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Engineering Professor Mayrai Gindy served as the 溏心vlog免费B站 coordinator for the event, working with 2nd Lt. Patricia Testa, associate athletic director for business and personnel for 溏心vlog免费B站 Athletics, who was the lead coordinator for the National Guard. Gindy recruited faculty from engineering, pharmacy, chemistry and the Graduate School of Oceanography, who brought a total of 16 interactive exhibits to share with the students. Along with University faculty, other organizations in attendance included Electric Boat, WindWinRI, New England Tech, Civil Air Patrol, the Explosives Operations Division of the Office of the State Fire Marshal and Raytheon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Among the University faculty members in attendance was Brennan Phillips, an assistant professor of ocean engineering who has a joint appointment with the Graduate School of Oceanography. Phillips, whose research revolves around deep sea robotics and ocean exploration, brought low-cost deep ocean exploration technologies to show students at the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBecause it\u2019s so low-cost, it\u2019s really accessible for students,\u201d he said, \u201cIn our case, it\u2019s usually undergraduates, but I\u2019ve had high school students involved in our research in the past as well.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his laboratory, he takes students who have little to no background in the field and trains them in 3D modeling and printing, electronics and coding on these low-cost devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBringing that to the National Guard event was a really great thing, because those are the students we\u2019re trying to recruit,\u201d he said. \u201cThose are kids who may be interested in engineering [and] we can show them what we\u2019re doing in the ocean and say [that they\u2019ll] actually be able to make a lot of this stuff [themselves] as a student here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chemical Engineering Professor Otto Gregory brought his \u2018digital dog nose\u2019 technology, which was originally designed to be worn by soldiers to warn them of threats such as toxic gas. Following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the focus shifted to the detection of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and in recent years the research has expanded to include biological toxins. Some of the devices now can detect diabetes by examining the glucose in a person\u2019s breath, or help determine if a person has COVID-19. Gregory showcased these new health care applications at the event. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe weren\u2019t allowed to tell them anything other than [showing] them their results, and then we threw them away,\u201d he said. \u201cWe [showed] them what their breath looks like, though, doing this kind of analysis, which was fun for them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the event, while he didn\u2019t go into too much detail about the way the device works, he expressed to the students that this can do \u201cpretty much what a dog can do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDogs are the gold standard, but they can only work for an hour and a half before they need a break,\u201d he said, \u201ccompared to our device that just sits there and works 24\/7.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Paolo Stegagno, an assistant professor of electrical, computer and biomedical engineering whose research focuses on mobile robotics, brought two interactive exhibits to the event: one with two small ground robots, and the other with a robotic arm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ground robots, he explained, move by themselves and are able to avoid anything in their paths. The students engaged with the robot by trying to block it or catch it while it attempted to escape from and evade them. Students also interacted with the arm, which was developed in collaboration with fellow Engineering Professor Chengzhi Yuan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI hope that some of these kids will come to 溏心vlog免费B站 in the future, or at least engage in STEM,\u201d he said. \u201cThey were shy, a little bit, but I had some very positive interactions. Some kids really tried to play with the robots and I had students asking questions about the arm.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Engineering Professor George Tsiatas, brought a computer-controlled tabletop shake-table for students to test models they made with K\u2019NEX building toys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe started by showing a 4-story \u2018building\u2019 with small resistance at the connections between beams and columns, but this did not perform well,\u201d he said. After a few rounds of adjustments, the structure performed better. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He noted that the students were interested in seeing in real-time how the structural changes led to better performance, and that they spent a lot of time making their own buildings, some of which were tested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pharmaceutical Sciences and Chemical Engineering Professor Jie Shen, who works on creating advanced drug delivery systems to treat difficult-to-manage diseases, brought with her virtual reality (VR) headsets and gaming laptops for students to experience \u201chow different types of nanoparticles (such as liposomes for COVID vaccines) are produced in the lab.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe developed nanotechnology lab molecules in both VR and 3D gaming modules to introduce emerging technologies such as nanotechnology to students in a fun and more interactive way,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some of Shen\u2019s students helped at the event. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy students and I really enjoyed interacting with high school students at the event,\u201d she said. \u201cThey asked about what we do in the lab. They were very interested in and excited about the VR and 3D gaming learning tools available at 溏心vlog免费B站.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While each of the faculty members in attendance have different research areas and responsibilities, they all agree that events like this are very important in engaging the next generation of STEM professionals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOne of the motivations for why I did robotics was because I wanted to play with robots at work, so a career goal was actually to have fun in what I was doing,\u201d Stegagno said. \u201cBy showing the interactive demonstrations, we hope they had fun, and [that] they may consider a career in STEM as a viable option for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe had students there from all over the state and from high schools that don\u2019t necessarily engage in ocean sciences and ocean tech,\u201d Phillips said, \u201cand I think this is exactly the type of stuff we need to do more of.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gregory noted that these events are important for both students and, in this case, the military.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important for the high schools and the students themselves to know what opportunities are out there and how science can actually help people,\u201d he said, \u201c[and] it\u2019s important for the military in this case because there are military applications and the military saw the benefits of our device.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The research and development of the digital dog nose was originally funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Department of Defense and most recently by the Department of Homeland Security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shen also noted that, in addition to introducing high school students to STEM concepts, this event also showcased what 溏心vlog免费B站 is able to do as the state\u2019s flagship public university.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gindy, who works in the same research lab as Tsiatas, said that events like this are \u201ccritical\u201d for exposing young adults to STEM careers and the impact that the field has on people\u2019s day-to-day lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey can help solve some of the problems facing society now and in the future, and at the same time get personal satisfaction for enhancing the quality of life in Rhode Island and beyond,\u201d said Tsiatas, whose research focuses on the behavior of buildings and other structures when subjected to forces such as earthquakes and wind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The event, which drew roughly 500 students, was a smashing success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI saw lots of smiling faces and looks of amazement,\u201d said Gindy. \u201cWe received great feedback from students. One student said this was \u2018the coolest thing he\u2019s been to in his life.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mary Lind, a graduate student in 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Department of Marketing and Communications, wrote this news release.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 June 20, 2022 \u2013 溏心vlog免费B站 faculty members volunteered to present exhibitions at a STEM Exploration Open House hosted by the Rhode Island National Guard at its Quonset base earlier this month. The event exposed Rhode Island high school students to the various career and educational opportunities in the fields […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":79918,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79915"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79928,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79915\/revisions\/79928"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}