Solar Concentrator Video

Above is a video of Jason Karp talking about the technology that won him top prize at Research Expo 2010.

Check out the list of departmental winners and honorable mentions here.

I'm excited to see what happens with this technology...which Karp et al published earlier this year in Optics Express. (Check out the PDF here).

Update (2:55 pm on April 20): the "post event" site for Research Expo 2010 is live.

Research Expo Poster Winners by Department

Congratulations to all six students who won top honors for the departmental category at Research Expo 2010.

Bioengineering
Poster title: “Real-Time Monitoring of Sustained Drug Release with Photonic Porous Silicon Particles”
Student: Elizabeth Chung Pui Wu
Faculty advisor: Michael Sailor

Computer Science and Engineering
Poster title: “Energy Management in Virtualized Environments”Additional student author: Gaurav Dhiman
Faculty advisor: Tajana Simunic-Rosing

Electrical and Computer Engineering
Poster title: “Planar Micro-Optic Solar Concentration”
Student: Jason Harris Karp
Faculty advisor: Joseph Ford

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Poster title: “Multifunctional Nanowire Systems for Drug Delivery”
Student: Karla Sue Brammer
Faculty advisor: Sungho Jin

NanoEngineering
Poster title: “An Early Point-of-Care Shock Diagnostic: Clinically Relevant Detection of Protease Activity in Whole Blood”
Student: Roy Brian Lefkowitz
Faculty advisors: Michael Heller and Geert Schmid-Schönbein

Structural Engineering
Poster title: “Nonlinear Ultrasonic Guided Waves for Health Monitoring of Prestressing Tendons in Post-Tensioned Concrete Structures”
Student: Claudio Nucera Faculty
Advisor: Francesco Lanza di Scalea

Science and Engineering Library Award for Best Use of the Literature
NanoEngineering
Poster title: “An Early Point-of-Care Shock Diagnostic: Clinically Relevant Detection of Protease Activity in Whole Blood”
Student: Roy Brian Lefkowitz
Faculty advisors: Michael Heller and Geert Schmid-Schönbein

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Poster title: “Solar Fuel From CO2: A Stand-Alone Off-Grid Device”
Student: Aaron John Sathrum
Faculty advisor: Clifford P. Kubiak

Honorable Mentions by Department (below):

HONORABLE MENTIONS
Bioengineering
Poster title: “Design and Characterization of an Injectable Pericardial Matrix Gel: A Potentially Autologous Scaffold for Cardiac Tissue Engineering”
Student: Sonya B Seif-Naraghi
Faculty: Karen Christman

Computer Science and Engineering
Poster title: “Localizing Objects In Images By Combining Contextual Cues”
Student: Carolina Galleguillos
Faculty: Serge Belongie and Gert Lanckriet

Electrical and Computer Engineering
Poster title: “Silicon Nanowire Phototransistors for Ultra High Responsivity Visible and Infrared Detection”
Students: Arthur Yasheng Zhang and Hongkwon Kim
Faculty: Yu-Hwa Lo

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Poster title: “New Studies and Observations Highlighting Alternative Techniques to Mitigate Runaway Electron Effects in Tokamak Rapid Shutdowns”
Student: Alexander Nevil Tronchin-James
Faculty: George Tynan

NanoEngineering
Poster title: “A Plausible Mechanism for H4-K16 Acetylation Triggered Unfolding of Chromatin”
Student: Darren Yang
Faculty: Gaurav Arya

Structural Engineering
Poster title: “Computational Fluid-Structure Interaction for Wind Energy Applications”
Student: Ming-Chen Hsu
Faculty: Yuri Bazilevs

jason karp video on its way

I'm about to export the first version of my interview with Jason Karp, the electrical engineering graduate student who won best poster at Research Expo 2010 at UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. Stay tuned!

Congrats to Jason Karp: Research Expo Grand Prize Winner

Congratulations to Jason Karp, the electrical engineering PhD student who won the top prize at Research Expo 2010.

His Project: a New Solar Concentrator Design

A new solar concentrator designed by electrical engineering Ph.D. student Jason Karp cuts the number of required photovoltaic cells and could lead to less expensive and more environmentally friendly solar installations. Existing high-efficiency solar cells incorporate optics to focus the sun hundreds of times and can deliver twice the power of rigid solar panels. But these systems typically use arrays of individual lenses that focus directly onto independent photovoltaic cells which all need to be aligned and electrically connected. In contrast, the new solar concentrator collects sunlight with thousands of small lenses imprinted on a common sheet. All these lenses couple into a flat “waveguide” which funnels light to a single photovoltaic cell. The engineers from the Photonic Systems Integration Laboratory led by electrical engineering professor Joseph Ford built a working prototype with just two primary optical components, thus reducing materials, alignment and assembly. This solar concentrator is compatible with high-volume, low-cost manufacturing.

It's Poster Judging Time! Research Expo 2010 poster session has begun!

I interviewed a bunch of students while they were setting up their posters this morning. Here is part of the first interview (30 seconds on YouTube)...more later...but now I'm off to the actual poster session. Hot posters are here...but who will win for best research poster this year???

Robot: Toy Potential

When a robot has "toy potential" you know it's gotta be cool.

Today at Research Expo, Mechanical engineering students from the Jacobs School will unveil a new and improved iFling, a fun, remote-controlled robot vehicle that can, among other tasks, pick up and throw ping pong balls. iFling was designed using a new 3D printer and has potential commercial use as a toy, according to professor Thomas Bewley.

Bewley's students will also showcase Switchblade and four other student-designed robots TODAY April 15 at the Jacobs School’s annual Research Expo April 15.

Read about other hot posters at Research Expo here.

Learn about coconut milk and nanoengineering for future acne treatments here.

Acne Coconut Oil and NanoBomb...the movie

Here is the short version of the video profile of the bioengineering graduate student who is creating a smart nano-bomb system for delivering a derivative of coconut oil to bacteria that cause common acne.





Below is the long version...for folks who can spare another 90 seconds in order to get some more details on how the system actually works.