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Projects

The majority of my projects are either curriculum design, K-12 outreach, or product design. This page is a snapshot of some of my favorite projects. These projects are collobroative efforts between many faculty, colleges, and schools. If you are interested in partnering with us on any of these projects just send me an email. 
TechSTEP
FrEP
IMPaCT
Living With The Lab

IMPaCT, or Innovation through Multidisciplinary Projects and Collaborative Teams, is the oldest of the projects on this page. The purpose of the IMPaCT program is to provide an environment for students and faculty from across campus to interact and develop new, innovative products. Over the years, IMPaCT has grown and evolved into a portion of a larger innovation effort on campus that includes such courses as Innovative Product Design, and Innovative Venture Research.

David Hall is the primary architect of Living With the Lab, while I am one of his collaborators. LWTL is a curriculum based around a portable “lab” that students use to enhance their learning through a project-driven freshman engineering curriculum. All freshman engineering students at Louisiana Tech are required to complete the LWTL curriculum. See more at www.LivingWithTheLab.com. 

 

Louisiana Tech’s STEM Talent Expansion Program (LaTechSTEP) is a partnership between the College of Engineering & Science and many of the high schools in Louisiana and Texas. TechSTEP is one component of LaTechSTEP focused on professional development for high school teachers. The purpose of this program is to demonstrate engineering applications of the mathematics and science principles the participant teachers teach in their high school classes. These professional development workshops are followed by Discovery Weekends where university faculty and high school teachers collaborate as a team to present engineering design projects to high school students.  

The second component of LaTechSTEP is our Freshman Enrichment Program (FrEP).  FrEP was designed to help prepare and support students as they begin their engineering or science university curriculum.  It is targeted toward students who need additional mathematics preparation prior to beginning our freshman Integrated Engineering Curriculum (see Living with the Lab below).  FrEP includes a contextual-based college algebra course coupled with an engineering problem solving class.  Community building activities, study skills development and mentoring support are also provided.

Shell Eco Marathon
Cyber Discovery

The Louisiana Tech Eco-Car team is a group of highly motivated students and faculty working together to design competitive, fuel-efficient cars. The team works nearly year round to engineer cutting-edge vehicles that not only challenge today's standards of gas consumption but look good while doing it. The Louisiana Tech University team has been winning titles and breaking fuel mileage records throughout the history of Shell Eco-marathon Americas. Our innovative, fuel-efficient cars have evolved from a simple approach using a bicycle frame into super-streamlined vehicles developed from 3D modelling and advanced manufacturing techniques. You can find out more about the cars here.

Cyber Discovery is a week long experience for high school students. They learn applicable life skills through instruction, self-creativity, and teamwork. Louisiana Tech is proud to bring students this opportunity to enrich their academic background. This summer camp experience is the result of collaboration between faculty from engineering, computer science, mathematics, political science, performing arts, and architecture. Cyber Discovery has recently been selected as a national model by the Department of Homeland Securty for attracting students to new careers in cyber fields. 

NEW COURSE - 3D Printing
Large Format 3D Printing

I will offer a course on 3D printing during the Winter 2017-18 quarter. As part of this course, students will build a Tevo Tarantula 3D printer. We will learn about the major types of 3D printers that are currently available, we will learn how stepper motors are controlled, and how to model temperature conduction and convection. We will learn how to preprocess a 3D model file to prepare it for printing. We will learn how to write simple GCode in order to fine tune our designs. We will also learn a few post-processing techniques to make our printed parts look their best. 

We are currently looking for funding opportunities for large format (~4ft by 8ft by 4ft) 3D printing. In particular we are looking to build a multiheaded, FDM style printer for printing large objects. One of the first objects being the Eco Marathon competition vehicle. This project is still in the proposal phase and will be starting up in the Fall of 2017. 

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