Lafayette Online

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University has been selected as one of 16 teams to participate in EcoCAR 2: Plugging in to the Future, an international competition to develop advanced automotive technologies. The Purdue team is a multidisciplinary effort led by Vahid Motevalli, head the Department of Mechanical Engineering Technology. The competition was established in […]

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University on Saturday (Oct. 16) will dedicate a new civil engineering laboratory housing advanced hydrology and hydraulics facilities for teaching and research related to water resources. “The new lab is equipped with ultra-modern facilities for preparing future civil engineers to address global water challenges,” said M. Katherine Banks, the Jack […]

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Millions of people pump hand sanitizer every day, so how complicated can it be? The 2010 Rube Goldberg Machine Contest at Purdue University will have teams trying to make that task as complicated as humanly (and inhumanly) possible — each team must build a machine that will pump sanitizer into a […]

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Students taking a new roller-coaster design course at Purdue University have discovered that fun, real-world applications make solving difficult engineering problems more interesting. “What we found was that if you show students the fun engineering applications of physics, all of a sudden learning the fundamentals becomes more enjoyable,” said Jeffrey Rhoads, […]

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Motorized scooters controlled through the use of handlebars are a frequent sight on sidewalks, but a Purdue University professor and his students have built a scooter that relies more heavily on the rider’s sense of balance. Henry Zhang, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering technology, along with four students, spent several […]