The Lasers and Materials Engineering Groups
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PORTLAND, Maine — Students at the University of Southern Maine (USM) are building prosthetic arms that could help amputees in the Dominican Republic.
Last fall, the Portland Rotary Club reached out to USM’s Maker Innovation Studio (MIST), which is part of the Michael E. Dubyak Center for Digital Science and Innovation, located on the Portland campus.
Professor Asheesh Lanba at the University of Southern Maine says a doctor at Maine Medical Center reached out to him to see if his mechanical engineering department could make PPE, not just for their workers, but others outside the state.
He then asked his students if they wanted to volunteer, and two stepped up to help.
PORTLAND — When University of Southern Maine undergraduate mechanical engineering major Berkley Elias first heard about the havoc the coronavirus was causing nationwide, he figured he could best do his part by sheltering in place. Then, last month, Maine Medical Center approached USM about producing protective equipment to help hospitals facing a shortage.
Elias, a work study student at USM’s Maker Innovation Studio, knew he could do more to help.
Did you ever have a teacher that just knew how to make learning fun? Some teachers are great at improvising, going off the textbook and making the classroom feel more current, and less like it’s a place where abstract concepts are slowly drilled into students’ minds.
One professor at the University of Southern Maine in the U.S. recently did just that by testing his students on concepts such as bonding, crystal structures, solid imperfections, and diffusion via the Marvel Universe and X-Men.