had one response: Challenge accepted.

"None of us had ever seen a space instrument built through from concept to design to testing before. You get snippets from classwork, but this was a chance to do something we've never done."

– Gabe Frank (AeroEngr'17)

“None of us had ever seen a space instrument built through from concept to design to testing before,” says Frank, a senior from Highlands Ranch, Colorado. “You get snippets from classwork, but this was a chance to do something we’ve never done.”

All aerospace seniors are required to complete a yearlong capstone design project sponsored by an outside company or research lab. But rather than mere hypotheticals, the projects are designed to solve real-world engineering problems.

“It is extremely cool to see this collaboration. These projects wouldn’t be possible without partners from Ball, Lockheed Martin and other companies taking an interest in our students and having confidence in them,” says Robert Marshall, an assistant professor in the Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research who advised the student team.

The Europa Lander for Science Acquisition (ELSA) project was born from Ball’s desire to make cheaper, more versatile space probes. Instead of an expensive automobile-sized lander akin to the Mars Curiosity rover, the students were asked to design a less complicated probe that packaged sensors and transmitters into a volleyball-sized aluminum sphere. The team focused on building a tabletop prototype that would demonstrate the feasibility of fitting everything in—essentially, the guts of a satellite.

The nine-person team faced no shortage of technical obstacles, but after months of hard work, they submitted their prototype for competition at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Student Conference. The students won their regional division and later scored another victory at the organization’s international SciTech Forum.

“The wins speak to the high standards that our professors held us to. Everything we submitted was looked at very critically, from first concepts to final presentations,” Frank says. “We just tried to meet or exceed those standards everywhere.”

Frank is completing his master’s degree and will graduate in May. He has already begun his job search and credits the ELSA project management experience with landing him a recent interview at an aerospace firm.

“These kinds of skills are highly valued by the industry,” Frank says. “Classwork is great, but it’s different from what’s expected in the workplace. Companies are looking for candidates who have this hands-on experience.”

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A Car with Imagination

Anonymous — Fri, 05 May 2017 21:03:48 +0000

A Car with Imagination Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 05/05/2017 - 15:03

'Ninja Car' autonomous technology has potential for space exploration

Self-driving cars may be in their infancy, but they’re already better drivers than humans in many ways, says Chris Heckman, an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science. They don’t become overconfident, they are always focused and they’re much better at performing driving maneuvers consistently.

But he also thinks they haven’t truly been put to the test.

“If you look at many autonomous vehicle launches like Uber or Google, it’s generally the best driving conditions you can imagine,” Heckman says.

They’re always driving on the road, and always on a sunny day.”

So instead of cruising around Mountain View, California, he imagines a test drive during ski season on Colorado’s Interstate 70, with bumper-to-bumper traffic on snow-packed, icy roads.

Heckman’s work in robotics is focused on creating autonomous vehicles that can sense every aspect of their environment—from obstacles in their path to the terrain under their tires—and make decisions accordingly.

“It’s like giving a car an imagination,” he says. “It’s not terribly different than how we would do it. We change the way we drive when we’re on ice, but today’s autonomous vehicles aren’t quite there yet.”

He explained that current self-driving car technology relies on pre-built maps and 3D models of roads, as well as on the ability of the car to communicate with a server that’s helping to run its algorithms.

But the “Ninja Car” platforms he and his students are building in his Autonomous Robotics and Perception Group contain everything they need to make decisions. They’re equipped with multiple types of sensors, including cameras mounted on the front and devices in the axles helping to analyze the terrain. The cars also carry the computers they need to run the algorithms that guide their decision-making.

All that integrated equipment makes the project highly interdisciplinary. Also involved in the project are computer science researchers Dirk Grunwald, Lijun Chen and Sriram Sankaranarayanan, as well as electrical engineering professor John Hauser.

The graduate students working in Heckman’s lab also have very diverse backgrounds. His six PhD students all come from different engineering and scientific disciplines, while his four master’s students are all electrical engineers.

Heckman says that while they’re focused on Earth-bound activities right now, the technology holds potential for space exploration as well. The Mars rovers were able to be only partially autonomous because Mars is close enough to allow communication with Earth. But exploration of other bodies—like Jupiter’s moon Europa—won’t be as easy.

“On Europa, you need full autonomy because we’re not going to send a human in our lifetime,” Heckman says.

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