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.

Racecar driver Cory Clay, a mechanical engineering technology student at the Columbus, Indiana, location of Purdue University’s Polytechnic Institute, got a chance to compete against legendary NASCAR driver Tony Stewart in a midget car race — and Clay took the checkered flag!

A utility company turned to Purdue Polytechnic’s Jason Ostanek and Luis Maldonado to deal with the potential of foul-smelling air near ground-level ventilation shafts for the DigIndy Tunnel System, a 28-mile network of huge sewage storage tunnels 250 feet below Indianapolis.

Wayne Ripberger (BS mechanical engineering technology ’73) had an exemplary career in the manufacturing industry. Ripberger’s Purdue degree sparked a 50-year career as a manufacturing engineer, working around the world for companies including Cummins, Toyota and John Deere.

Purdue Polytechnic’s Kokomo location now resides inside the newly renovated Inventrek Technology Park, which features expansive lab space for mechanical engineering technology and electrical engineering technology coursework and numerous other learning spaces. Students take advantage of seven times more workspace than was available at Purdue Polytechnic Kokomo’s previous location.

Purdue Polytechnic’s Design and Innovation Challenge, a showcase for students to incorporate human-centered design during the creation of working prototypes of new products, went virtual in 2020.

When COVID-19 made on-campus summer STEM camps impossible for middle-school students to attend in 2020, Purdue Polytechnic’s Anne Lucietto and Nancy Denton teamed with graduate students Brian Tedeschi and Julia Miller to devise “Techie Time,” a virtual five-day STEM camp.

Purdue Polytechnic’s Davin Huston and Mark French, along with Kathryn Smith, a former graduate student in Huston’s lab, have created a flexible, printed circuit board that makes electric guitars better for both players and manufacturers.

Nadeem Ali went on three internships while earning his mechanical engineering technology degree. Internships help “diversify your experience outside of your book-smarts” and make students especially attractive to future employers, he said.

Engineering technology and construction management technology students worked together to win second place in the Elementary School category at the Solar Decathlon Design Challenge.