How can nanotechnology and computer modeling lead to safer air travel? Mechanical engineering professor Antoinette Maniatty tackled this topic in her recent Academic Minute, which aired last week on NPR affiliates all across the country. Listen to the excellent 90-second piece here. The local NPR affiliate, WAMC Northeast Public Radio, launched its Academic Minute segment [...]
(Alex Giordano is a senior mechanical engineering major and shop manager for the Rensselaer Formula SAE student team. He wrote this excellent post for The Approach to talk about the yesterday’s event where the club unveiled its 2012 race car, which you can see above and below. Every year the club builds a new car [...]
Health reporter Benita Zahn from the local NBC affiliate visited our own Eric Ledet recently to talk about his biomedical engineering research. Professor Ledet created an implantable sensor that can wirelessly transmit data from within the body. The sensors, made from tiny little coils of wire, can be implanted in an orthopedic surgery site. Once [...]
(A group of Rensselaer architecture students are putting their education to work in the annual CANstruction competition to benefit local food pantries. Fourth-year architecture student Tyler Hopf wrote this post explaining the students’ goal and asking for your support. The above image shows one of the entries from last year’s event.) Each year, CANstruction—a non-profit [...]
Since my early days studying complex organic molecules in college to today as I sort through myriad sources of information on news websites, blogs, and elsewhere, I have often forced myself to step back and examine the “big picture” to obtain a better understanding of an important topic. A recent lecture on climate change here [...]
Kim Lewis is a professor in the Department of Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy, who recently received a prestigious NSF CAREER Award. We ask Kim about her work: Q: Your research has a strong focus in molecular and nano electronics. Why are you interested in helping perfect these mini machines? A: I strongly believe that [...]
Ever wonder what would happen if you attached video cameras to a weather balloon, hit “record,” and then launched it up, up and away? Some engineering students here at Rensselaer were wondering the same thing, so they tried it. They found their answer, and it’s captured in the above video. Now, this is not necessarily [...]
In the short video above an adorable little monkey is eating marshmallows. What is exceptional about this little monkey is not his love of sticky sweets, but the way he is grabbing them. This particular monkey has tiny, freckle-sized sensors in its brain. The electrical signals from these sensors are allowing the monkey to control [...]
Ryan Gilbert is a professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, who recently received a prestigious NSF CAREER Award. We ask Ryan about his work: Q: You’re endeavoring to create new biomaterials that can be used to treat spinal injuries. How did you get interested in this topic? A: At Case Western Reserve University, my [...]
Here’s an obvious statement: science and engineering research topics can be challenging to understand. When you drill down deep into a discipline, the concepts, lingo, and implications can get very esoteric very quickly. Now here’s something you may not have previously thought about: as trying as it is to understand certain research topics, it’s even [...]