Engineering FYI, July 2012

A portable underwater device developed for a local rescue squad is in the process of being commercialized by a team of engineering staff and students at Western Kentucky University. The new model will be “more cost-efficient and be used for bridge inspections, cave exploration, troubleshooting water and sewer systems, and other research activities.”

One of the students working on the project is Jenna L. Wilson, KY G 2013, an electrical engineering major and Recording Secretary of the Kentucky Gamma Chapter of Tau Beta Pi. Read the news story

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A profile from The Washington Post featured the career story of an electrical engineer who now is president of Archadeck of Maryland. John R. Barrett, IN A ’72, graduated from Purdue University with a degree in electrical engineering. He has worked at Motorola and been a small business owner of a computer retail chain named ComputerLand.

After returning to Motorola, he was laid off in 2000. Now he is the owner of an Archadeck franchise that builds between 46 and 60 decks and screened porches per year. Click here for the article, which details his positive attitude, creative desire, and entrepreneurial flexibility that have been key to his success.

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In an article from The Engineer, the work of a team of researchers from Harvard University and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) is detailed on “creating an artificial jellyfish in a project to help scientists improve the reverse engineering of human muscles.”

The research “used inanimate silicone and living heart tissues from a rat to recreate a medusa jellyfish by studying an mimicking its structure. Applying this process to human muscle tissue could enable scientists to better engineer artificial organs.”

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