WEEKLY MEMO, September 8, 2008 ****************** 1. ANNOUNCEMENTS ****************** 1.1: SHUTDOWN: There will be a preventive maintenance shutdown of the Birck Nanotechnology Center from October 6-10, 2008. The cleanroom and laboratories will be shut down during all (or at least most) of that week. There will be no temperature control in the offices on Monday and Tuesday, so we will be at the mercy of outdoor temperatures. More details are forthcoming, but this should serve as an advanced warning to the BNC community. (per John Weaver) 1.2: FREE Vacuum Training Seminars offered by Varian Inc. on Sept. 16-17. Standard High and Ultra High Vacuum Seminar offered on Sept. 16 from 5:30-9:30pm and Advanced High and Ultra High Vacuum Seminar offered on Sept. 17 from 5:30-9:30pm. Registrants of advanced seminar are recommended to also attend the standard seminar. Seminars will be in room 1001 (NOT BIRCK) in the Jischke Hall of Biomedical Engineering (MJIS). Free dinner (pizza or sandwiches) will be provided. Contact Jeremy Schroeder (jlschroe@purdue.edu) to register. ******************** 2. TOURS/VISITORS ******************** 2.1: Monday, 09.08.08, 10:45: Dr. Suri Iyer 2.2: Monday, 09.08.08, 11:30: Audible Acoustics Symposium (BME, Purdue), with Matias Zanartu. 2.3: Wednesday, 09.10.08, 11:20: N. Clay Robbins, President; Sara B. Cobb, Vice President, Education; Lilly Endowment, with Tim Fisher, Kyle Smith, Aalap Dighe, Babak Ziaie, and Teimour Maleki. 2.4: Thursday, 09.11.08, 3:30: Agriculture 101 class visit and tour, with Lesley Oliver. *********************************************** 3. SEMINARS/WORKSHOPS see item #6 below for descriptions, abstracts, and bios *********************************************** 3.1: Thursday, 09.11.08, 4:30PM, ME 161: ³Roll, Crawl, Walk, Climb, and Jump: Robot Locomotion Inspired by Nature and Beyond,² by Dr. Dennis W. Hong, Director of RoMeLa: Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory; Assistant Professor, ME, Virginia Tech. Refreshments served 4:00PM, ME 254. 3.2: Thursday, 09.11.08, 7:00PM, Purdue Technology Center C1-400: ³Inventor Resources,² by John Calvert, US Patent & Trademark Office. Call 765-496-6491 for more information and to RSVP. 3.3: Friday, 09.12.08, 10:30AM, BRK 1001: ³Silicon quantum dots in Silicon nitride multilayer deposited by hot-wire CVD chamber for solar cell application,² by Ashish Panchal 3.4: REGISTER NOW: Friday, 09.19.08, 8:00AM-2:00PM, STEW 314: ³Crane Lab Experts to Present on Campus. Online registration is available at http://dagon.admin.purdue.edu/crane/user_registration.php <http://dagon.admin.purdue.edu/crane/user_registration.php> or contact Lisa Muncy at lamuncy@purdue.edu <lamuncy@purdue.edu> or 494-0743. A box lunch will be provided. To guarantee a lunch you need to register by September 12th. 3.5: Thursday, 09.25.08, 7­8:30PM, STEW 214ABC: ³Proposal Writing Workshop for Graduate Students,² by Peter E. Dunn (registration required). ************* 4. NSAC NEWS ************* 4.1: Thank you to all from Birck who attended to the recent orientation held at the Black Sparrow. We especially express our thanks to the Birck Leadership for holding this event and its support of NSAC and the graduate students of Birck. It was great to meet all of you, especially new people. Watch for future Birck organized activities held to strengthen relationships and to foster collaboration among Birck researchers. If you have any ideas or would like to help plan future activities, please send them to Cara Smith (smith543@purdue.edu) or Laura Biedermann (biedermann@purdue.edu). We already have the following ideas: tailgating before a Purdue football game, go-carting at Silent Thunder in Lafayette, a Nintendo Wii tournament on the projector screens in Birck, and more discussion opportunities at local restaurants and bars. ***************** 5. DISCOVERY PARK ***************** 5.1: Learn about health care research at Regenstrief fall conference: The Regenstrief Center¹s fall conference, "Transforming Healthcare Delivery: Advancing Multidisciplinary Research at Purdue University," is an opportunity for Purdue researchers to learn about the progress of multidisciplinary health care research on campus, network with colleagues and students with similar research interests and establish multidisciplinary partnerships to pursue new health care research directions. Last year, more than 150 researchers attended. The 2008 conference will be held on TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Purdue's Burton D. Morgan Center. Purdue graduate or undergraduate students are also invited to display health care-related research posters at the conference. Posters must be registered by Sept. 3 to be printed by the Regenstrief Center. The symposium is free to Purdue faculty, students, staff and collaborators. TO REGISTER for the conference and poster session, visit www.purdue.edu/rche/fall2008 (registration will close on September 10). Questions? Contact Mary Schultz with the Regenstrief Center at schultm@purdue.edu or (765) 494-9828. 5.2: Burton D. Morgan Entrepreneurial Competition Callout: The Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship and Krannert School of Management are pleased to announce the 22nd annual Burton D. Morgan Entrepreneurial Competition. The competition is open to graduate and undergraduate students of Purdue University. The Center invites interested students with a business idea to enter and to attend a callout on: September 9, 2008 or September 10, 2008, MRGN 121, 6:00-7:00PM. Questions will be answered and the registration process will be discussed. Students from all academic disciplines are encouraged to enter. Total Prize package to be awarded to Purdue students is $100,000. For additional Information, contact Jackie Lanter, lanter@purdue.edu, 4-6400. ******************************* 6. ABSTRACTS/BIOS/DESCRIPTIONS for seminars/workshops lists above ******************************* 6.1: Thursday, 09.11.08, 4:30PM, ME 161: ³Roll, Crawl, Walk, Climb, and Jump: Robot Locomotion Inspired by Nature and Beyond,² by Dr. Dennis W. Hong, Director of RoMeLa: Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory; Assistant Professor, ME, Virginia Tech. ABSTRACT: Most mobile robots we see today utilize wheels or treads to move around. But why don¹t we see such locomotion mechanisms in nature? Or a better question we should ask is: why don¹t we use locomotion mechanisms used in nature for creating robots? Animals move in various ways; crawling, walking, jumping, and undulating to name a few. What are the mechanisms behind these motions and why do they use them? Inspired by biology, when and how should we apply these concepts to create robots with higher mobility? In this talk, we present the concept of bioinspiration for robotics. Bioinspiration does not mean simply copying ideas from nature, but rather learning the mechanisms behind it and being inspired by them to create novel concepts and solutions that go even beyond what we see in nature. This talk will present several biologically inspired novel locomotion strategies for mobile robots currently under development at RoMeLa (Robotics & Mechanisms Laboratory) including a unique everting robot inspired by the motility mechanisms of amoebae, a rock climbing robot that uses matching behavior, an actuated spoke wheel system for unstructured environments, a hexapod crawler with dry adhesive feet for zero gravity space applications, a novel three legged robot that walks more like a human, a scaffolding climbing serpentine robot that rolls up to move, and an autonomous bipedal humanoid robot that can even play a game of soccer. The ability of robots created with bioinspiration can go even beyond that of animals in nature. BRIEF BIO: Dennis Hong is an Assistant Professor and the Director of RoMeLa (Robotics & Mechanisms Laboratory) of the Mechanical Engineering Department at Virginia Tech. His research expertise lies in the area of novel robot locomotion mechanisms, design and analysis of mechanical systems, kinematics, and dynamics. He was the inventor of Œwhole skin locomotion¹ for mobile robots inspired by amoeboid motility mechanisms, and pioneered in generating and utilizing everting motion for locomotion in soft body robots. His work on this area was awarded with the prestigious Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2007, the Best Paper Award at the 13th International Conference on Advanced Robotics in 2007, and the Biomimicry Award at the 29th ASME Mechanisms and Robotics Conference in 2005. He also won the Outstanding Assistant Professor award at the College of Engineering in 2007 and the ASPIRES Award in 2004 at Virginia Tech, the ASME Freudenstein/GM Young Investigator Award in 2005, and was selected as a NASA Summer Faculty Fellow at JPL in 2005. Dr. Hong is also the faculty advisor for Virginia Tech¹s team for RoboCup, and the co-team leader for team VictorTango for the DARPA Urban Challenge where they won third place and the $500,000 prize. Dr. Hong received his B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1994), his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University (1999, 2002). Dr. Hong also has a number of patents for novel robot locomotion mechanisms and devices for medical applications. 6.2: Thursday, 09.11.08, 7:00PM, Purdue Technology Center C1-400: ³Inventor Resources,² by John Calvert, US Patent & Trademark Office. John has responsibility of the Inventor assistance program, which includes inventor outreach and university outreach initiatives. The USPTO has made outreach and education a high priority due to the increased interest in intellectual property both by business and education. In February of 1990, John joined the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as an examiner in Group 240 specializing in textile technology. In February 1995, John became a Primary Examiner. Mr. Calvert has received numerous achievement awards, including the Department of Commerce Bronze Medal for superior Federal service and the United States Patent and Trademark Office Exceptional Career Award. Mr. Calvert completed studies in the Syracuse University, Maxwell School certificates program of Advanced Public Management and completed the Executive Development Seminar sponsored by the Office of Personnel Management. 6.3: Friday, 09.12.08, 10:30AM, BRK 1001: ³Silicon quantum dots in Silicon nitride multilayer deposited by hot-wire CVD chamber for solar cell application,² by Ashish Panchal ABSTRACT: Silicon material with different properties is needed for solar cell efficiency improvement. The reason is that single crystalline silicon cannot absorb photons of whole solar spectrum and it has high production cost. When, silicon material having size a few nanometers is confined in dielectric material of high band gap, its effective energy level increases than bulk silicon. This is known as silicon quantum dots. The aim is to use silicon quantum dots embedded in silicon nitride multilayer in the i-layer of a p-i-n solar cell for increasing the light absorption. Alternate 40 layers of a-Si/SiNx are prepared in a single hot-wire deposition chamber. The layers are deposited with different substrate temperatures (250oC and 600oC). The as-deposited samples are annealed after deposition for quantum dot formation in the range of 800-950oC. The individual a-Si layer thickness is also varied by varying the silane cracking time from 20 to 40 seconds. All the films are characterized by Raman, PL, AFM, TEM. The film has Si-QD with average diameter 3 to 5 nm and density of 5x1012/cm2.obtained by TEM images. BRIEF BIODATA: Mr. Ashish Panchal is B.E. (Electrical), M.Tech. (Energy Systems Engg) and currently a senior Ph.D. scholar in Dept. of Energy Science & Engg at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay India. He is also senior Lecturer in Electreical Engg, S V National Institute of Technology Surat India. His reasearch area is Si for PV application and Photovoltaic for large power production. 6.4: REGISTER NOW: Friday, 09.19.08, 8:00AM-2:00PM, STEW 314: ³Crane Lab Experts to Present on Campus. Online registration is available at http://dagon.admin.purdue.edu/crane/user_registration.php <http://dagon.admin.purdue.edu/crane/user_registration.php> or contact Lisa Muncy at lamuncy@purdue.edu <lamuncy@purdue.edu> or 494-0743. A box lunch will be provided. To guarantee a lunch you need to register by September 12th. Speakers ­ 5 Technical Warrant Holders: Dustin Wilson, Electro-optic and Infrared (EO/IR) Sensing Systems; Trent Frady, Anti-terrorism/Force Protection; Charles Zeller, Special Operations Weaponry (Small Arms and Weapons); Gerald Carroll, Surface Ship Electronic Warfare Systems and Decoys; Darren Crum, Anti-Tamper Implementation (**Restricted to U.S. Citizens only due to the sensitivity of the topic). This is a great opportunity to hear about Crane¹s activities and to learn about their needs, which could lead to research collaborations. Tentative Agenda: 8:00, Continental breakfast; 8:30, Introductions; 8:40, Jerry Carroll; 9:10, Dusty Wilson; 9:40, Trent Frady; 10:10, Break; 10:30, Chuck Zeller; 11:00, Darren Crum (**Restricted to U.S. Citizens only due to the sensitivity of the topic); 11:45-2:00, Boxed Lunch provided, Individual breakout sessions, Technical discussions. If you have questions about the content of the meeting, please contact Cliff Wojtalewicz at wojtalew@purdue.edu <wojtalew@purdue.edu> <mailto:wojtalew@purdue.edu <mailto:wojtalew@purdue.edu> > or 496-2719. 6.5: Register now! Proposal Writing Workshop for Graduate Students: Thursday, September 25, 2008, 7­8:30PM, STEW 214ABC. Peter E. Dunn, associate vice president for research and director of University research administration, will conduct the workshop. Online registration will be available at the Graduate School¹s Professional Development website (http://www.gradschool.purdue.edu/development/). Questions should be directed to Peter Dunn (46840; pedunn@purdue.edu).