office space
BY MORGAN PARIS
Dr. Adam Wood, assistant professor of engineering, is usually very busy during his time off. Not with work, necessarily, but with fun. Dr. Wood’s office, though, might suggest the professor doesn’t have much fun at all; there’s just a bookcase, barren save for a few texts and personal tchotchkes, and a large corner desk. But learning what a usual day off looks like for him and his wife might leave you feeling a bit exhausted. From an 8:00 am start with some fishing (Crooked Creek, past Vandergrift, is a favorite spot) to a quick tennis match (platform tennis if it’s cold out) to possibly a session at the gym and then maybe a round of golf, Dr. Wood certainly knows how to milk a Saturday for all the fun it’s worth, and he knows how to bring that into the classroom, too. Those tchotchkes? They’re actually two different kinds of tennis balls, standard and platform, and he uses those in his dynamics class to show how different types of materials have different properties, causing one of the balls to bounce higher than the other. He brings in fishing line, too, to show how materials deform in response to different forces. While Dr. Wood’s actual office might not seem like anything exciting, just take a short walk across the hall to the engineering lab and let the fun begin.
Laser Cutter and Lamp
“Our laser cutters are by far the most-used machines in the engineering lab. They can turn a computer drawing into a physical object in less than a minute. In ENGR 328 Design and Fabrication with Modern Materials, we use these machines to make products out of wood and acrylic.”
Tools
“Most of the classes I teach at SVC are in the field of mechanical engineering. In some of these classes, I use complex tools to demonstrate how forces are transmitted through a mechanical device to produce some desired mechanical advantage. These bolt cutters are an example of one of the tools we analyze in my Statics class.”
3D Printer
“We have two different types of 3D printers in the engineering lab. The one shown here uses light to manufacture a part out of a photosensitive resin. We use these types of printers to print complex parts for student projects and research.”
Plant and Chip
“Plants and their root systems are difficult to study due to their presence in the ground and complexity of the environment in which they live. I’m working with an engineering student (Christian Ciecierski, C 24) and Professor Philip LeDuc (CMU) to create microfluidic systems to investigate how plants respond to various physical and chemical stimuli.”
Acrylic Phone Holder
“For a recent STEM recruitment day for high school students, the Engineering Department created a hands-on project that exposed the students to design and product manufacturing techniques. Students used laser cutting and a technique called thermoforming to transform a blank sheet of acrylic into a custom phone stand in less than an hour.”
Bread and Molds
“Each year, around 1.3 billion tons of food is either wasted or lost. Bread is one of the most wasted foods across the globe. I am working with an engineering student (David Bujdos, C 24) to turn wasted bread into carbon electrodes for desalination, producing freshwater from saltwater.”