Interlock House readied for October competition

Beginning October 8, Iowa State's Interlock House will be on display as part of the Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon competition on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. There it will compete against 19 other houses and be viewed by tens of thousands of spectators, as well as media worldwide. In preparation, the decathlon team with Aaron Brncich, civil and construction engineering graduate student, as project manager is currently deconstructing the house it designed and built in Ames. They will soon load it onto four tractor-trailers, move it 1,000 miles cross-country to Washington, D.C., and reconstruct it for the competition. (News updates)

Engineering enrollment exceeds 5,000

With 5,086 undergraduates majoring in engineering this fall, the College of Engineering has achieved a 25-year high in enrollment. The increase is 410 more students than last fall. The college is routinely among the top 10 in the nation for undergraduate enrollment. The biggest increases for 2009 are for resident freshmen (45) and resident transfers (39) followed by foreign transfers (36) and nonresident freshmen (29). The enrollment figures also show positive trends in gender and ethnic diversity. The number of females is 755, up from 681 in 2008. The number of underrepresented students is up 79 from last year and represents 8.6% of the engineering student body. (News release)

Wind Energy Manufacturing Lab to be established on campus

A grant from the Iowa Power Fund is helping to support development of the Wind Energy Manufacturing Laboratory on campus. The lab will feature the work of Matt Frank, Frank Peters, and John Jackman, all associate professors of industrial and manufacturing systems engineering, and Vinay Dayal, an associate professor of aerospace engineering. The grant will also support the research of five graduate students and several undergraduates. (News release)

Space station hosts Iowa State experiment

When Space Shuttle Discovery headed toward the International Space Station last month, Iowa State University's Rohit Trivedi took more than a casual interest. An experiment he designed more than 10 years ago to study crystal growth patterns in a microgravity environment was finally headed to its destined location onboard the International Space Station. Trivedi, an Anson Marston Distinguished Professor of Engineering in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, is now eagerly waiting for the day in November when real-time video of his experiment will begin being transmitted to his lab in Wilhelm Hall. (News release)

Washington Monthly gives Iowa State high marks

Iowa State ranks 32nd among 258 colleges and universities in the 2009 national university college rankings in Washington Monthly. The rankings rate schools on their contribution to the public good in three categories: improving social mobility, producing research, and promoting public service. Iowa State's highest markets were in federal work-study funds spent on service (4), science and engineering degrees awarded (33), ROTC (55), research expenditures (63), and faculty in national academies (79). Washington Monthly college guide

HABET team sets new altitude record

From left: Christine Jensen, AerE2, Davenport; Keegan Gartner, ME graduate student, Hastings, Minnesota; Emmanuel Marrero, AerE3, San Juan, Puerto Rico; Christopher Reis, EE3, Storm Lake; and Melissa Wiechert, AerE4, Iowa City.

When the HABET (High Altitude Balloon Experiments in Technology) team, from the Space Systems and Controls Lab, planned Mission 100, the purpose was straightforward—set a new altitude record. The mission was successful on September 5, 2009, when the balloon and its payload reached an altitude of 121,793 feet. That broke the previous Iowa State record of 118,352 feet. Iowa State is now in fifth place overall in the nation (see records list at Amateur Radio High Altitude Ballooning).

The HABET team executes seven to nine flights per year, but setting a new altitude record required special care, according to team member Melissa Wiechert. "The two most important challenges in successfully completing high-altitude balloon flights are that the payloads have to be lightweight in order to maximize achievable height, while the balloon must be filled properly to give the proper amount of lift, that is, enough that it will fly, but not so much that it will burst," she explains.

Rudolphi serves as AerE interim chair

Professor Thomas J. Rudolphi has assumed the role of interim chair in the Department of Aerospace Engineering. A member of the Iowa State faculty since 1979, Rudolphi served as AerE chair from 1996 to 2003. An open search for the chair position has begun with Arun Somani, professor and chair of electrical and computer engineering, as chairperson. Rudolphi succeeds Tom Shih, who was named head of aeronautics and astronautics at Purdue University in August.

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