This past Thursday, the MESS Sounds & Vibrations outreach team visited Selbyville Middle School in Selbyville, DE. The MESS presented to sixth, seventh, and eighth graders there. Check out the pictures!

While some students may consider winter session a time to relax and watch endless amount of TV, the MESS team members were studying or volunteering throughout the world or spent their time creating cutting-edge hands-on demonstrations.

Dhara Amin traveled to Guatemala to monitor the bridge that UD’s Engineers without Borders had built a few years previously. Dhara and her team were very excited to learn that this past year the bridge had survived a 7.4 magnitude earthquake.

Devin Appel, Ben Henry, Mike Pfeiffer, Doug Stewart, and Laura van der Post had the unique opportunity to travel to New Zealand on an engineering study abroad trip. While there, Devin, Ben, and Mike had the opportunity to go bungee jumping. They were able to apply what they have learned in classes to what happens in the bungee cord when someone jumps. Here’s a picture of Devin in action!

Anna D’Alessio traveled to Israel on an alternative break trip and did community service projects in community in the desert. Anna is pictured below picking oranges for a food shelter.

Eli Gorman and Jess Penman spent their winter session taking classes. For Jess’ photography class, they worked together with a few friends to create a really cool Rube Goldberg machine. Check it out here: http://vimeo.com/58620741

Joel Monza designed, wrote, and built a laboratory experiment involving demonstration of electric muscle stimulation for an upper level biomedical engineering class taught by one of the MESS mentors, Dr. Buckley. Joel had a great time practicing the electric muscle stimulation on volunteers!

Anthony Rossi worked for Dr. Buckley creating a replica of a 4-person, sweep-style crew boat (similar to the ones used by UD’s rowing team). The Mechanical Engineering juniors will be using this “land-boat” in Machine Design II to test prototypes before fitting them on an actual boat. (The juniors are currently working on a project to make crew boats adaptable for those with disabilities.) Here’s a picture of the land-boat:

Vincent Stuhltrager spent his winter session creating a module for The Perry Initiative, a nonprofit that works to get girls interested in orthopaedic surgery and engineering. He came up with an “arthroscopic surgery simulator”, a silicone dome that has a “skin feel” to it and acts as a barrier between a surgeon and the body part that is being operated on. Snake cameras, as well as tools, can be inserted through holes molded into this dome, allowing one to do a mock arthroscopic surgery.

On December 10th, Dr. Buckley and the University of Delaware’s Mechanical Engineering Student Squad (MESS) visited Dr. Fleetwood’s Anatomy class at the Charter School of Wilmington to introduce students to exciting careers in engineering and medicine using Perry Initiative curriculum. Students heard from Dr. Buckley about her career path and research in Orthopaedic Biomechanics, and then they got to experience orthopaedics for themselves by assembling an external fixator on a model of the lower leg, designing an intermedullary nail, and more!

The MESS completed an outreach “double header” this past Friday with outreach programs at Conrad Schools of Science and William Penn High School.

The Biomechanics Team of Laura van der Post and Mike Pfeiffer led an outreach program for sophomores at Conrad Schools of Science in Wilmington, DE, in the morning. Students learned how the geometry of the human body affects body motion.

In the afternoon, the Composites Team of Joel Monza and Andrew Caulfield introduced upperclassmen in Introductory Engineering at William Penn High School to the exciting field of composites. Students manufactured and tested their own composite structures. Congrats to the Composites Team for a successful first outreach program!

On Friday, students from Polytech High School in Kent County visited Spencer Lab to test their structural bridge designs. These 20 students are all enrolled in a CAD class and are planning to enter their bridges into a design competition. MESS members Laura van der Post, Matt Durst, and Mike Pfeiffer led students on a tour of the Design Studio and machine shop, as well as the Formula SAE room. Dr. Buckley and these MESS members assisted students in testing their designs in compression. Students left with data that will allow them to better design their bridges.

Check out Polytech’s CAD website.

MESS ambassadors helped to host the Mechanical Engineering Department’s Chair’s Council this past week. The Chair’s Council is a departmental advisory board comprised of ME Department alumni who are leaders in business, engineering, and education. MESS ambassadors members of the council on a tour of Spencer Lab and gave them the students’ perspective on life in the Department. They also discussed The Design Studio project and helped us officially kick-off our fundraising campaign. Great job, MESS!

MESS lauched its outreach program on October 12th, 2012, with a visit to the Delaware School for the Deaf in Newark, DE. MESS Ambassadors, Laura van der Post and Mike Pfeiffer, spoke to a mixed group of high schoolers about the human body as a machine. Students got to measure their center of mass with a balance board and do some experiments on themselves to see how center of mass affects balance during exercise.

The MESS squad was out again in full force for the second Blue & Gold Recruiting event at UD Dept Mechanical Engineering. We had about 30 prospective students and their parents come through Spencer Lab on Saturday, Oct 13th. Special thanks to MESS grad mentors (and alums), Amy and Zach, for bringing the enthusiasm.

The MESS kicked off its Peer Mentoring Program for underclassmen with a mixer – engineering style – this past Sunday evening. ME freshmen students met the upperclassmen, including Peer Mentoring Officers Mike Pfeiffer and Mike Marando. The group tackled some fun engineering challenges, including “Tower of Tuna” (make a structure out of 3 sheets of paper that supports the most cans of tuna) and composite beam building.

Welcome, Freshmen Class, we’re looking forward to working with you for the next few years.

More information on the Peer Mentoring program is available at this link right HERE.

This past Saturday, MESS members Anna, David, Dhara, Jess, Laura, and Matt represented the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the university’s Blue & Gold day. About 50 students and 100 parents were in attendance. Dr. Buckley, Dr. Santare, and Dr. Schwartz were all present to talk to parents and prospective students. These visitors went on tours of the Design Studio (while learning about UD’s unique design curriculum), Dr. Agrawal’s robotics lab, and the FSAE room.