April 2007 Archives

If you are a reader of this blog, chances are good you'll like this.

UMR graduate Sandra Magnus -- one of three alumni who have trekked to space as NASA astronauts -- encouraged kids in Collinsville, Ill., to aim for the stars during a recent visit to the Collinsville Public Library. Magnus -- shown here in a 2002 photo from UMR Magazine -- also visited the public libraries in nearby Alton and O'Fallon, Ill., to deliver a similar message.

The Granite City (Ill.) Press Record covered Magnus' visit, in which she described her october 2002 space shuttle flight to the International Space Station and her 11 days in orbit.

She also presented a video about her trip there and then answered questions from children and parents in the audience, such as "What made you decide to become an astronaut?", "What do you do for fun?" and "Where's the bathroom on the spaceship?"

Asked what it was like to be in zero gravity, she said it was hard to describe, but compared it to scuba diving or laying on a lake in an inner-tube.

"It's a very relaxing feeling," she said.

Magnus earned a bachelor's degree in physics from UMR in 1986 and a master's in electrical engineering in 1990. The other UMR alumni who have taken flight as NASA astronauts are Janet Kavandi (MS Chem'82) and Col. Tom Akers (Math'73, '75). Akers is now retired from space flight and the Air Force, and teaches mathematics at UMR.

UMR researchers are known for protecting the environment, developing innovative solutions to infrastructure problems and even uncovering eatery slang. But even I didn't realize this:

Researchers in the University of Missouri-Rolla packaging program actually studied the problem of protecting hollow chocolate bunnies from accidental falls. They concluded that the bunny needed a cushioned ride to survive a fall. A highly sophisticated, air suspension package was recommended to prevent breakage -- sort of like air bags for the vulnerable bunny. Unfortunately, despite these recommendations, chocolate bunny safety is callously disregarded since most hollow bunnies are still sold either in plastic wrap or metal foil. They're still susceptible to accidental damage.

Via The Capital Times.

UMR graduate Farouk El-Baz has been appointed to a committee that will identfy the top 20 challenges likely to face engineering in the next 100 years. With that in mind, lets look back on some of the predictions for the year 2000 from The Ladies Home Journal -- in December of 1900:

-- Automobiles will be cheaper than horses are today.

-- If there be a battle in China a hundred years hence, snapshots of its most striking events will be published in the newspapers an hour later.

-- Mosquitoes, house-flies and roaches will have been practically exterminated.

-- Automatic instruments reproducing original airs exactly will bring the best music to the families of the untalented.

-- A university education will be free to every man and woman.

Thomas Jefferson would have been happy if this last prediction would have come true.

Some UMR design teams build cars that go fast. Some create canoes out of concrete. Some even put together remote-controlled planes. But UMR's SAT team? It's pushing to take its creation beyond land, water and sky. The team's goal is to send it to space. And at a recent competition, the team came pretty close to achieving that aspiration.

Visions bloggers would like to echo our chancellor's condolences about yesterday's tragedy at Virginia Tech.

We were all saddened to hear of the tremendous loss. Our thoughts are with the students, alumni, faculty and staff as they work through this difficult period.

The UMR Baja Team didn't win the overall championship at the Society of Automotive Engineers’ Baja East competition April 12-14 in Ocala, Fla. -- but the UMR team did win a first-place trophy for the mud bog portion of the competition. Also, you might remember that UMR's vehicle was designed to be amphibious this year.

UMR has been winning the East Coast championship in human-powered vehicle racing for years -- five straight years to be exact. But the West Coast championship has always eluded them -- until now.

One of the newest resources to help promote UMR's research activities is Scholars' Mine, described as an online repository of UMR research. Can you dig it? Take the site's search engine for a test drive and let us know what you find.

He invented Bokononism, chronosynclastic infundibulum, Tralfamadorians and Kilgore Trout. Here are some Vonnegut quotes to consider today:

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."

"The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest."

"Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the Universe."

"Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand."

"I think that novels that leave out technology misrepresent life as badly as Victorians misrepresented life by leaving out sex."

"Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops."

We can put a man on the moon -- but we can't figure out a way to keep gasoline from dribbling all over our shoes every time we finish filling up? I don't get it. Can't one of you engineer-types make some kind of filter-stopper thing to fix this problem? In addition to dripping smelly fuel all over myself when I'm in a hurry, I'm sick of wasting the gas. That stuff is like gold. If we could just solve this one problem as a nation, I think we could be great again. It really shouldn't be that difficult, and you could make a lot of money. Of course, if you do get a patent for the filter-stopper thingy (we'll call it a nuzzle or something catchy like that), then I'm going to need a cut. This is kind of like when Navin Johnson temporarily saved the world from slipping eyeglasses by coming up with the idea for a nose brake with a handle. The guy who produced the product and made millions eventually gave Navin his cut. That's all I'm asking for.

The UMR Undergraduate Research Conference is being held on campus today.

UMR's plans to develop a research and technology park on the current site of the UMR Golf Course got the go-ahead last week from the University of Missouri Board of Curators. Plans call for eventually converting the 56-acre property into a place where the ideas of UMR researchers and students can flourish into viable businesses.

Katie Fritts of Kansas City, Mo., a sophomore in mechanical engineering, recently returned from her trip to Honduras with the UMR chapter of Engineers Without Borders. She's pictured here with a kindergarten class. The trip was the first of many as the chapter plans to upgrade the existing system and add another water tank. The end result of their efforts means 7,200 people will have consistent potable water.

The EWB experience changes UMR students. It also makes a future possible for thousands. What a great partnership.

The UMR Baja Team has been testing an amphibious vehicle in the waters of Little Prairie Lake. The team is preparing for a competition in Florida, where mud bogs and water hazards await.

We are a bit tardy in posting Jared Wehde's last dispatch (below) from Guatemala, where a group of international engineering students spent Spring Break. The students, who were working on water quality issues, are now back at UMR.

Before we left, a few of us visited a nearby neighbor to the site and were greeted with a warm welcome. The family was excited about a project to improve their drinking water. We spent a few hours talking with them about future projects and they offered us drinks and chairs under the shade.

P.S. Marian Christiansen and Casey Duncan have some final details about the other group that traveled to Guatemala for Spring Break-- the Women as Global Leaders, or WAGLs as they call themselvs -- after the jump: