June « 2013 « Engineering Stories

Update: The Oregon State University Solar Vehicle Team placed first in the 2013 Formula Sun Grand Prix. OSU took the race by driving 193 laps (656 miles) around the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas on pure solar energy! See below for more information on the team’s trip to Texas and the competition.

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The Oregon State Solar Vehicle Team (OSUSVT) is headed to Austin, Texas for the 2013 Formula Sun Grand Prix (FSGP), an international track race. Open to teams from around the world, this unique style of solar car racing tests the limits of the vehicles in handling curves, braking, and acceleration.

The winner of FSGP is determined by the total number of laps completed over three days of racing. But the event is more than just competing for a win. Before the race, solar vehicle teams work together with fellow competitors and inspectors to insure the safety of their vehicles, a process known as scrutineering. Continue reading →

As people increasingly seek sustainable energy solutions, they may come across the product offerings of a small startup company in Eugene, Ore., called HESTIA Home Biogas, makers of anaerobic digesters for home use. When they do, HESTIA wants to be ready with a biogas cooktop.

“They want to be able to run off just that raw biogas coming straight out of the digester,” said Lucas Stangel, a graduating senior in the School of Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing Engineering. Continue reading →

To the untrained eye, the Puralytics “lily pad” looks like nothing more than a flat piece of mesh, approximately one foot in diameter, passively floating on the water. But its appearance belies its power. So dubbed because of how it mimics the water plant by that name, a nanotech lily pad uses the sun to activate five photochemical processes that break down or remove organics, coliforms, and metals from storm water.

The emerging technology used to create the pads is patterned after Puralytics’ award-winning nanotechnology for drinking water purification. The process actually destroys contaminants, so it eliminates the problem of disposing of most toxic substances left over from traditional filtering methods. Continue reading →

EVOO, a cooking school in Cannon Beach, Ore., wants to produce gourmet sea salt from the Pacific Ocean, so they enlisted the help of three senior chemical engineering students — Austin Danielson, Cameron Oden, and Paul Robideau — to develop a sustainable technology to achieve their goal. Besides producing salt products that can be variously flavored, the team wants to create a potable water byproduct that can be used to irrigate a community garden and provide a water source for animals. Continue reading →

When humans view the world with two healthy eyes, we see in stereovision, which gives us depth perception and allows us to avoid running into the things around us. Scientists have long since implemented stereovision in computer systems for various applications, but until recently it wasn’t practical to implement such a system in real time because of the large amount of computational power it required. Continue reading →

Engineering Stories

News and research, student achievements, faculty engagement, and alumnus accomplishments.

Monthly Archives: June 2013

Solar Vehicle Team to compete in international track race

Biogas cooktop for home use

Nanotech storm water treatment

Gourmet sea salt from the Pacific

Real-time stereovision

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