• A New Way to Look at College of Engineering Search Results
• Great Granddaughter of Mortimer Cooley Visits Campus
• Researchers and Students Test Winds in Michigan Stadium
• Students Travel to Ecuador to Aid Community
• Michigan Engineering Has Its Say About Katrina
• Michigan Engineering Shines in Micro, Nanotechnology
• MLK "DO SOMETHING DAY"

Grokker groups search results by topic and displays them in a visual map.

Engineering recently partnered with Groxis, the developer of the Grokker visual search application. The union added a visual search function to the Michigan Engineering website so that site users have the option of viewing search results in topically organized visual maps that make it easy to explore, save and share large sets of data.

Grokker's clustering engines identify common characteristics in results and group them according to topic rather than in pages of links. According to one student's blog, Grokker is most useful for ìexploring large sets of disparate data, and when youíre not exactly sure what youíre searching for.

R.J. Pittman (BSE CompE í91), cofounder and CEO of Groxis, said, ìThe great thing about Michigan is that the commitment to delivering cutting-edge technology extends far beyond the classrooms and labs. It was one of the things I liked best about Michigan, so it's extremely gratifying to see Grokker become part of the Collegeís tool set.

Using bubbles, students mapped the winds
in Michigan Stadium.
PHOTO BY SCOTT GALVIN

Engineers are individuals who have solid opinions about the physical world ó they usually donít care which way the winds blow. But they certainly cared on a September day in Michigan Stadium where more than 400 students, graduate student instructors and faculty came together to map the winds that rip through the Big House.

The teams of experimenters came fully armed with the latest in weather technology and some low-tech (but effective) gear, such as balloons and bubbles that made the movements of winds easy to see and track. The objective of the experiment: to glean information that might help the University protect the stadium from fires or airborne pollutants and, on a whimsical note, might help a placekicker nail the uprights in rough weather.

At the center of the football field, Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Sciences faculty members set up a meteorological tower and weather balloon to record the vertical and horizontal wind conditions. Blue balloons, tied to seats throughout the stadium, acted as markers to indicate wind directions. At the south end of the field, dozens of students dipped rings into bottles of soapy water, then blew bubbles into the air to make it possible to follow the currents.

Other students were part of a ìhuman dispersionî experiment in which they released neutrally buoyant balloons and, ten seconds later, captured their own balloons and left markers to show how winds had moved across the field. In the waning moments of the experiment, students holding balloons on twenty-foot-long strings stood in assigned positions to mark the different wind paths. The experiment was undeniably unusual and fun, but the results were inconclusive. Nevertheless, there are already plans for coming back next year with better experiments and more equipment. Perry Samson, professor and associate chair of the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences, said itís not the results that really matter. ìItís the act of trying to experiment that went well.

This was the environment that Michigan Engineering students found when they showed up in Quito as part of a contingent of U-M physicians and students who volunteered for a three-month stint during which they provided medical treatment, tutored children and constructed community facilities. College of Engineering students worked with an Ecuadorian engineer to build a community shower.

Undergraduate Heejung Hong came back to North Campus with a feeling of satisfaction. ìI got to contribute something in a very practical way,î he said, ìand when I left, I knew this facility was there for them. It was my reward to know I helped them.

New community shower built by Michigan Engineering students.

Katopodes

Katrina, one of the most powerful hurricanes to strike American soil, was a national disaster that raised a lot of questions concerning engineering and readiness. CoE faculty weighed in on several of them.

After winds of up to 150 miles per hour ripped through structures along the Louisiana coast, Jim Wight, a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, said that the modern high-rises ìdid okay, but it was the low-rise, non-engineered buildings that suffered. The tide coming in the front end of the hurricane wiped out a lot of wood structures.î

Civil and Environmental Engineeringís chair, Professor Nik Katopodes, noted that the American Society of Civil Engineers grades the U.S. infrastructure every year. ìFor the last five years, the country has gotten a ëD,íî he said, referring to the inadequacies of the levees. ìAnd the prediction of the hurricane was state-of-the-art.î

Professor Perry Samson, associate chair of the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences, added that officials ìknew how tall the levees were. They ran the models; they knew what would happen if this kind of storm came in. What are we gambling with next?

Small Times surveyed more than 100 U.S. universities to track research, educational opportunities, resources, commercialization and industry outreach. U-M, including the College of Engineering, got high marks across the board:

Research: No. 1; No. 2 (tie with University of Texas, Austin)

Education: No. 4; nano - No. 4

Facilities: No. 3 (tie with University of Texas, Austin)

Industry outreach: No. 3 (tie with Iowa State University)

COVER IMAGE COURTESY OF SMALL TIMES

The March 24 North Campus MLK "Do Something Day" gathered about 75 underrepresented students from Cass Tech, Martin Luther King and Renaissance high schools in Detroit to give them information and encouragement to pursue a U-M education. The outreach program featured messages from the dayís co-sponsors: the College of Engineering, the School of Art and Design, the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, and the School of Music. Chemical Engineering Professor Levi Thompson offered encouraging and motivational messages to the students, who then broke into groups according to their interests. Those who explored engineering got a good look at the 3-D lab and the audio/video studios.

The 3-D lab tour exposed students to computer modeling and animation; the audio/video studio tour focused on the intricacies of the engineering of sound recordings and video productions.

Students also learned about financial aid and had the opportunity to collect additional information from the College of Engineering and other units.