During last spring's Tech Expo, Purdue Polytechnic seniors in the School of Engineering Technology showcased many ways they've "learned by doing" through projects for international industry partners to solve real-world engineering problems.

Purdue Polytechnic’s Bryan Hubbard developed a new heat exchanger technology to improve the thermal performance of industrial water-cooling towers. His new patented concept introduces a static electric charge into the plastic film pack media, which has the potential to increase the overall efficiency of power plants.

An interdisciplinary research team including Purdue Polytechnic’s Richard Voyles and Haoguang Yang created the Purdue Campus Patrol Robot, an autonomous robot to disinfect classrooms. The robot incorporates an entirely new air filtering system which they call the Bernoulli Air Filtration Module.

The University of Oklahoma (OU) announced plans to develop a Polytechnic Institute in Tulsa. Tomás Díaz de la Rubia, a former Purdue senior vice president now serving as OU’s vice president for research and partnerships, helped inspire the idea after witnessing Purdue Polytechnic’s successful transformation.

Purdue Polytechnic’s Mark Zimpfer and Luciana Debs developed a new YouTube channel dedicated to residential construction, bringing real-world lessons to classrooms in middle school, high school and college. The project is supported by a grant from the National Housing Endowment.

Sunghwan Lee, assistant professor of engineering technology, Michael Clevenger, engineering technology graduate student, Hyeonghun Kim, postdoctoral research assistant, and colleagues at the Korea Research Institute of Standard and Science identified a better way to directly fabricate sensors onto ready-made wearable items, such as clothing, gloves, or even disposable masks that can successfully extract bioinformation in real time, with remarkable precision. The research represents an advancement in the development of versatile healthcare devices printed directly onto ready-made clothing that can be worn comfortably by the patient, which ultimately will make these devices more effective.

Soft actuators, components in mechanical devices that enable movement, are inspired by biological systems but can’t yet replicate the complexity of the human body. Purdue Polytechnic’s David Gonzalez Rodriguez is researching the creation of 3D-printed flexible structures that can function as soft actuators and sensors.

Scott Bess, the founding executive director of the Purdue Polytechnic High School (PPHS) network, oversees a growing network of high schools that immerse underserved students and their families in a new educational experience, preparing them for success in college and/or the workforce.

Because of inhospitable living conditions in outer space, some of the galaxy’s next explorers will be robots. To ascertain the caliber of the world’s robotics experts, the Centennial Challenges Program at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) teamed with the Space Center Houston, the official visitor center of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, for the Space Robotics Challenge. A team led by Byung-Cheol “B.C.” Min, associate professor in Purdue Polytechnic’s Department of Computer and Information Technology, is a finalist in NASA’s robotics challenge.

Purdue Polytechnic students Zackary Roth, Brock Langley and Jack Williams have received grant funding from an organization that supports student inventors to help market the Seal Spoon, a spoon with a closable cover designed to help people with Parkinson’s disease.