Category: Events

Tennessee Tech College of Engineering Team Wins Leighton E. Sissom Innovation and Creativity Award

Tennessee Tech College of Engineering professor, Dr. Ismail Fidan, and his team were awarded the 2020 Leighton E. Sissom Innovation and Creativity Award for their work on the Golden Eagle Additively Innovative Virtual Lecture Series.

Left to right for picture (award night): College of Engineering Dean Joseph Slater, Dr. Terry Guo, Michelle Davis, Dr. Ismail Fidan

AM News has covered these events each time over the past few years and each one provides insights and knowledge from additive manufacturing experts from around the world.

Leading authorities such as Wohlers Associates Inc. (in which Dr. Fidan is one of their associate consultants) state that AM is a breakthrough technology that represents the fourth industrial revolution. It is seen as a transformative advancement because it enables distributed manufacturing and the production of parts on demand while also reducing cost, energy consumption and carbon footprints. Since many do not know about these advances, including students and faculty at other institutions, this semester-long series provides an essential look into what is coming in manufacturing technologies.

The team received a $2500 cash award and an award plaque on Thursday, February 20, 2020 at the College of Engineering Awards Banquet. As the coordinator, Dr. Fidan finds speakers for each event and organizes the flyer and schedule. It should be noted that he has won this award three times (see below), helping to keep innovation in everyone’s mind. Dr. Terry Guo serves as the IT person arranging the online video platform, Zoom, is working properly for all speakers. He also records the speaker presentations so that people can listen later, if desired. Michelle Davis does the introductions and web publishing.

      • 2004: Establishing a Rapid Prototyping Laboratory with NSF funds for Tennessee Tech
      • 2013: Establishing a Remotely Accessible Additive Manufacturing Laboratory for Higher Education Students at Tennessee Tech University, Tennessee Board of Regents School Students and other students in the nation for their classroom needs.
      • 2020: Establishing and Operating the Additively Innovative Virtual Lecture Series for the last 9 semesters. Educating 1,000-plus people on the latest trends and technologies in Additive Manufacturing with talks from prestigious speakers around the world. You can see the latest flyer here or the full archive here.

The Lecture Series is partially funded by NSF Award – 1601587

Tennessee Tech Sends Two Students To M-STEM 2019 Workshop

Earlier this year, Tennessee Tech (TTU) created and built an innovative mobile 3D printer. After a number of improvements since the launch, the team of Ankit Gupta and Seymur Hasanov, both graduate research assistants and PhD candidates, represented the TechBot project for TTU. 

After his keynote, Ames Lab scientist, Dr. Iver Anderson (and other M-STEM presenters) spent the afternoon reviewing student entries in the Poster competition and interviewing each student or team. If you are interested in a brief overview of his Keynote presentation, you can read about it here and watch a short video compilation of his main points: M-STEM 2019 Keynote: Meet Climate Change Challenges with Clean Energy Innovations.

Editor’s Note: Due to the large and public area where the posters were displayed, it has quite a bit of background noise, however we tried to diminish that as much as possible (which still did not make much of an impact). 

Ankit Gupta and Seymur Hasanov explain how the new TechBot can print with different materials and how they tested each material for its strength and other traits. The TechBot tests currently included paste-based materials, such as cake frosting, floor paint, and concrete. It is also offered as a do-it-yourself (DIY) kit (assembly required). The project is funded through NSF Award 1601587, Additive Manufacturing Workforce Advancement Training Coalition and Hub (AM-WATCH) under the leadership of Dr. Ismail Fidan (Leader) and Dr. Michael Allen (Co-Leader). 

AM News reported in detail on their work: Tennessee Tech Launches New Mobile Multitasking 3D Printer. 

Update: We forgot to share an important video from earlier in 2019 – it is embedded below, but if you cannot see it in-post, then click the TechBot launch video. It is a must-watch. 

M-STEM 2019 Keynote: Meet Climate Change Challenges with Clean Energy Innovations

With M-STEM 2019 focused on Earth, Energy, and the Environment, Ames Lab scientist, Dr. Iver Anderson’s keynote described how climate change is challenging the scientific community to drive clean energy innovations. 

At the Ames Lab, a U.S. Department of Energy research facility operated by Iowa State University, Dr. Anderson leads out in how materials can renew energy. The future of cheaper, cleaner, and more efficient means of creating energy were areas that Dr. Anderson shared in his keynote at M-STEM. 

As you will see in the short video clip of his talk, he explains how energy and energy generation is changing in the USA and worldwide. His goal included giving participants  new data; statistics and insights into renewable energy and the urgency to do more about it. He starts with looking at global electricity generation distribution, that is, how coal, natural gas, solar, and wind, among other methods are in use today. 

In his keynote, he tackles some of the thorny issues around greenhouse gas emissions by energy type and that Lignite (soft and dirty coal) and Coal are the biggest contributors. These greenhouse contributors are the obvious targets of alternative energy sources, such as wind, solar, and water. The cost of power generation is going down and the price of natural gas is so low and so much more efficient, that coal is going down in use in the U.S. and around the world. 

He highlights that it is important to remember that although Wind and Solar are coming up, Natural Gas and Coal are base load — add electrical capacity all the time, 24-hours a day, and energy from those kinds of power plants are still needed. Wind and solar are not the base load provider, so there has to be a mix. In addition, the average cost of energy in North America shows how solar has decreased in cost to be very close to wind generated power and natural gas costs. 

He closes this video section with who is moving the fastest to convert coal plants to renewable sources and China is the winner there. They have a huge dam as a hydroelectric source and are building large scale wind farms. In Europe, Germany has banned nuclear power and is building offshore power; they are the second biggest producer of wind power behind the United Kingdom. But the one renewable power source that wins every prediction: Solar Photovoltaic (PV). 

 

Dr. Craig Brice And Adam Savage Prove 3D Printed Titanium Marvel Ironman Suit Is Tough Enough

During his Tuesday M-STEM keynote, Dr. Craig Brice revealed various exciting and challenging engineering lessons for both him and his students.  Adam Savage’s plan — this suit will fly and will go through some ballistics testing — as you will see in the video (in some cases we are showing you a video of a video).  Marvel Studios sent Brice the design files, but they needed to be completely rebuilt in order to actually work.

Adam Savage and team informed Dr. Brice that, as a test,  they planned to fire a 9mm pistol at the titanium metal 3D printed suit, at fairly close range. Dr. Brice then called up a colleague who helped him determine exactly how thick the plates would need to be to withstand the 9mm caliber. Listen carefully and look at the slides he is pointing to and you will see that the suit handles more than he expected, maybe even Ultron level. 

You can jump back to our Day One post where he shares a few quick details while showing M-STEM attendees the 3D printing lab with the EOS metal 3D printer that was used in this project (although EOS ultimately decided to help print many iterations of the project as changes were made to various parts). 

Behind-the-Scenes Look at Marvel Ironman Suit Metal 3D Printing Project at Mines

On Day One of M-STEM, Dr. Craig Brice led a behind-the-scenes tour to the Mines 3D printing lab in the CoorsTek Center for Applied Science and Engineering building. In this short video clip, you can hear Dr. Brice explain a bit about the making of the suit, showcasing one of the chest plates. The Marvel Ironman was a joint project with television host Adam Savage. 

Plus, here are a few photos from the 3D printing lab tour (you may have to click the thumbnails to see them more clearly:

 

Learn more about the Materials in STEM (M-STEM) grant and workshop here. You can also watch the Denver7 TV station news clip here which gives an excellent student perspective and footage shared by Dr. Brice in his M-STEM talk.

Stay tuned for our second post on Dr. Brice’s Tuesday presentation as well as a cool reveal about how he worked to make the suit tougher for one of the special requests from Adam Savage and team.

M-STEM, sponsored by the National Science Foundation as part of an Advanced Technological Education (ATE) with MatEdU, provides hands-on sessions that bring together students, faculty, industry and business to strengthen understanding of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) principles, especially relating to advancing materials science, and to enhancing a K-20 technology education integration.