Brown School of Engineering Hosts Eastman Conference

The Brown University School of Engineering is hosting the 2012 Lester Eastman Conference on High Performance Devices from August 7-9, 2012. The conference will include sessions on green technology; high speed devices; infrared photonics; terahertz technology; power conversion, switching, and transmission; and next generation devices.

The conference will have three plenary speakers: Professor Umesh Mishra (USCB) on Recent Advances in High Frequency Semiconductor Devices; Professor Hideo Ohno (Tohoku Univ., Japan) on Spintronic Devices for VLSI; and Dr. Kamiar Karimi (Boeing Corporation) on High Power Semiconductor Devices.

Larry Larson, Dean of the School of Engineering at Brown, will give a talk on the “Internet of Things”.

The conference is being organized locally by Domenico Pacifici, assistant professor of engineering at Brown. The general chair of the conference is Professor Paul Chow of RPI.

For more information, please go to: http://www.leconf.com/

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Do girls need lacrosse helmets?

Joseph Crisco, professor of orthopaedics, wanted to measure the impact of hits to the head in girls’ lacrosse. He invited some players into his lab to take some shots at a test dummy. The data could inform an eventual standard for girls’ and women’s lacrosse.

A little more to the left
To analyze what happens in a girls' lacrosse game when
stick meets head, Joseph Crisco equipped a test dummy
with accelerometers and invited players to take some shots.
Credit: Mike Cohea/Brown University

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Dr. Joseph "Trey" Crisco, the Henry F. Lippitt Professor of Orthopaedics and Director of the Bioengineering Lab, recently invited female lacrosse players ranging in age from 12 to 28 into his Rhode Island Hospital lab to swing their sticks for a project titled “Head Accelerations from Various Stick Checks in Girls’ Lacrosse.”

The research, funded by US Lacrosse, the national governing body of men’s, women’s and youth lacrosse, and by the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment, will provide data on how the head is accelerated after being hit by a stick. Video analysis of players taking whacks at a helmeted dummy, taken at 1,000 frames per second, could inform an eventual standard for girls’ and women’s lacrosse headgear.

For years, Crisco has studied head impacts in sports such as football, hockey, and lacrosse by embedding accelerometers in the helmets of collegiate teams and gathering data from actual practices and competition.

by David Orenstein

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Quantifying the magnetic nature of light emission

In collaboration with The Institute of Photonics Sciences (ICFO) in Barcelona, Brown School of Engineering researchers in the lab of Rashid Zia ’01, Manning Assistant Professor of Engineering, have just published an article in in Nature Communications. Visiting scholar Tim Taminiau from the lab of Niek van Hulst at ICFO worked alongside Brown engineering graduate student Sinan Karaveli to demonstrate how the natural magnetic dipole transitions in lanthanide ions can be used to access optical-frequency magnetic fields.

Authors: Tim H. Taminiau, Sinan Karaveli, Niek F. van Hulst, and Rashid Zia

Examining how light emission is distributed in energy-
and momentum-space can reveal fundamental
information about optical transitions. This image
shows an energy-momentum spectrum of europium ions.
Following bright emissions lines, you may notice
several points where the contrast inverts - these
changes are direct visualizations of the opposite
symmetries of electric and magnetic dipoles transitions.

Abstract:
Tremendous advances in the study of magnetic light-matter interactions have recently been achieved using man-made nanostructures that exhibit and exploit an optical magnetic response. However, naturally occurring emitters can also exhibit magnetic resonances in the form of optical-frequency magnetic-dipole transitions. Here we quantify the magnetic nature of light emission using energy- and momentum-resolved spectroscopy, and leverage a pair of spectrally close electric- and magnetic-dipole transitions in trivalent europium to probe vacuum fluctuations in the electric and magnetic fields at the nanometre scale. These results reveal a new tool for nano-optics: an atomic-size quantum emitter that interacts with the magnetic component of light.

To access the full article, please go to:
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v3/n7/full/ncomms1984.html

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Venture for America fellow Tim Dingman '11 hired by Accio Energy

Accio Energy (Ann Arbor, Mich.) is taking on one of the first Venture for America fellows this month, hiring Tim Dingman '11, an electrical engineering graduate from Brown University.

Venture for America is launching its inaugural class of fellows this summer, pairing 40 fresh college graduates with start-ups in economically challenged regions. The New York City-based non-profit is modeled after Teach for America where it pairs top talent from U.S. universities with innovative start-ups growing in urban areas, such as New Orleans, Las Vegas, Cincinnati and Providence, Rhode Island. The idea is to give college grads an open door into entrepreneurship in the hopes they will launch their own start-ups in their host cities one day.

Metro Detroit companies are receiving 11 of these fellows, and Accio Energy is the only firm from Ann Arbor to receive one. The alternative energy start-up is reinventing the wind energy generation with new technology that creates clean energy from static electricity generated from the wind.

"The novelty of it combined with the size of the company were two huge draws," says Dingman.

Dingman also founded his own start-up, which makes a showerhead efficiency upgrade for dorm rooms. He has been interested in developing clean tech for most if his college career, but wanted to get his professional start working for a young company creating disruptive technology.

"There is a lot of energy there," Dingman says. "There is a lot of room for innovation which is what I was looking for in my placement."

Source: Tim Dingman, fellow with Venture for America
Writer: Jon Zemke

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Joseph Calo Named a Fellow of the American Chemical Society

Joseph Calo, Professor Emeritus at the Brown School of Engineering, has been named a Fellow of the American Chemical Society (ACS). Calo is one of 96 fellows in the 2012 class and will be honored at the society’s national meeting in Philadelphia in August.

A founder of the chemical engineering program at Brown, Calo was honored for his research contributions in chemical kinetics and transport phenomena as applied to carbon materials, environmental characterization/remediation, and energy conversion.

He served as treasurer, councilor, technical program secretary and representative of the Fuel Chemistry (now Energy and Fuels, ENFL) Division to the Multidisciplinary Program Planning Group (MPPG), and Divisional Activities Committee (DAC) member of ACS.

"I'd like to congratulate Professor Calo on this spectacular achievement,” said Dean Larry Larson. “Becoming a Fellow of the ACS is a recognition of a lifetime of technical contributions and service to the American Chemical Society. Professor Calo's contributions to Brown and to Chemical Engineering have been and continue to be extraordinary."

The fellows program began in 2009 as a way to recognize and honor ACS members for outstanding achievements in and contributions to science, the profession, and ACS.

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LEGO robots make great teachers

A partnership between Brown’s Science Center and the Paul Cuffee Middle School gave 10 young student hands-on instruction in the finer points of computer programming and engineering using LEGO® robots as the teaching tool. Brown engineering students Raymon Baek '14 and Michael Lazos '15 were the instructors for the program.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Like sumo wrestlers, two LEGO® robots made their way around an oval ring, grabbing, swatting at each other, and trying with great gusto to push the other robot out of the ring to win the match. Ten young boys — third, fourth, and fifth graders — at the Paul Cuffee Middle School in Providence cheered on their creations, watching in delight as their aggressor responded to pre-programmed commands and light sensors to make their way around the ring in pursuit of the opponent. At each turn, parents and volunteer instructors joined in the cheering at the school’s cafeteria on Friday, July 20th. It was the culmination of a three-week pilot program designed to pique children’s interest in engineering and computer science.

Building a sumo warrior block by block
LEGO® programmers, from left, Aidan Marinelli, Jose Pagan,
and Luke Taylor watch as their team's robot is attacked
by a competitor. It was a sumo-style robotic battle.
Credit: All photos by Mike Cohea/Brown University 

The LEGO® robotic program was a partnership between Brown’s Science Center and the Paul Cuffee Middle School. Ten student participants were divided into two teams — the Panthers and the Demons of Nothingness — and instructed in the finer points of computer programming and engineering using LEGO® robots as the teaching tool. Students used a kit that not only contained LEGO® pieces but robots’ “brains,” which were connected to laptops so students could program the brains to respond to light, touch, ultrasonic, sound, color, temperature, accelerometer, compass, and radio-frequency identification sensors.

Brown students Mike Lazos, a computer engineering concentrator, and Raymon Baek, whose concentration is in mechanical engineering, helped the students design, build and program robots for four hours every day during the three-week summer program. According to instructor Baek the program was a tremendous success.

“The kids were very bright and went beyond our expectations,” Baek said. “We always finished the planned curriculum a lot quicker than expected, which kept Mike and me improvising to stay ahead of the students.”

Keeping a step ahead
Instructors Raymon Baek, left, and Michael Lazos
were surprised at how quickly students mastered
material. In the final battle, the instructors’ own
robot was thrown for a loss.

The students used visual programming software with easily readable icons and distinct colors for each type of tile. For example, movement tiles would tell the robot to move and sensor tiles would tell the program to rely on a specific sensor. The program used wait statements (e.g., wait for a certain sound level or touch sensor to be activated), switch statements (e.g., if the light sensor detects a dark area, move right; move left for a bright area), and loops. These commands made it possible for the robots to compete in the sumo wrestling challenge and an obstacle course.

The students had to be creative about using sensors to follow a zigzag path through the obstacle course, navigating through various boxes, capturing colored balls from a central area, and bringing them back to their starting points. The Panthers easily won the obstacle course because they built a robot that had a robotic arm that pulled nearly all the balls back to its starting point in one trial.

To the victor, the spoils
The robot designed by the Demons of Nothingness
outlasted all competitors.

As for the battle arena, the Demons of Nothingness won because their robot was very bulky and stable. “Mike and I decided to surprise them by introducing our own robot that we assumed was invincible,” said Baek. “We had the three robots fight it out in the ring. To our surprise, our robot was pushed out of the ring and the Demons of Nothingness reigned victorious.”

During the three-week program, the instructors gained some insight about the challenges of teaching. “The boys loved to build, but the programming, which required them to sit still and concentrate was a challenge. They need to get up and run around every so often to burn off some energy,” said Baek.

In this pilot effort, all participants including the students, teachers, learning concept, and execution proved to be a perfect match.

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Brown conducts helmet study for girls lacrosse

Joseph "Trey" Crisco, Henry Frederick Lippitt Professor of Orthopaedic Research and Director of the Bioengineering Lab, who has done pioneering research with concussions and football helmets is now studying girl's and women's lacrosse, which does not require helmets. 

Crash-test dummies subjected to a barrage of sticks to the head may help settle the debate over whether helmets should be required in girl's lacrosse.

There has been increased concern over concussions in a sport that prohibits the use of hard helmets, while soft headgear in the girls' game is allowed. Hard helmets are required in the men's version of the game.

Brown University in Rhode Island will conduct a study during the third week of July to try to determine whether helmets will help protect girls from concussions caused by stick-to-head contact, and if so, what type.

"Right now, there is no standard for head protection in the women's game," said Ann Kitt Carpenetti, the managing director of game administration for US Lacrosse, the sport's governing body. "There is an allowance in our rules for soft headgear, but no testing has been done and little or no research."

The issue of requiring helmets in girl's lacrosse, at the high school and college levels, remains a hot-button issue. Many of the players and coaches fear that mandatory helmet use, especially of the hard-shell variety, would make their sport too physical and more like the boys game. But some in the medical profession are fearful of the danger of concussions and are in favor of required helmet use.

Females use more 'finesse'

"The girls' sport was meant to be a finesse sport, an athletic sport, and not a power sport or a brute-force sport," said Shoreham-Wading River coach Mary Ann Bergmann. "US Lacrosse and the referees' associations need to come together and figure out what's best for the sport."

Long Island, which has about 2,000 girls playing lacrosse on 104 high school teams, was the focus of the debate last spring, when Alexandra Fehmel, a star player on Bergmann's team, began playing with a soft helmet designed by a family friend. Before wearing the soft helmet, Fehmel had suffered two concussions playing lacrosse.

Fehmel, whose team won the Class C state championship in June, said wearing the soft helmet "has definitely helped me with my confidence. It protects me from stick-to-head injuries and any concussion I might get from that. I'm not scared to go to goal anymore. I'm not afraid to be aggressive."

Could the results of this summer's testing be the first step toward requiring helmets?

"I would not say that helmet use is inevitable. I would say that what's inevitable is that there will be a standard, hopefully by next year," said Carpenetti.

She said that US Lacrosse, in conjunction with the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment, which established national standards for football and baseball helmets, has funded the research project at Brown.

Project director Joseph "Trey" Crisco, a professor of orthopedics at Brown, said his study's goal "is to try to understand what head accelerations girls receive during games. How hard is the head being impacted by ball or stick?"

He said he had hoped to use sensors to measure that impact, but there was no place to effectively attach the sensors on players' heads.

"So we decided to use dummies, like they use in car crash simulations," Crisco said. "We have a model and we will have girls lacrosse players from the [Rhode Island] area come into our lab and whack away from different angles. They'll be whacking on the top of the 'head' and the side of the 'head.' They'll use the tip, the shaft and the middle of the stick so we can determine the severity of stick checks."

Crisco noted that the head forms are gender-neutral, "but they do have sizes, and we're using the smaller size."

Crisco said that once the data is compiled, "it will help US Lacrosse determine the type of helmets or whether there is even a need for them."

Crisco said results will require four to six weeks to be analyzed, and he estimates it will take several months before the report is ready.

One player's decision

For Fehmel, the question of requiring helmets has already been answered. She said she favors requiring soft helmets but not hard ones.

"Hard helmets would hurt players even more, just from bumping into each other," she said.

Bergmann, who currently is playing lacrosse in Europe where no headgear is worn, said she isn't sure where she stands on the issue of helmets.

"If you give everyone helmets, is the game going to become more aggressive?" she asked. "That's why I'm still in between."

Dr. Karl Friedman, Nassau County's supervising physician for football and lacrosse championships, is not a helmet advocate. "We don't need the helmet," he said. "We don't want to change the game. . . . The more equipment you put on them, the more you can let them play because now the safety is covered by the equipment. Absolutely they'll be more careless with their sticks . They'll be more fearless and the referees will loosen up."

Getting a second opinion

However, there are those in the medical community who feel strongly that hard-shell, boys-style lacrosse helmets are not only essential in the girls' game, but inevitable.

"When rules for girls lacrosse were written, they were written to keep the ball and stick out of the sphere of the head," said Dr. Jack Marzec, team physician for West Islip and East Islip high schools and consulting orthopedic physician for the Long Island Lizards professional men's lacrosse team.

"Girls are getting quicker, stronger, more aggressive," he added. "They're looking for scholarships and they want to win, just like the boys. I am adamant that hard helmets must be instituted in girls lacrosse because it's impossible to keep the stick and ball off the head."

Nationally known concussion expert Dr. Micky Collins, of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, said he can't make up his mind whether requiring female players to wear helmets is a good idea.

"I'm sitting on the fence," he said. "We know girls are more at risk for concussions. . . . There are a lot of issues on the table here. The only way to answer these questions is to do the research and find out, scientifically, where we're at. There is no good science leading us right now."

Originally published in Newsday
by Bob Herzog
with Stephen Haynes and James Crepea

RULES FOR GIRLS

Players must wear a mouthpiece and protective goggles. They may wear a soft padded helmet but not hard-shell headgear.

Checking is permitted on the head of the lacrosse stick only.

No deep pocket in the stick is allowed. No mesh pockets.

Length of stick is the same for all field players (typically 42 inches).

Played with 12 members on each team: a goalie, five defensive players and six attack players.

At least five players must remain on the defensive side of the field and four on the offensive side at all times.

Shooting is permitted only when pathway to goal is clear.

Defenders cannot block an attacker's pathway to shoot on goal unless they are within one stick-length of the attacker.

Cannot shoot a loose, uncontrolled ball; cannot hit another player with the ball; cannot hit the goalie in the head with the ball.

RULES FOR BOYS

Players must wear a hard-shell helmet with face guard.

Stick-to-body contact is integral to the game.

Checking is permitted anywhere on the stick.

Pockets in sticks are allowed because of the checking.

The length of the stick is different for different positions.

Played with 10 members on each team: a goalie, three defenders, three midfielders and three attackmen.

At least four players must remain on the defensive side of the field and three on the offensive side at all times.

Players may shoot at anytime.

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