Five FAMU-FSU Engineering students land prestigious NSF Fellowships

Five FAMU-FSU College of Engineering students received the esteemed Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF) from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The NSF-GRF program recognizes and supports exceptional graduate students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines who are pursuing research-based masters and doctoral degrees. 

MagLab cryogenics researchers co-author new method for visualizing superfluid turbulence

Researchers from the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, in conjunction with the team from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, recently developed a novel method for producing tracer particles for turbulence research in liquid helium at temperatures just 1-2 degrees above absolute zero. The technique, which used neutrons to produce molecular tracers in liquid helium, was outlined in a paper in the April edition of Physical Review Letters and was selected as the Editor’s Suggestion. 

Open configuration options FAMU-FSU Engineering Senior Design project Virtual Lens wins “Most Viable” in 2020 InNOLEvation Challenge

Senior design engineering students from the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering presented their project, Virtual Lens’ at the InNOLEvation® Challenge this spring and were honored for the “Most Viable” project during the event which earned them $4,000 for their effort.  Other honorees from the college included AirWise, Sway Aid and JAMR Modular Music Workstation.

Weston Dudley nominated for university Undergraduate Humanitarian of the Year award

Weston Dudley was nominated by the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering for Florida State University's 2020 President's Undergraduate Humanitarian of the Year Award. A senior mechanical engineering student with a minor in mathematics, he in a field of 11 FSU students from across the university nominated for the award.

Superfuids may merge via corkscrew mechanism

Scientists at the Florida State University-headquartered National High Magnetic Field Laboratory have made a discovery in fluid dynamics that is truly worth uncorking a bottle of fine wine.

Wei Guo, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, and MagLab graduate research assistant Toshiaki Kanai published a new study in the journal Physical Review Letters that sheds light on how quantum fluids – also called superfluids –merge. It turns out they use a corkscrew mechanism.

A quest for high fields for superconductors

If you’ve ever had a magnetic resonance imaging scan (MRI), you have benefited from the research done at the Applied Superconductivity Center (ASC), which has been part of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL) and the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering since 2006. In the 1980s, while at UW-Madison, David Larbalestier, an engineering professor, and Peter Lee, Ph.D., an ASC scientist, developed the technology industry still uses today to produce the Nb-Ti superconducting wire that creates the magnetic field in MRI systems.

From concept to Psyche

The six-member team validated their prototype design at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, which supports the 2022 Psyche Mission—a quest to send a spacecraft to the eponymous asteroid to collect data. The team created a prototype of the Xenon Flow Controller, designed to provide efficient flow rates of xenon gas to the Hall-effect thruster, an ion thruster that will propel the spacecraft.