Spring 2022
Tunnel visions
Washington State University's wind tunnels helped pilot and educator understand aerodynamics. » More ...
Drones
Fall 2018
Video: A quick ride around Cool Cache Farms
Take a peek at the peonies on the Cool Cache Farms in Alaska, owned by Wayne and Patti Floyd.
Read about their peony venture in “Peonies from heaven,” Fall 2018.
Summer 2016
Looking over endangered creatures
Keeping a watchful eye in remote environments with aerial drones
Stealing through the shadowed plantation, an orangutan stops to feed on the tender shoots of a palm sapling. An instant later, she crumples from a rifle shot, her baby crying out in fear. The infant is eventually rescued and spirited away to a rehabilitation center for release back into the wild.
“At one time there were 2,500 of these orphans in Borneo,” says Chuck Pezeshki, a professor of mechanical and materials engineering at Washington State University. “It’s an enormous tragedy and the apes are now on the endangered list.”
Pezeshki says the native rainforest … » More …
Fall 2014
Sagebrush and rabbits
Drones are helping find and monitor the endangered pygmy rabbit in Washington state and surrounding areas.
» More ...
Fall 2014
Paperclips and printed drones
WSU engineering professor Gaurav Ameta challenges his students to hold up coffee cups with paperclips and 3D-print their own quadrocopter drones.
» More ...
Fall 2014
Videos: Flights of the Genii
Watch the first, eighth, and ninth flights of the Genii Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) built by WSU students.
» More ...
Fall 2014
Things that fly in the sky
A slight breeze comes from the north, but it’s not enough to stir the sun-faded windsock above the tarmac near Mann Lake in Lewiston, Idaho. The sudden and unexpected gusts of wind, however, do. It’s a brisk 48 degrees, but of more concern is the smeared cloud taking up the southwestern horizon, out of place among its more defined, cumulus neighbors mottling the blue canvas above.
“We have about ten minutes,” says Chris Chaney, who earned a doctorate in mechanical engineering from WSU this year. “We’re going to have to time this right. This is probably one of the most dangerous flights we’ve done.”
… » More …