President Obama Hosts White House Science Fair

Today, President Obama hosted the White House Science Fair, bringing students from all across the country to demonstrate a wide variety of science interests and knowledge in our national schools.

Team Rocket (All-girl) from Maryland

Innovative students representing 30 states will display their ideas and inventions for the President and the wider viewing public. If you'd like a complete list of presenters, here you go.

President Obama also released significant details outlining several new education initiatives today. Not all of them will be presented here, and I will refer readers to the full White House press release.

The initiatives present continued funding, enhanced funding, or new plans to augment science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. Some of the new STEM goals include:

• STEM Teacher Quality Partnership (TQP) grants.
• Nationwide effort to engage Hispanic youth in STEM.
• Global initiative to connect STEM students from around the world.
• Expansion of STEM-based AmeriCorps.
• Partnership with NASA and Khan Academy to provide free, online STEM education.
• ESRI to provide ArcGIS Online for Education accounts to every K-12 school in the United States.

The President has also issued a "Call To Action" to all existing business partners, including Time/Warner, the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC), and the newly established White House Maker Corps.

For more details, please check the White House press release here.

Murray State Receives PICMatch Grant

The Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Jesse D. Jones College of Science, Engineering and Technology (JCSET), was recently awarded a Preparation for Industrial Careers in the Mathematical Sciences (PIC Math) grant by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA). PICMath is a program to prepare "mathematical sciences students for industrial careers by engaging them in research problems that come directly from industry." (MAA.org)

Dr. Renee Fister

"A strong component of PIC Math involves students working as a group on a semester-long undergraduate research problem from business, industry, or government." (MAA.org)

"PIC Math provides faculty with content for a semester-long, credit-bearing course focused on solving industrial problems. Each faculty participant will assemble a team of three to five students and work with them to develop their problem solving, teamwork, and communication skills. Each team will choose from one of five problems that are realistic yet suitable for undergraduate students." (MAA.org)

In preparation for administrating the grant, Dr. Renee Fister will travel to an orientation seminar in Salt Lake City, Utah in early June 2014.

The students will begin working within the PIC Math grant program Spring 2015.

Kristen Garcia: IEEE Student Featured on Murray State's Website

Kristin Garcia is an Engineering Physics major, Mathematics minor, from Milan, Tennessee. One of Kristin's major accomplishments was helping to reform Murray State's IEEE student chapter in 2011. Ms. Garcia is a junior at Murray State.

reddit's Alexis Ohanian Speak at 2014 Next Big Thing Conference

On Monday, April 28th, Alexis Ohanian was the keynote speaker at the 2014 Next Big Thing Conference at Murray State University. Alexis Ohanian, graduate of UVA, is the co-founder of the social media website, reddit. Alexis was invited to address young people participating in the Next Big Thing Conference, an event inviting young entrepreneurs from western Kentucky to Murray State and allowing them the opportunity to present new and unique ideas and inventions. The event is sponsored by the Innovation and Commercialization Center (ICC) at Murray State University.

Alexis also has a new book out, detailing the efforts he and his co-founder, Steve Huffman, encountered while developing reddit. "Without Their Permission: The 21st Century Will Be Made, Not Managed" provides commentary and insights to people looking for advice and knowledge in working through their own start-up woes.

(Pictured is Alexis Ohanian and Murray State's Rudy Ottway, IET professor (JCSET))

Rudy Ottway Receives 2014 Regents Excellence in Teaching Award

On April 17th, 2014, Professor Rudy Ottway, Industry and Engineering Technology (IET) was awarded the 2014 Regents Award for Teaching Excellence. 

Mr. Ottway instructs 3D printing, fabrication and design with the Jesse D. Jones College of Science, Engineering and Technology.

Videos of My. Ottway's 3D printing and design classes can be found on YouTube.

Joshua Hutson Conducts STLP Workshop

On March 17th, Joshua Hutson demonstrated his PrintrBot Simple as part of the Student Technology Leadership Program (STLP) at Murray Elementary School. Joshua also led the students through a Code.org programming tutorial.

The teacher-advisor for STLP informed Joshua there is a desire for more workshops like the one he has scheduled. The advisor also expressed interest in more projects similar to Joshua's and may need more Murray State faculty, staff, or students to present their efforts to STLP.

The Printrbot Simple is an affordable, entry-level 3D printer available from Printrbot. Printrbot Simple can be ordered as a kit or pre-assembled and includes only what is needed to get started in the world of 3D printing. (Source: printrbot.com/)

Code.org is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to expanding participation in computer science technology by women and students of color, but believes every student in every school should have the opportunity to learn computer programming. (Source: Code.org/about)

Update

"We had fun until the internet went down. Kandi Dawson the STLP teacher sponsor and parent volunteers were a great help." (J. Hutson)

 

Murray State IEEE Chapter Heads to IEEE SoutheastCon 2014

March 14th - March 15th, 2014 brings the annual SoutheastCon. Held at the University of Kentucky, the IEEE SoutheastCon brings together IEEE teams from around the Commonwealth to participate in a hardware-based competition, i.e. build a robot to accomplish some goal.

This year's Student Hardware Competition brings a challenge very appropriate for both Kentucky and the time of year. The 2014 challenge involves designing a robot to shoot a projectile from various distances to emulate the playing and shooting dynamics of basketball.

What better challenge than one aligned with basketball, SEC tournament play, and NCAA March Madness?

The objective will to build a a robot that operates on a simulated basketball court. The robot must follow three lines with randomly positioned shooting blocks and then fire a dart while positioned on top of the shooting block. Winners will be decided by number of points earned by completing goals and completion time so the highest scoring robots will be both fast and precise.

Friday and Saturday, teams will assemble and test their robots. Saturday afternoon, teams will compete, culminating in the awards ceremony Saturday night. Throughout each day, other activities are available, ranging from leadership training workshops, workshops on renewable energy, and RaspberryPi tutorials.