STORIES

Beck awarded DOE fellowship

Peter Beck, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering, has been awarded a three-year fellowship through the United States Department of Energy’s Nuclear Energy University Program. Beck received one of just 33 graduate fellowships for students pursuing nuclear energy-related disciplines. “This funding will allow me to continue my studies and pursue the technology to make nuclear […]

Rising to the pressure

Since 2009, Softstar has sponsored student capstone design projects at the School of Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing Engineering. Capstone design is a two-course sequence in which seniors design and implement workable solutions to real-world problems.

Leading from within

When Sneha Sinha accepted an operations management internship at the Target Fulfillment Center in Albany, she expected to shadow her boss for ten weeks. After her first few weeks on the job, however, he was promoted. “I was in a really unique position,” she said. “I got to step into that role and really own […]

From Corvallis to Koruridua: Making prototypes in Ghana

by Kelly Fox and Peter Beck (both ’19 B.S., Mechanical Engineering) (Editor’s note: Four students traveled to Ghana in spring 2019. This is their story with minor edits for style and flow.) What brought us to Ghana: a groundnut (peanut) roaster There were four of us on our senior design project: Peter Beck, Kelly Fox, […]

Building connections by pushing limits

OSU Overclocking provides students with real-world industry experience Seeing frost form on your computer parts would usually be cause for alarm – but not for the members of OSU Overclockers. Frost is to be expected when the key ingredient of your cooling system is liquid nitrogen. Overclocking, or pushing a computer’s processor past the manufacturer’s […]

The “How” of design

By Ali Trueworthy I want to put things in the ocean that can generate electricity. In pursuit of that, I do research which works to answer the question, “How do we design things that go in the ocean and generate electricity?” This is different from, “What things can we design that go in the ocean […]

Searching for a safer refrigerant

By Tabeel Jacob Have you ever heard of a “refrigerant?” It almost sounds like “refrigerator,” right? Well, if you thought they might be related, you’d be right! In fact, a wide range of our daily appliances and machinery – such as air conditioners, refrigerators, and automobiles – contain refrigerants. The refrigerants in these systems undergo […]

Geometry of Locomotion

By Suresh Ramasamy A majority of mobile robots that operate in the world around us either use wheels or legs for locomotion. The reason for this is the inherent simplicity of operation in the case of wheels and easy access to environments of societal interests like buildings, stores, and warehouses in the case of legs. […]