University of Utah Mechanical Engineering PhD candidate, Joey Brink

For his research proposal to explore modular magnetic mobile manipulators for microgravity environments, University of Utah mechanical engineering PhD candidate, Joseph (Joey) Brink, was selected by NASA as one of their Space Technology Research Fellows.  NASA selected 65 graduate students from around the country as the 2013 class.

This third class of space technology graduate students will conduct research relevant to agency technology challenges aligned with NASA’s space technology roadmaps, while pursuing degrees in related disciplines at their respective institutions.

“NASA’s space technology development and innovation pipeline sees a natural on-ramp for new ideas coming from America’s graduate researcher community,” said Michael Gazarik, NASA’s associate administrator for space technology in Washington. “By partnering with and investing in America’s brightest minds, we are guaranteeing a great future for NASA and the nation. These technology research efforts will bolster America’s competitiveness in a knowledge-based, global technology economy while enabling our space exploration goals.”

The fellows conduct innovative space technology research on their respective campuses, at NASA centers, and at nonprofit U.S. research and development laboratories.

Advised by mechanical engineering assistant professor Jake Abbott, Brink responded that, “It is an honor to have been selected for a NASA fellowship.  Both Prof. Abbott and I are excited to collaborate with NASA researchers on the future of magnetic manipulation in space.  The Omnimagnet manipulation system, designed and developed by Andrew Petruska and Dr. Abbott in 2012, is unlike any other telerobotic manipulation technique.  In microgravity, this manipulation system will relieve astronauts of both tedious routine maintenance tasks and highly dangerous extra-vehicular activity.  I am looking forward to realizing the project over the next four years here at the U and at NASA research centers around the country.”

Omnimagnet Manipulation System, designed and developed by Andrew Petruska and Dr. Jake Abbott (2012).

Omnimagnet Manipulation System:

As pictured, an Omnimagnet is a cube with no moving parts.  It is capable of real-time control of the magnitude and orientation of its magnetic field. If a magnetic tool is introduced in an Omnimagnet’s magnetic field, the Omnimagnet can dexterously manipulate the tool’s position and orientation, even if there is a barrier between the tool and the Omnimagnet.

In space, Omnimagnets will be able to manipulate each other and their separate magnetic tools, utilizing magnetic forces and torques that go beyond simple attraction and repulsion. By fixing to various spacecraft or satellite surfaces, Omnimagnets can “walk” across surfaces and magnetically carry tools large distances, using “inchworm” inspired approaches. Thus, Omnimagnets can deliver tools to the worksite and then manipulate those tools. Debris removal from convoluted hard-to-reach locations and assembly of structures in microgravity are some of the challenges that Omnimagnets and their tools will tackle in space. Like other manipulation systems operating in space, such as Robonaut and SmartSPHERES, Omnimagnets will be able to relieve astronauts of both tedious routine maintenance tasks and highly dangerous extra-vehicular activity.

The NASA fellowships and research activities are part of a renewed emphasis by NASA on technology. The program also is designed to inspire the nation’s students and contribute to an innovation-driven economy. For a list of fellowship recipients, their respective research institutions and research topics, visit:

http://go.usa.gov/b43R

NASA’s Space Technology Research Grants Program challenges academia to examine the theoretical feasibility of ideas and approaches that are critical to making science, space travel and exploration more effective, affordable and sustainable. The program is part of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, which is dedicated to innovating, developing, testing and flying hardware for use in NASA’s future missions.

The Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Utah is committed to providing students with broad-based, rigorous and progressive education.  By combining state-of-the-art facilities with renowned faculty, the department provides an education that gives students the necessary skills to become the next generation of innovators.

Dr. Bell received his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering, Magna Cum Laude from Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN, in 2009.   Of recent note, in 2013 Bell was honored as winner of the Ypsomed Innovation Prize and in 2011 with the CTI Swiss Medtech Best Poster Award.

Minimally invasive cochlear implantation surgery

Recent research activities have focused on the reduction of invasiveness for cochlear implant (CI) surgery. A custom image-guided microsurgical robot system, developed within the group for image guided therapy, facilitates the minimally invasive CI approach, the direct cochlear access (DCA), by drilling a small tunnel (1.8 mm in diameter) through the mastoid part of the temporal bone. As the project progresses, a possible first-in-man study is intended to be conducted by the research team. An in-vitro study investigating the feasibility and efficacy of electrode insertion without the aid of insertion tools has been conducted (see figure below). Required further investigation into an optimal electrode implantation approach that provides atraumatic insertion when hearing preservation is demanded is currently being undertaken.

Matthew Monahan (Computer Science Freshman) demonstrating the rover’s maneuverability at last month’s Mechanical Engineering Design Day, held in the Union Ballroom.

The University of Utah RoboUtes is one of eight teams selected nationally to compete in the 2013 RASC-AL Exploration Robo-Ops (Robo-Ops)  June 5-6, in a series of competitive field tests at the NASA Johnson Space Center’s Rock Yard, Houston, Texas.

Along with their faculty advisor, associate professor Mark Minor in mechanical engineering, the RoboUtes land rover and team members: president Nick Traeden ME’14, treasurer Abhijit Boppana  ME’14 and vice-president Michael Bills ME’15, are heading to Houston.  RoboUtes mission control team members: electrical engineering captain Hunter Grayson EE’15, John Henrie ME’14, software captain Matthew Monahan, CS’16, and public relations Aditya Pande EE’15, will tele-operate the rover from right here at the University of Utah.

Mission control must negotiate a series of obstacles while accomplishing a variety of tasks. Sample tasks include: negotiating specified upslopes and downslopes, traversing sand and gravel pits, picking up specific rock samples and placing them on the rover for the remainder of the course, and driving over rocks of specified diameter.

Computer science freshman and RoboUtes software captain, Matthew Monahan says, “I joined Roboutes because I saw that it was an incredible way to get real world experience and apply what I was learning here at the U. I have learned at least as much during my one semester with the Roboutes as I have from any of my classes. Roboutes is open to people at any skill level with one of its primary goals being to help people see the potential of what they are learning in class by applying it. To watch our competition stream live people should go to our page: http://roboutes.weebly.com/live-stream.html”

Robo-Ops is an engineering competition sponsored by NASA and organized by the National Institute of Aerospace.  In this exciting competition, undergraduate and graduate students create a multi-disciplinary team to build a planetary rover prototype and demonstrate its capabilities to perform a series of competitive tasks.

Eight qualifying teams were selected to receive a $10,000 award to facilitate full participation in the Robo-Ops competition, including expenses for rover development, materials, testing equipment, hardware and software.  At the 2013 RASC-AL Robo-Ops Competition in Houston, the rovers will compete on a planetary analog environment under the supervision of NASA judges.  Each rover will be required to be controlled from the home university campus via a commercial broadband wireless uplink. The only information available to the rover controller to perform the required tasks will be information transmitted through on-board rover video camera(s) or other on-board sensors.  Cameras will allow the transmission of the competition back to the home universities as well as the general public.

NASA seeks to engage the public in its missions and research. Supporting that goal, the Robo-Ops competition includes a unique public engagement component to the challenge. Teams will be required to do an education and outreach activity for their rover that demonstrates participatory exploration approaches for future NASA missions. This includes Internet-based social media sites and other creative outreach approaches.  The RoboUtes EPO (Education and Public Outreach) video is posted on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db064KIU_vI as well as embedded below.

Click on the RoboUtes web site http://roboutes.weebly.com/ to learn more about them and to keep up on the latest strategies and news items. Please be sure to like them on facebook https://www.facebook.com/roboutesroboops as well as follow them on twitter https://twitter.com/roboutes.  More information on the competition can be found at http://www.nianet.org/RoboOps-2013/index.aspx.

The Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Utah is committed to providing students with broad-based, rigorous and progressive education.  By combining state-of-the-art facilities with renowned faculty, the department provides an education that gives students the necessary skills to become the next generation of innovators.

RoboUtes Executive Board 2013: L-R, Abhijit Boppana, vice president of finances, mechanical engineering junior; Matthew Monahan, software captain, computer science freshman; Michael Bilis, vice president, mechanical engineering sophomore; Nicklaus Traedent, president, mechanical engineering junior; and Aditya Pandey, historian and outreach head, electrical engineering sophomore.

Leech therapy is the practice of introducing biological leeches to induce blood flow through the region.  The primary function of the leech is to prevent blood pooling and reduce pressure. This is accomplished naturally through the feeding process of leeches that creates a small incision, secretes an anticoagulant, and reduces the excess fluid.

University of Utah School of Medicine surgeon, Dr. Jay Agarwal, assistant professor in the Department of Surgery, Division of Plastic Surgery and Huntsman Cancer Institute Investigator, is interested in leech therapy for some of his patients.  Agarwal proposed the idea of a reliable functioning mechanical leech device to Dr. Bruce Gale, associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and director of the Center of Excellence for Biomedical Microfluids at the University of Utah.  Gale felt it would make a nice undergraduate senior capstone project.

The University of Utah Mechanical Leech mimics the functions of the biological leeches used in leech therapy. The Mechanical Leech is currently about 1” (25mm) in diameter plus additional tubing, and will eventually offer numerous size variations to accommodate the doctors’ needs. The primary customers for the Mechanical Leech are intended to be doctors and surgeons.

The completed device will provide a suitable replacement for the biological leech by reducing excess fluidic pressure and injecting an anti-coagulant into patients. In addition to eliminating a patient’s adverse reaction to biological leeches, a Mechanical Leech will be able to provide more consistent, controllable performance over its parasitic counterpart, making it more desirable to doctors and surgeons to use during therapy.

“Mechanical Leech was in my top five project choices, but I didn’t really know what the project would be like; the title is what caught me,” says Jessica Kuhlman, mechanical engineering senior. “We were going to be solving a real world problem and that is the main reason I wanted to go into engineering.  After the team got together, we met with Dr. Agarwal, who was crucial to our coming up with the design.  Having a surgeon that has used leeches and be able to tell us how the device needs to function was very helpful.  He was also a great resource regarding our potential future customers and what would make the device better and, from the doctors’ view point, more user friendly.”

“After coming up with the conceptual design,” commented Jessica, “we were able to create 3D printed designs and test them to the specifications that we had created. As our design progressed and we created multiple iterations, it seemed as though our design could be a viable option for the medical community.   We had a lot of help along the way from our faculty advisor Professor Gale and senior design teacher, Dr. Shad Roundy, assistant professor in mechanical engineering. They were able to direct us on the path to success with our project.”

Victor Walker, mechanical engineering senior, agreed that, “Dr. Gale was an incredible advisor to work with. He provided great insight to our project and steered us in the right direction when we were lost. It was very beneficial to work with him as well because he was able to tell us what was expected on our presentations throughout the semester.  I was initially attracted to the project because of the fluid mechanics part of it. I am getting a Fluid Mechanics emphasis with my degree and I wanted my senior design project to highlight that. Additionally, I was very intrigued that this project was tied into the medical field. I had never had experience within that field and thought it would be very interesting to try it out.  I was overwhelmingly pleased with what our team was able to do with the project.  We put a ton of hard work into our project and to see it pay off was incredible.”

“As for myself,” say team leader Andy Thompson, mechanical engineering senior, “what attracted me to this project was the opportunity to be part of the development of a medical device.  My background is in manufacturing and I have spent some of that time manufacturing medical devices, so it was very interesting to be part of a medical device from the beginning.

One of the biggest problems we faced was actual testing of the device.  Testing on live tissue is not really an option so we had to figure out ways of verifying different aspects of the device in other ways.  Testing on “fleshy” type fruits to verify the diffusion and removal of the injected liquid solved this.  Another was to pump Heparinized bovine blood through the device for several days to verify that the areas of fluid flow would not become clogged. Dr. Gale worked with us in a great advisory capacity, he helped us when we were starting to move in the wrong direction, but left us to fight out the details and learn for ourselves.”

“The thing that is most rewarding about this project is the scope of the project,” noted Scott Ho, mechanical engineering senior. “We were able to go from a product and field research stage to exploring commercialization and really consider all aspects of the engineering process. It was a project that had a practical application in the medical field and our role in the project encompassed the entire device, not just a small section of a system.  At Design Day, typically the larger projects draw more attention because they are more tangible and ‘mechanical’,  but I think the immediate and practical application of our device was a big draw, especially for Boeing and other people coming from an industry background.”

On April 12, the Mechanical Leech team finished as the runner up at the Bench to Bedside competition at the Point in Huntsman Cancer Institute and received a $10,000 cash award. Ho noted that, “Our participation with the Bench to Bedside competition pushed us to take the device further than the basic design and verification that most engineering projects reach. We really had to explore end-product market scenarios and the viability and customer demand for the mechanical leech. For me, the positive attention we received at the Bench to Bedside competition and at Design Day was completely unexpected. At Bench to Bedside, we were the only mechanical engineers and the majority of the teams were composed of medical school or bioengineering students and others with more experience in the medical field.”

Left to right: University of Utah Mechanical Leech Mechanical Engineering Seniors: Andy Thompson, Scott Ho and Ladan Jiracek. Team members not pictured Jessica Kuhlman and Victor Walker.

“We were also recognized by the judges that came from Boeing to our April 15, Mechanical Engineering Design Day, which was held in the Student Union Ballroom, as one of the top three projects,” says Ladan Jiracek, mechanical engineering senior.  “I was personally attracted to this project because of my background. I have an education and work experience in the field of microsystems. I had actually taken a class from our advisor, Dr. Gale, in the field of microfluidics a few years ago. This was the main reason that even after the teams was set in the beginning of Fall semester, that I fought hard to get on the Mechanical Leech team.”

“As for the award,” noted Ladan, “it was not expected at all. When we entered the Bench to Bedside competition it was mostly to go through the learning experience. However, when we were presenting many judges complimented us om our project. We also had people bring others specifically to our presentation to show how good it was.  Working with our advisor was a very pleasant experience. Although he is a very busy professor with many projects, he was able to make time for us and to give us helpful advice on what we needed to accomplish and improve upon.”

The Mechanical Leech undergraduate project was one of 23 senior design projects showcased during the Department of Mechanical Engineering Design Day held on April 16, 2013, in the Olpin Union Building.  The Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Utah is committed to providing students with broad-based, rigorous and progressive education.  By combining state-of-the-art facilities with renowned faculty, the department provides an education that gives students the necessary skills to become the next generation of innovators.

Approximately 58 percent of the energy consumed annually in the United States is lost to heat. Thermophotovoltaic power generators can contribute significantly to capturing large amounts of waste heat by directly converting thermal energy to electrical energy in combustion chambers, photovoltaic cells and personal computers.

“This NSF CAREER award will allow us to demonstrate that power generation in a nanoscale-gap thermophotovoltaic device can be enhanced by a factor of 20 to 30, compared to conventional thermophotovoltaic systems, due to radiation heat transfer exceeding the blackbody limit,” says Francoeur. “This project is an important step toward the development of miniature waste heat recovery devices that could be used in personal computers and cell phones.”

This grant will be also be used to develop a new elective course at the University of Utah for undergraduate and graduate students interested in near-field thermal radiation and its application to power generation. The course content will also be made freely available to the general public, and a direct thermal-to-electrical energy conversion demo-kit will be presented at the Utah Science Olympiad for use in high schools.

“I am really excited about this award, which involves studying how particles move through plant canopies and the lower atmosphere,” says Stoll.  “This is a new research direction I have started since moving to the University of Utah.  The grant will help transition this from a new topic that started with a University of Utah SEED grant, into a long term focus of my research group.  I’m looking forward to the new field and lab experiments we will be doing as part of this project.”

With the NSF CAREER grant, Stoll will explore how particles in the atmosphere move through and above plant canopies.  These studies will shed light on how ecosystems function and how to manage any positive or negative effects of the different particles (e.g., fungal spores, pollens, bacteria, pollutants).

CareerBuilder has the largest online job site in the U.S., working with over 300,000 employers around the world, including 92% of the Fortune 1000.

Full survey and story . . .

University of Utah College of Engineering Graduating Student Leadership Award recipient and 2013 convocation student address speaker, Kolby D. Sorenson, receiving his bachelors of science in mechanical engineering diploma from Dean Rich Brown, May 3, 2013, at the Huntsman Center.

Wall Street Journal reporter Lauren Weber writes, “Engineering grads of 2013, will still earn far higher salaries, on average, than the typical new college graduate, according to the latest salary survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers, which releases reports on the earnings of new graduates three times a year.”

“The survey is based on data from 400,000 employers, gathered from government and private sources. The data reflects actual starting salaries, not offers,” noted Weber.

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The Green Machine is an autonomous garden cart that follows the user around the yard.  The green machine also has the ability to lift and dump to a height of a standard size trashcan.  Team members are mechanical engineering seniors, Taylor Grenis (lead), Brian Hutchings, Bryan Van Horssen, Clay Williams, and Kolby Sorenson.  Their faculty advisors are Larry DeVries, distinguished professor and Andrew Merryweather, assistant professor in mechanical engineering.

The students generated the original idea for this project.  Team member Kolby Sorenson noted, “Having grandparents who love to garden, but struggle to transport soil, plants, and rocks around their yards, we realized that an electric yard wagon could help them to do what they loved.  Then we realized that this machine could help all people with physical disabilities.  It could do the heavy lifting for them, and follow them to wherever they needed it.”

Sorenson continued, “We were expecting advice on Solid Mechanics and Dynamics calculations, from our faculty advisor, mechanical engineering Distinguished Professor Larry DeVries.  He surprised us with a wealth of knowledge we were not expecting.  In addition to the technical needs, he helped us to make the Green Machine user-friendly and to construct our project schedule.  He even donated his stipend from the NSF grant back into the project.”

The Green Machine undergraduate project was one of 23 senior design projects showcased during the Department of Mechanical Engineering Design Day held on April 16, 2013, in the Olpin Union Building.  The Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Utah is committed to providing students with broad-based, rigorous and progressive education.  By combining state-of-the-art facilities with renowned faculty, the department provides an education that gives students the necessary skills to become the next generation of innovators.

Twenty-three senior design projects were showcased during the Department of Mechanical Engineering Design Day held on April 16, 2013, in the Olpin Union Building.  The Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Utah is committed to providing students with broad-based, rigorous and progressive education.  By combining state-of-the-art facilities with renowned faculty, the department provides an education that gives students the necessary skills to become the next generation of innovators.

ASECK Cautery Knife

Baja SAE

E-tetra Kayak

FSAE Chassis/Drive

Grand Canyon

Green Machine

Human Powered Vehicle

Indoor Aerial Reconnaissance Vehicle

Indoor Knee Scooter

L3 Clinic

Landing Gear Alignment Tool

Mechanical Leach

Microntoller-based Atmospheric Sounding System

NASA Lunar Excavator

Quadruped Robot

Quad Propeller UAV

Robotic Test Bed

Saharan Rolling Spider

Self-balancing Camera Stabilizer: Accelicam

SITE: Adaptive Soccer

Solar Powered Helicopter

Weatherized UAV

WET Actuator Educational Outreach Kit

WET Fountain Design