Engineering scientists develop new tools to make superconductor particle accelerators safer 

In 2008, the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland exploded. This is one of the most powerful particle accelerators ever built. A faulty connection caused some magnets to overheat and melt, triggering an explosion of pressurized helium gas. Accidents like this are very dangerous and are very costly in terms of time, money and of course the possibility of human fatality. 

Growing up, Jackson Dixon didn’t believe higher education would be his trajectory. As a kid, he was raised on farmland and assumed he’d tend the land like his father. However, Jackson had always taken a fascination to the mechanics of the farm tools he’d often use.

“I liked watching all the mechanical linkages working on the farm with the equipment and everything,” Dixon said. “It always seemed really cool to me. I’ve always wanted to be on the inside of creating that kind of stuff.”

With new discoveries and investment in a new bipedal robot, researchers at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering are making headway into understanding and replicating biologically-inspired movement that may be the key to major advances in robotics to help improve humankind.

FAMU-FSU Engineering student Charlie Edbrooke is still learning about the dynamic opportunities available to him in his department. As a second-year mechanical engineering student from Miami, Edbrooke is enrolled in core classes for his major—statics and thermodynamics--and getting a better vision of the possibilities as a future engineer. As the child of an engineering alumnus through Florida State in the ‘90s, Edbrooke always knew he wanted to attend FAMU-FSU Engineering.

Two FAMU-FSU Engineering students were part of the Florida State University (FSU) team who won gold this year at the 2019 iGEM Giant Jamboree in Boston. The competition included 360 teams who showcased their research and competed for awards.

Joshua Legis is a third-year mechanical engineering student from Miami. Growing up, Legis always found an avid interest in technology. In middle school, he loved to dismantle and reassemble machines to learn how the everyday items around him worked. During his freshman year of high school, Legis joined the robotics club. The satisfaction he gained to be able to create a robot from scratch inspired him to pursue mechanical engineering.

For most people, the loss of refrigeration when the power goes out isn’t much more than an inconvenience. But for those whose critical medicines need to stay cold, lack of refrigeration can be life threatening. Now a class at the FAMU/FSU College of Engineering is determined to solve the problem.

Understanding the usefulness of one of the world’s weirdest fluids

After pioneering research into the properties of superfluid helium, known as He II, researchers at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering cryogenics lab are now developing practical applications using what principal investigator Wei Guo, Ph.D. calls this “very bizarre” substance.

Some of us learned about the three standard heat transfer methods— conduction, convection and radiation— in physics class.

In 2018, engineering dean J. Murray Gibson initiated the Dean’s Engineering Fellows Program, a new graduate funding area facilitated through the Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies. The initiative aims to enhance the quality and number of engineering Ph.D. students at the college.

As the federal space shuttle program was winding down, Florida movers and shakers sought a way to continue to develop cutting-edge technology in aerospace and aviation. Florida aimed to maintain its leadership role in space exploration—that it held for decades through NASA Kennedy, while also training the next generation of scientists and engineers at the state’s leading universities.