News sites were abuzz today with a fun update from 400 kilometers above the surface of the Earth. NASA on Monday released new video footage of its friendly-faced robotic astronaut, Robonaut 2, working aboard the International Space Station (ISS). NASA has been running tests and experiments with R2, as the robot is called, since it was ferried to the ISS early 2011. The goal is for R2 to one day serve as an assistant or stand-in for astronauts during spacewalks, or perform overly dangerous or complex tasks.

I love a good space robot news story, but this one is particularly exciting because Rensselaer senior Nathaniel Quillin played a role in developing R2. Nathaniel, a computer and systems engineering major, seen in the photo above, spent two semesters and three summers at Johnson Space Center near Houston working directly on the R2 project. That is a hugely impressive and prestigious level for any researcher to be functioning at—it’s pretty amazing that Nathaniel got to work on this stuff as an undergraduate student.

During his time at NASA, Nathaniel wrote the computer code used to help debug R2’s hardware. Additionally, he helped write code for the graphical user interface that NASA researchers use to control R2. This control software creates 3-D visualizations that allows researcher to see how R2 will carry out their commands, prior to sending the actual commands for the robot to execute. All in all, he estimates he contributed hundreds of thousands of lines of code.

Click here to check out the video footage on NASA’s website, shown as part of an interview with Robonaut project lead Ron Diftler. Click here to read a newspaper story on Nathaniel and his work with R2.

Students in the Games and Simulation Arts and Sciences (GSAS) program labor over the course of an entire academic year (and sometimes longer) to build the video games showcased at the annual GameFest at Rensselaer. Every year, it seems, student-designed games break new ground for GameFest, introducing emerging technologies like augmented reality, real-world applications in education, and sophistication that is—frankly—wrecking the curve for the rest of us.

Building these games is not without intense hours of planning, writing code, and trouble-shooting. As likely as not, students will be putting the finishing touches on the entries for GameFest 2012 right up until the day of expo on Saturday, April 28.

It’s down to the wire suspense. Which is great for cinema, but not necessarily for blogging.

The full list of entries and their descriptions is still forthcoming, as is a video of this year’s student-created games. (The above video is from the 2011 GameFest). But here’s what Rensselaer professors and GSAS co-directors Lee Sheldon and Ben Chang have to say about the event:

Here’s a brief list of things you can expect to see: educational Kinect games; new cutting-edge realtime rendering techniques that’ll knock your socks off; new takes on rhythm and music games; Greek mythology, Paul Revere’s Ride, mobile games about moustaches; brain-control interfaces (that’s right, there’ll be a game you play with the power of your mind); the moral choices of the afterlife; one naval strategy game with realistically modeled battleships and another with fantastical undersea creatures; multiplayer networked games; and a vibrantly colored mashup of rollerblading, 90′s ‘zine culture, and the dangers of mobile casual game addiction.

This year’s GameFest is bigger than ever, with both Champlain College and Rochester Institute of Technology submitting entries into the annual competition sponsored by Vicarious Visions, founded by Rensselaer alumni Karthik Bala, and his brother Guha Bala. Champlain will be showcasing nine games, RIT will be showcasing five, and Rensselaer will have a total of 27 games on the floor of the Armory, for a total of 41 games, 15 of which will be entered into a juried competition.

Here also is a schedule of the day’s events:

• 10 a.m.-1 p.m., The Armory – Judging and open viewing
• 2:30-3:30 p.m., The Biotech Auditorium – Keynote speaker, Richard Vogel
• 3:30-4:30 p.m., The Biotech Auditorium – Game Industry Panel discussion
• 4:30-5:30 p.m., The Biotech Auditorium – Student Award Presentation

Keynote speaker Richard Vogel is the executive producer of Star Wars: The Old Republic, a production of LucasArts and BioWare/Electronic Arts. He will be joined for the panel discussion, following his keynote address, by Frank Lantz of Zynga New York, Jennifer O’Neal of Vicarious Visions/Activision, Richard Rouse of Paranoid Productions/UbiSoft, and Rensselaer graduate Tobi Saulnier, founder of 1st Playable Productions.

I tagged along with Michael Mullaney at the unveiling of the 2011 Formula SAE car purely because I like engines and I wanted to take a look. After standing back for a while, I buttonholed a few of the students on the team to go over the car, and here’s a bit about what I learned. I didn’t take notes, and my knowledge of cars is spotty, so if I make any mistakes, I apologize. Some of the parts that I mention are shown in the above photo. You will find the corresponding description for each numbered part in this post.

For starters, the students told me that they build the car from scratch each year. The rules that govern the competition actually limit the top speed of each car – for safety reasons – and the race course is very curvy, so the name of the game is quick acceleration, tight suspension, and light weight.

This year’s car will weigh about 410 pounds (including fluids), the engine will put out about 80 horsepower, and speed will top out at around 75 miles per hour.

In case you were wondering how you build a custom car from scratch (as I was), I can tell you that the team starts with an off-the-shelf engine block and pairs it with custom-fabricated parts and a few off-the-shelf parts. The design of the chassis is all theirs, and they did all the TIG (tungsten inert gas) welds on the steel frame, as well as all the welded suspension components, themselves. They built many of the systems, although they had some of the more complicated components professionally fabricated to their specifications. They also programmed the chip that governs the air-to-gas intake of the engine at various RPM.

First, let’s repeat a quick mantra from my high school driver’s-ed class. The internal combustion engine works on a repeating cycle of four elements:

1. Intake – air and gas enter the cylinder.
2. Compression – the piston compresses the air and gas inside the cylinder.
3. Ignition – the spark plug emits a spark which ignites the air and gas, causing an explosion which propels the piston away from the head of the cylinder and, in the process, rotating the cam shaft thereby providing motive power,
4. Exhaust – the spent air/gas mixture is flushed out of the cylinder.

This year the team worked with a four-stroke, four-cylinder Honda motorcycle block (part #1).

They – of course – bored the cylinders for custom pistons. The pistons they designed come really close to the head of the cylinder, which gives them (literally) the most bang for each intake of air and gas. Since they don’t have the in-house manufacturing capability to meet the tight tolerances for the pistons, those are made to their specs elsewhere.

One of the most critical rules from a design standpoint is a requirement that – at some point during the air intake system – the air intake be reduced to about the diameter of your pinky. Since an engine can only run as hard as it can breathe, that severely limits horsepower. The students knew they could’ve gotten a lot more horsepower out of the Honda block if it weren’t for that rule, but, since they weren’t going to be running at the max capacity for the block, they made several design decisions with that limitation in mind.

The Rensselaer team’s custom-designed air intake (part #2) is a triumph. Even with the diameter restriction, they managed to get the air inside that pinky-diameter space (which you can see at the very top of the main chamber) to move at a speed just below mach one. Any faster, they said, and the moving air would begin to flow in a cone shape inside the intake, which would actually decrease air speed. Just past the gauntlet, their custom-built air intake balloons into a large chamber, after which air is separated and channeled to each cylinder.

Knowing that the race is more about acceleration and maneuverability than speed, they removed the fifth and sixth gears from the 6-speed transmission of the Honda (with plate clutch).

Another rule specifies that the oil and coolant systems on the engine be “open,” which means that they had to include overflows for oil (part #3) and coolant (part #4) – again for safety reasons. If for any reason either the oil or coolant systems overheat, they will vent through hand-built overflow chambers.

The car is rear-wheel drive, and it’s chain-driven (as opposed to a drive shaft) like a motorcycle. They were able to put the differential (part #5) only inches away from the transmission, which meant they could reduce several inches off the length of the car (a factor that they said vastly reduced weight).

They do have CV joints in the rear, but the front suspension only required hand-welded tie rods and what I think is a strut assembly (but I could be wrong!).

Another neat suspension element were the TIG welded wheel mounts (part #6). One student told me that many other teams make such components out of billeted aluminum, in which the desired shape is carved out of a larger block. While that takes less labor than welding a part, it usually means more bulk and weight. Rensselaer’s welded wheel mounts alone took 50 hours of labor.

And they used carbon-fiber body panels (part #7) which they made themselves by scoring off-the-shelf carbon fiber sheets, bending them to the correct angle, and then using an epoxy glue to weld each seam. The panels stiffen the frame, increasingly torsional rigidity in turns, and allowing them to do away with two welded supports with no loss in rigidity.

Finally, I’d like to mention that I really admired the rotors which were both slotted and drilled. Which, let’s face it, just looks cool.

I really enjoyed speaking with the team members, who were both knowledgeable and enthusiastic about their work. It goes without saying that come race day, I’ll be rooting for Rensselaer!

Last week we introduced you to Photon, the all-electric vehicle built by the Rensselaer Solar Car Racing Team. Today we’d like you to make the acquaintance of Photon’s older, faster brother.

The Rensselaer Formula SAE student club unveiled their 2011 car this morning. Weighing in dry at 375 pounds, with a 0-60 mph acceleration time of 3 seconds, the impressive car is quite a contender:

At the top of this post is a very cool time lapse video of the RPI FSAE team assembling #59 over the weekend, in preparation for this morning’s roll-out event.

Here’s how Formula SAE works:

It’s an intercollegiate design competition that requires a team of students to design, manufacture, and market a Formula-style race car. Each year, the car is evaluated in two categories: static and dynamic. In static events, the vehicle is judged on cost, manufacturability, and design. In dynamic events – the fun stuff – the vehicle is judged on acceleration, skid-pad, autocross, endurance, and fuel economy.

Rensselaer has competed in Formula SAE since 1994, when it placed a respectable 34th place. Since then, the team has grown substantially, and now ranks 10th overall in the United States and 31st overall in the world.  Next month, the 2011 team will race the above car at the national Formula SAE Competition, which takes place annually at Michigan International Speedway. They’ll also compete in June at FSAE West at the Auto Club Speedway in California.

I spoke this morning with Formula SAE team member Stephen O’Grady, a junior aero major. Stephen says they made many itierative improvements from the team’s previous car. Probably the largest change this to thie year’s car is the lack of of a rear box. They removed the rear box, which housed the differential and rear suspension, from the chassis. The team designed a new solution, where the differential and suspension is mounted underneath the back. The move shaved 3.35 lbs from the car’s weight.

Overall, the team says they spend upwards of 10,000 hours collectively designing, making, assembling, and testing the car.

My grandmother, an Irishwoman through and through, often smiled and said good things happen in threes. This was my thought as I sat in the audience of the Lemelson Student Prize ceremony, and listened to David Rosowsky, the dean of engineering at Rensselaer. He made a fascinating observation linking the three finalist projects: 

This year’s Lemelson finalists are masters at manipulating waves.

Ben converts Terahertz radiation to acoustic waves so that the spectral information embedded in it can be transmitted over large distances in order to detect hidden explosives and other hazardous materials.

Sevan uses ultrasound waves to remotely and non-invasively infer the mechanical properties of tissues and determine whether they are cancerous.

And Tristan converts electrical signals to mechanical vibrations and transmits data and power across solid metal walls.

These are ground-breaking research projects rooted in fundamental science, with significant real-world applications. The three projects fundamentally are looking at waves and their interaction with matter … with a myriad of potential applications in health and security, two of the Grand Challenges faculty and students in the School of Engineering are focusing on every day.

Indeed, human health and security have evolved as two strategic research thrusts for Rensselaer. And we will see further advances from our students and faculty in these critical areas in the years ahead.

The dean was speaking about Lemelson finalists Ben Clough, Sevan Goenezen, and Tristan Lawry. At the ceremony, Clough was named the winner. It’s inspiring to see how these bright young students are using waves to impact out lives for the positive and change the world – particularly in the wake of the sheer, raw violence of another type of wave making tragic tragic headlines, the recent tsunami that hit the east coast of Japan.

Please check out the above and below videos to see snapshots of these three innovative Rensselaer student projects.

For members of the Rensselaer community, information on donation matching, fundrasiers, and other events to benefit those in need in Japan can be found here.

Important research takes time, and it’s always fascinating to watch a project evolve over several years. One of my favorite examples is Professor Tim Wei’s group. A few years back, Wei partnered with colleagues in California to measure the flow around swimming dolphins. Once the technology was developed, Wei’s team fine-tuned the system and started measuring the flow of water around Olympic swimmers. In turn, this led to Wei adapting the same techniques to measure the flow of air around Olympic skeleton sledders. What’s next? My vote is for measuring the flow around this guy.

Another project evolving at Rensselaer endeavors to pass information through solid steels walls. I wrote about this way back in the summer of 2009. The newest piece of the puzzle – a significant innovation – secured doctoral student Tristan Lawry a spot as a finalist in the 2011 Lemelson-MIT Rensselaer student Prize.

Be sure to check out the above video, which Tristan created as part of his application for the Lemelson prize. It’s a great overview of the project and his work.

Here’s the research in a nutshell:

To install critical safety sensors on the exterior of ships and submarines, the U.S. Navy is forced to drill holes in the hulls of these vessels. Navy engineers then run power cables and data cables through these hull holes. The cables deliver data and power to and from the sensors on the outside surface of the vessel. Every hole drilled presents a potential problem, ranging from leaks to more serious structural issues. To boot, installing these sensors on vessels already at sea requires the use of a drydock or cofferdam, which can take months and cost millions of dollars.

Lawry’s invention solves this problem. His system uses ultrasound – high-frequency acoustic waves, just like the kind used at your doctor’s office – to easily propagate signals through thick metals and other solids. He then uses piezoelectric transducers to convert electrical signals into acoustic signals and vice versa, allowing the system to form wireless electrical bridges through the metal wall.

For more info on Lawry’s invention, be sure read this story and watch this (other) video:

Sevan Goenezen is working to develop better, faster, and more comfortable techniques for breast cancer screening. A doctoral stuent in MANE, he is one of the three finalists for this year’s $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Rensselaer Student Prize.

As I mentioned a few days ago, the Lemelson competition really represents some of the best of the best student research at Renssealaer, and puts a spotlight on the direct value and promise of student research. It’s also a clear output and, in my view, strong validation of the dollars invested by our state and federal government into basic research, but that’s a can of worms for another day.

Check out the above video for a nice snapshot of Sevan’s project, and some perspective on the gravity of the challenge he’s looking to solve.

For the past four years, the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Rensselaer Student Prize has been a fascinating window into some of the best and brightest student minds at the Institute. The projects span the entire spectrum of science and engineering. Upon taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture, a clear common thread is revealed: these young researchers are laser-focused on using their intellect to change the world for the better. This is inspiring stuff.

The pool of applicants for this year’s Lemelson prize is no exception. We released a story today about one of the three finalists, Ben Clough, a doctoral student in electrical, computer, and systems engineering. He created the above video as part of his application for the prize. It’s a wonderful, accessible entry point into the tech-heavy topic of terahertz spectroscopy. He calls the project “TEA,” or Terahertz Enhanced Acoustics. Enjoy.

For those still reading, here is the Cliff’s Notes version of Ben’s project: He developed a novel method for eavesdropping on terahertz information hidden in invisible plasma acoustic bursts. Sensors using terahertz waves can penetrate packaging materials or clothing and identify the unique terahertz “fingerprints” of many hidden materials, making it a potentially life-saving tool for detecting bombs and other dangerous materials. Here’s the rub – terahertz detection only works over short distances. Ben demonstrated a promising technique that effectively extends the operational distance of terahertz sensing, by using sound waves to listen to terahertz plasma bursts. The captured audio information is then converted into digital data, and instantly checked against a library of known terahertz fingerprints. This means you can know within a matter of seconds if you’re dealing with a dangerous substance, or a harmless one.

Some grist for the mill, below are links to stories on the past Rensselaer Lemelson winners:

2010 – Student Inventor Tackles Challenge of Hydrogen Storage: Javad Rafiee’s graphene innovation could lead to more efficient hydrogen-powered vehicles 

2009 – Student Developer of Versatile “G-gels” Wins $30,000 Lemelson-Rensselaer Prize: Yuehua “Tony” Yu’s innovation could lead to new medical devices, drug-delivery technologies

2008 – Student Develops New LED, Wins $30,000 Lemelson-Rensselaer Prize: Martin Schubert’s polarized LED could improve LCD displays, save energy

2007 – Handheld “T-ray” Device Earns New $30,000 Lemelson-Rensselaer Student Prize: Brian Schulkin’s “Mini-Z” spots cracks in space shuttle foam, detects tumors in tissue

Graduate students visiting Rensselaer from Stellenbosch University in South Africa are working on a fascinating project: tracking leopards.

The project is just starting out, and research will take place on both sides of the Atlantic. The Stellenboschers spent the past two weeks at Rensselaer in the peerless Design Lab, and then a group of Rensselaer students will visit Stellenbosch in western South Africa over winter break. In the meantime, both teams will work on their parts over the fall semester.

The students are looking to develop new technologies and systems for tracking leopards through the South African ecosystem. Understanding the migration and hunting patterns of leopards is expected to result in a decrease in the killing of farm animals by leopards, as well as a decrease in leopard trapping and killing by farmers.

As their natural habitat in South Africa shrinks because of development, leopards are increasingly wandering onto farms and killing domesticated and farm animals. To defend their land, farmers typically trap and kill the leopards – which often has the opposite intended effect and leads to several more leopards moving into the area.

The goal of the interdisciplinary project is to protect the leopard population through real-time tracking. By tracking the leopards and better understanding their travel and migration patterns, it will be possible to warn farmers and area residents to take precautions – such as putting farm animals in the barn – when leopards are near. This should result in less killing by, and of, leopards. The student team is partnering with the Cape Leopard Trust.

Here’s how the Trust currently operates: it puts out cages in areas known to be inhabited by leopards, and then rangers drive around holding a big radio antenna out of their car to try and pick up a signal that the cages emit after an animal has been trapped. If it’s a leopard, they collar and release it. It’s difficult work, and the fact that an individual leopard hunts an area up to 1,000-square-kilometers, it’s logistically and technologically challenging.

The student project aims to improve this process substantially. They’re looking to create better, longer-lived collars that emit GPS information and are self-powered with built-in kinetic or solar energy harvesting. Additionally, the students are investigating using video surveillance technology to build smarter cages that the rangers can open remotely if the animal caught was not a leopard. Also of interest is a more robust radio network to let these different technologies talk to each other. The students are also looking at an entirely new paradigm of tracking, which uses video surveillance, shape recognition, and computer vision to identify and follow the travel patterns of leopards without the need for trapping and collaring.

Rensselaer last year inked a breakthrough exchange agreement with Stellenbosch University in Cape Town, South Africa. See our original news story announcing the agreement.

Below are some breathtaking photos taken by the Stellenbosch students when conducting on-site research for the project:

Also, there’s more good info and great visuals in this short video on leopard tracking in South Africa: http://www.clicker.com/web/green-living-project/Green-Living-Project-Presents-Earthwatch-216747/

One of many unique research programs and platforms at Rensselaer is the Mobile Studio. An NSF-funded research project in and of itself, the Mobile Studio is an amazingly innovative tool that literally transforms a student’s laptop into a mobile studio.

It’s “mobile” in the sense that the tool gives students the experience of using an oscilloscope, function generator, multimeter, and power supply, all in a package they can carry with them and plug into their laptop via USB. It’s a “studio” in the sense that the cost of the Mobile Studio’s hardware and software is about $130, compared to more than $10,000 for comparable equipment. (Check out the hardware specs here, and the software here.)

Here’s one way to look at it, according to the Mobile Studio team:

Unlike teens of the ’70s and ’80s, students no longer have pre-college experience taking apart electronic devices and tinkering with the components of the circuit boards. Electronic products have become too complex and too integrated.

Electrical engineering senior Justine Fortier created the above video, all about the Mobile Studio, and recently won the Silver Award at the MTT Alive! Student Video Competition. The contest is held by the University of Vermont, and aims to “encourage more students to undertake design projects with microwave/wireless content and to attract more students to the engineering profession.”

Justine’s video is a fantastic introduction to and demonstration of the Mobile Studio and associated Rensselaer Red2 IOBoard hardware, with examples of exactly how it works and why it’s a valuable educational tool.

One example is students in Physics I using the tool’s wireless accelerometer and a pendulum to calculate the acceleration due to gravity. Here’s what Justine says about it:

It is typically difficult to calculate an accruate value for gravitational acceleration, since wired sensors inhibit the pendulum’s free motion. The [Mobile Studio's] wireless sensor enables students to obtain highly accurate acceleration data, and thus to calculate values consistent with the expected 9.8 meters/second², as learned in lecture.

Read the back story of Mobile Studio’s decade-long history here, and also check out this excellent EE Times story on the Mobile Studio.