#mechanical engineering sponsorship undergraduate

[wiqi4love]

The Manly Trust Engineering Bursary for Undergraduates in UK, 2018

The Manly Trust Engineering Bursary for Undergraduates in UK, 2018

The new Manly Trust Engineering Bursary is available on offer starting from October 2018. Bursary is available to pursue undergraduate degree programme in Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences (FEPS).

The Manly Trust’s primary objective is to advance the science of engineering by granting financial assistance to organisations that encourage an interest in STEM subjects…

[dorcasrempel]

Spider silk could be used as robotic muscle

Spider silk, already known as one of the strongest materials for its weight, turns out to have another unusual property that might lead to new kinds of artificial muscles or robotic actuators, researchers have found.

The resilient fibers, the team discovered, respond very strongly to changes in humidity. Above a certain level of relative humidity in the air, they suddenly contract and twist, exerting enough force to potentially be competitive with other materials being explored as actuators — devices that move to perform some activity such as controlling a valve.

The findings are being reported today in the journal Science Advances, in a paper by MIT Professor Markus Buehler, head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, along with former postdoc Anna Tarakanova and undergraduate student Claire Hsu at MIT; Dabiao Liu, an associate professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China; and six others.

Researchers recently discovered a property of spider silk called supercontraction, in which the slender fibers can suddenly shrink in response to changes in moisture. The new finding is that not only do the threads contract, they also twist at the same time, providing a strong torsional force. “It’s a new phenomenon,” Buehler says.

“We found this by accident initially,” Liu says. “My colleagues and I wanted to study the influence of humidity on spider dragline silk.” To do so, they suspended a weight from the silk to make a kind of pendulum, and enclosed it in a chamber where they could control the relative humidity inside. “When we increased the humidity, the pendulum started to rotate. It was out of our expectation. It really shocked me.”

The researchers were able to decode the molecular structure of the two main proteins, shown here, that make up spider dragline silk. One of these, MaSp2, contains proline, which interacts with water molecules to produce the newly discovered twisting motion.

The team tested a number of other materials, including human hair, but found no such twisting motions in the others they tried. But Liu said he started thinking right away that this phenomenon “might be used for artificial muscles.”

“This could be very interesting for the robotics community,” Buehler says, as a novel way of controlling certain kinds of sensors or control devices. “It’s very precise in how you can control these motions by controlling the humidity.”

“This is a fantastic discovery because the torsion measured in spider dragline silk is huge, a full circle every millimeter or so of length,” says Pupa Gilbert, a professor of physics, chemistry, and materials science at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who was not involved in this work. Gilbert adds, “This is like a rope that twists and untwists itself depending on air humidity. The molecular mechanism leading to this outstanding performance can be harnessed to build humidity-driven soft robots or smart fabrics.”

Spider silk is already known for its exceptional strength-to-weight ratio, its flexibility, and its toughness, or resilience. A number of teams around the world are working to replicate these properties in a synthetic version of the protein-based fiber.

While the purpose of this twisting force, from the spider’s point of view, is unknown, researchers think the supercontraction in response to moisture may be a way to make sure a web is pulled tight in response to morning dew, perhaps protecting it from damage and maximizing its responsiveness to vibration for the spider to sense its prey.

“We haven’t found any biological significance” for the twisting motion, Buehler says. But through a combination of lab experiments and molecular modeling by computer, they have been able to determine how the twisting mechanism works. It turns out to be based on the folding of a particular kind of protein building block, called proline.

Investigating that underlying mechanism required detailed molecular modeling, which was carried out by Tarakanova and Hsu. “We tried to find a molecular mechanism for what our collaborators were finding in the lab,” Hsu explains. “And we actually found a potential mechanism,” based on the proline. They showed that with this particular proline structure in place, the twisting always occurred in the simulations, but without it there was no twisting.

“Spider dragline silk is a protein fiber,” Liu explains. “It’s made of two main proteins, called MaSp1 and MaSp2.” The proline, crucial to the twisting reaction, is found within MaSp2, and when water molecules interact with it they disrupt its hydrogen bonds in an asymmetrical way that causes the rotation. The rotation only goes in one direction, and it takes place at a threshold of about 70 percent relative humidity.

“The protein has a rotational symmetry built in,” Buehler says. And through its torsional force, it makes possible “a whole new class of materials.” Now that this property has been found, he suggests, maybe it can be replicated in a synthetic material. “Maybe we can make a new polymer material that would replicate this behavior,” Buehler says.

“Silk’s unique propensity to undergo supercontraction and exhibit a torsional behavior in response to external triggers such as humidity can be exploited to design responsive silk-based materials that can be precisely tuned at the nanoscale,” says Tarakanova, who is now an assistant professor at the University of Connecticut. “Potential applications are diverse: from humidity-driven soft robots and sensors, to smart textiles and green energy generators.”

It may also turn out that other natural materials exhibit this property, but if so this hasn’t been noticed. “This kind of twisting motion might be found in other materials that we haven’t looked at yet,” Buehler says. In addition to possible artificial muscles, the finding could also lead to precise sensors for humidity.

These researchers “have used silk’s known high sensitivity to humidity and demonstrated that it can also be used in an interesting way to create very precise torsional actuators,” says Yonggang Huang, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and mechanical engineering at Northwestern University, who was not involved in this work. “Using silk as a torsional actuator is a novel concept that could find applications in a variety of fields from electronics to biomedicine, for example, hygroscopic artificial muscles and humidity sensors,” he says.

Huang adds, “What is particularly noteworthy about this work is that it combines molecular modeling, experimental validation, and a deep understanding by which elementary changes in chemical bonding scale up into the macroscopic phenomena. This is very significant from a fundamental science point of view, and also exciting for applications.”

The work included collaborators at Huazhong University of Science and Technology and Hubei University, both in Wuhan, China, and Queen Mary University of London. It was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the National Science Foundation of Hubei Province, the Young Elite Scientist Sponsorship Program by CAST, the National Institutes of Health, the MIT Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, and the Office of Naval Research.

Spider silk could be used as robotic muscle syndicated from https://osmowaterfilters.blogspot.com/

[workofcer]

Panel Offers Career Advice to Students and Honors Professor’s Advocacy

June 26, 2017

“Working hard is essential, but it’s very different from marketing and promoting oneself,”  Amy Kopelan emphasized during the 5th Annual Career Development Panel, which featured esteemed panelists Helen Altshuler, Technical Manager of Cloud Engineering at Google; Sukari Brown ’14, NYU Tandon alum and Senior Advisory Consultant at Deloitte; Whitney Levine, Senior Software Engineer on the Search Team at Grubhub; and Patricia Parada, Biomedical Engineer and Senior Application Specialist at EDDA Technology.

The panel was moderated by Kopelan, President and Founder of Bedlam Productions, Inc., and hosted by career coach Dede Bartlett — a key figure in advancing women in STEM, who founded the Thompson-Bartlett Fellowshipprogram at NYU Tandon and was the Vice President of Corporate Affairs at Altria Group, Inc., where she developed their domestic violence programs. Sara-Lee Ramsawak, Assistant Director of Academic Affairs, and Nicole Johnson, Assistant Dean of Opportunity Program, organized the event.

After welcoming the attendees, Bartlett dedicated a touching tribute to the late NYU Tandon professor and associate dean of academics Iraj Kalkhoran, who passed away in September 2016. Bartlett recognized Kalkhoran’s 20 plus years of service to NYU Tandon as associate dean of undergraduate and graduate academics and associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. “Iraj changed lives [through] his passion for teaching, his passion for students, and his commitment to and deep understanding of what it takes to bring more women into engineering and science,” Bartlett said, adding that the Career Development Panel was inspired and supported by Kalkhoran. Noting his advocacy for a diverse student body, Bartlett shared that the NYU Tandon students “today are his legacy.” After the audience enjoyed a video of memories and stories of Kalkhoran from the Tandon community, Ramsawak and Johnson presented Kalkhoran’s family with a commemorative plaque.

The panelists began the discussion by detailing their transition from degrees in civil engineering, computer science and biomedical engineering to their current industry positions, and offered sage advice to attendees at any stage in their career on topics such as mentorship, the bias women and underrepresented groups face in the workplace, self-advocacy, work-life balance, and career changes.

Brown emphasized the difference between mentorship and sponsorship. While a mentor offers guidance and support, a sponsor advocates “behind closed doors” and invests in your performance and potential.

Levine noted the importance of speaking up and advocating for oneself within your career advancement, encouraging attendees to “ask for what you want.” Altshuler echoed this sentiment of self-promotion, adding that many women hesitate to nominate themselves for promotions or recognition.

Parada stressed that students eschew the myth of a smooth career trajectory, with Kopelan adding that one’s career path is a “lattice, rather than a ladder.” Altshuler noted that changing careers or jobs should come when you’re no longer challenged and find no room for growth.

When transitioning from college to industry, students should focus on translating transferrable skills to any position and research a company’s culture and work-life balance. Parada emphasized “networking before you need it” and Brown assured students that “failure is not permanent.”

Article appeared originally at: https://engineering.nyu.edu/news/panel-offers-career-advice-students-and-honors-professors-advocacy

[newstfionline]

Canadian Colleges See Surge of Foreign Students. It’s Not Just Politics.

By Craig S. Smith, NY Times, May 19, 2017

Canadian universities may have a more international feel this fall.

Enrollment of international students will be sharply higher, universities say, and the incoming freshmen include large numbers of high school students from the United States. With the increase coming during the first year of a contentious presidency, there’s plenty of talk about the trend being an obvious reaction to President Trump.

“The so-called Trump effect is real when it comes to enrollment in Canada,” said Alan Shepard, president of Concordia University in Montreal. “Applications from international students for this coming fall’s semester have surged.”

But it’s not that simple. While plenty of students who have chosen Canada for higher education cite the political climate in the United States, admissions officers and students say economics remains the main motivation.

Maddie Zeif, 18, a high school student from Sunderland, Vt., said costs in Canada were cheaper than in the United States and were comparable even to in-state tuition at the University of Vermont. She’s going to the University of British Columbia in the fall.

“At U.B.C., I will be right in a city, at a very large university, right on the ocean, an hour from Whistler,” she said in an email, referring to the popular Canadian ski resort, “and I will be paying almost the same amount as my in-state tuition without factoring in any financial aid yet.”

Besides the cost and the political climate, students also say they were attracted by affordable health care, relative safety and a more relaxed atmosphere in Canada. Students from outside North America also point to the ease of immigration to Canada.

With about a million international students within its borders, the United States is still the leader in international education. Canada’s international student population, though, surged 92 percent from 2008 to 2015, reaching more than 350,000, according to the Canadian Bureau for International Education.

Final figures for this year’s application season are not yet available. But Canadian university officials say the early numbers suggest that Canada will be educating many more international students than ever this fall, particularly from the United States.

At Ryerson University in Toronto, for example, the number of international undergraduates, including from the United States, who have confirmed that they will attend in the fall is up nearly 50 percent over this time last year.

University of Toronto officials said the enrollment of students from the United States for this fall had doubled from last school year, with a “yield”--the percentage of accepted students who commit to attend--of 25 percent compared with about 20 percent last year.

Tuition at Canadian colleges is generally lower than at comparable universities in the United States, even though students from outside Canada pay a higher rate than locals do.

Also, the Canadian currency’s weakness relative to the United States dollar gives students headed to Canada an instant discount of about 26 percent.

Nancy Gorosh, 19, of Houston just finished her freshman year at Concordia. Last year, she was choosing between Concordia and Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., on Long Island. Ms. Gorosh said her tuition and fees at Concordia next year will be about $12,400 a year; Hofstra would have been about $44,000.

Some students say the visa process for entering the United States is onerous, especially considering the uncertainty about how regulations might change. More than half of the international students in Canada plan to seek permanent residency, according to the Canadian international education bureau.

Marius Poyard, from France, said he had the option to pursue a master’s degree in mechanical engineering at Michigan State University, Manhattan College or the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec. But he couldn’t face the visa application process in the United States after having endured it for a summer program several years ago.

He complained about irrelevant questions asked online, the need to travel to Paris for an interview, and then a wait of hours for the interview, which consisted of a few questions he had already answered online. The Canadian process was simple, he said. “Everything is on the internet and is very fast.”

But Mr. Poyard said cost was another compelling reason to choose Canada. The University of Sherbrooke will cost less than a third of either option in the United States.

Sofia Solar Cafaggi, 29, of Mexico City, got her undergraduate degree at McGill University in Montreal after turning down M.I.T. because of the cost. She was able to get permanent residency in Canada two years after graduating. Now she’s on her way to medical school. She said she was offered a full scholarship at a school in the United States but will be going to the University of Toronto.

“I can get citizenship upon graduation, whereas in the U.S. I’d be an alien for another decade and would need sponsorship for residency,” she said.