TCNJ

e College of New Jersey ANNUAL REPORT 2017–2018 SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING CONNECT 4 CHALLENGE Fox 29 correspondent Hank Flynn traveled to the School of Engineering robot lab in November to challenge Baxter the Robot to a game of Connect 4. His lighthearted story spotlighted the serious work being done by student programmers to get their mechanical counterparts to behave like humans. "We try and create algorithms that the robots will follow," said Theresa Pham '18, in Flynn's report. "That's something that applies to any area of programming, trying to get the computer to think a certain way." Flynn walked away the winner but was admittedly impressed by what he saw, concluding that "we'll be working for them someday," referring to the students, not the robots. Photo courtesy Hank Flynn More than a dozen years after Hurricane Katrina, the rebuilding work continues in New Orleans. In January, 20 members of TCNJ's Humanitarian Engineering Club traveled to the Crescent City, where they helped local homeowners with demolition, repair, and painting projects. "Our focus as Humanitarian Engineering is to fundraise and go on trips where we can offer our skills and abilities to a community in order to help them," said Amulya Veldanda '18, the group's president. "We felt good helping out, and it was really great to be able to talk directly to the homeowners. They all really valued our help. We could see the appreciation in their eyes." Past projects have involved helping to build a water treatment system in Thailand and designing an expansion of a medical clinic in El Salvador. HUMANITARIAN ENGINEERING IN NOLA Dean Steven Schreiner was on hand on October 12 to cut the ribbon on the college's new STEM Building. It houses the School of Engineering's Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering, and contains state-of-the-art laboratories and prototyping facilities. The Biomedical Engineering Research Suite allows for advanced design and analysis in microscopy, physiological data acquisition and modeling, tissue and biomaterial mechanics and characterization, neural engineering, tissue engineering, and cardiovascular fluid mechanics. The research facilities include the first ones on campus designed for work with human-derived tissues and cells. The Mechanical Engineering Design Studio enables students to fully develop their complex designs from concept through validation. Specialized spaces for prototyping, systems validation, material testing, and other advanced testing support both student and faculty research and design efforts. The Robotics Laboratory is used for design, research, and studies that span across both software and hardware design. Additional spaces include a Thermo-Fluids Lab, a Solid Mechanics and Vibration/System Dynamics Lab, a Metal Fabrications and Assembly Workshop, a Physiology Lab, and many informal learning spaces, including student commons, open study rooms, and closed study rooms. STEM GRAND OPENING

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