Screenshot of an image of a drone hovering above corn stalks. The words "The future of farming" appear below.

The future of farming (VT Engineer Magazine)

Erica Corder Photo, Video, Writing Leave a Comment

The week that would change Terrie Webb’s life is one she doesn’t remember. In that week, the then-57-year-old orthodontist clinic admin from Prince George County, Virginia, was rushed from a doctor’s appointment about her swollen, purple hand straight into emergency surgery. Where her memory picks back up, she recalls being informed she’d suffered a blood clot that traveled to her …

Screencap of a photo displaying a shaker table close up. The words "Shaking up a lab" are written over top of the image.

Shaking up a lab (VT Engineer Magazine)

Erica Corder Photo, Writing Leave a Comment

When you buy a mobile phone, you might not think about how far it’s traveled to get to your pocket. You might think even less about the vibrational forces that acted upon it during its journey to you. But in the Advanced Vibrations and Acoustics Lab (AVAL), founded and directed by mechanical engineering professor Pablo Tarazaga, researchers are poised to …

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Machine-learning enables a previously-unseen look at polymers helpful in biomedical field (VT News)

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Polymers — molecules of repeating chemicals — are the basis of many materials: plastic water bottles, rubber tires, even the keratin in your hair. When certain kinds of polymers are sensitive to changes in external stimuli such as temperature, they become helpful, particularly in biomedical applications like drug delivery, tissue engineering, and gene delivery. A team of researchers led by …

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New machine learning framework could lead to breakthroughs in material design (VT News)

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Computers used to take up entire rooms. Today, a two-pound laptop can slide effortlessly into a backpack. But that wouldn’t have been possible without the creation of new, smaller processors — which are only possible with the innovation of new materials. But how do materials scientists actually invent new materials? Through experimentation, explains Sanket Deshmukh, an assistant professor in the …

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Facebook Live: Inside FutureHAUS at Virginia Tech

Erica Corder Social Media, Video Leave a Comment

  Welcome to the Virginia Tech FutureHAUS Dubai, an innovative, interdisciplinary, and ambitious project to design and build a futuristic, modular smart home. Students and faculty from the Virginia Tech College of Architecture and Urban Studies and College of Engineering have been working nearly two years on the planning, design, and building of the home in anticipation of an international …

Two young men sit at a table and pose for a photo. On the table is a white mannequin head and neck, wearing a black helmet that looks like a baseball cap.

Engineering students take lifesaving concept to market with help from university environment and donors

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A little seed money and a lot of advice goes a long way for a budding entrepreneur. Take it from the two Hokie engineering student founders of Park & Diamond, a young startup that makes collapsible, sleek bike helmets. After winning seven pitch competitions last year, many held by the Apex Center for Entrepreneurs, the company took off in a major way, earning …

A small white car sits at the starting line on a road that leads to a navigation course.

Despite bumps in the road, engineering team places third in North American autonomous vehicle competition

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After a journey that involved a crash, a dead battery, and late-night coding sprints, a Virginia Tech engineering team took home a third place finish in the first year of an autonomous vehicle competition held by Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) and General Motors. Student-led Victor Tango AutoDrive was the sole team — out of eight total collegiate design teams …

Three men stand behind a small yellow underwater autonomous vehicle and pose with smiles for a photo.

Mapping the ocean floor leads Virginia Tech team to earn a slot in $7 million international competition

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Nineteen teams went in and only nine — including Virginia Tech’s own DEEP-X — came out of the first round of a global competition to build autonomous vehicles that can rapidly map the mostly unknown ocean floor. The DEEP-X team, led by Dan Stilwell, professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of the Virginia Tech Center for Marine Autonomy and Robotics, has earned …