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Spring 2024

Tina Hilding

Summer 2004

Students to build a complete solar home

A group of students from the School of Architecture and Construction Management at Washington State University will compete in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon. Over the next two years, the students will design and construct a small, energy-independent home as their entry.

Sponsored by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the competition gives students two years to plan and build a 500- to 800-square-foot house that receives all of its energy needs from the sun. The competition aims to increase public awareness of solar energy and inspire innovative solutions in ecological design. As part of the competition, students have to provide a home with … » More …

Spring 2004

Solving Boeing's Problems

The Boeing Company has a problem.

Lindsey Caton, a Boeing vision sensors and optics specialist, has taken apart yet another $3,500 camera that he has been trying to use to document the company’s manufacturing processes. Out of it oozes Boelube, the fancy lubricant that Boeing uses for drilling airplane parts. It does not belong in the camera. In fact, the camera is ruined.

Later, Caton describes the problem via video conference to a small group of students at Washington State University. As part of the Boeing Scholars Program, the students are developing a new protective enclosure for the camera.

Started in 1999, the … » More …

Spring 2004

Building a better bee trap

Bee-trap manufacturers like to use a chemical substance called pheromones to attract bees into traps and away from people. Problem is, they don’t always work.

Providing the right amount of pheromones is imperative. Too many pheromones or too much of one of its components repels bees, and the amount of pheromones that is optimal for attracting bees may vary during a day, depending on temperature and light. Prashanta Dutta, assistant professor in mechanical and materials engineering, has been working with Spokane-based Sterling International to build a better bee trap-one in which the release of very tiny amounts of pheromones can be carefully monitored and adjusted.

… » More …

Summer 2005

This man might save your life–or teach your class

Clint Cole (’87 B.S. Comp. Sci., ’00 M.S. Elec. Engr.) vividly remembers the drama of trying to save lives as a paramedic in the 1980s.

He and his fellow paramedics typically responded to emergency calls by driving as fast as possible to their destination. If they arrived in fewer than seven minutes, they were doing well. Usually, though, they weren’t fast enough.

Only about 10 of the 250 people he tried to save survived.

But as one the developers of the world’s most popular portable defibrillator, Cole has since contributed to saving tens of thousands of lives.

More than six feet tall and a little … » More …

Spring 2005

Those wasted five gallons

As Americans, we freely water large, green lawns and take showers daily, using on average 100 gallons of water a day. We pay a fraction of a cent per gallon for water out of the tap, while a gallon of gasoline costs $2. Yet life cannot exist without water.

 ”Water is undervalued,” says Jim Clark (’75 B.S. Civil Engr.; ’76 M.S., Civil Engr.). “Whether it’s water in a stream or water going down a sewer, it’s all a valuable resource. I’d like people to think about that and consider that it is.”

Clark lectured a group of civil and environmental engineering faculty and students while … » More …

Spring 2005

A Once-In-A-Career Project

Any engineering student can recount how wind-induced vibrations and poor aerodynamics caused “Galloping Gertie,” the first Tacoma Narrows suspension bridge, to swing wildly and collapse into the channel during a storm November 7, 1940.

More than 60 years after that failure, a group of Washington State University engineering alumni are helping to build a new bridge next to the one that replaced the original in 1950. The effort began in 2002 and is expected to cost $849 million. It will be the largest single project ever undertaken by the Washington State Department of Transportation.

“It’s a dream job for me and a lot of the … » More …