- University News Archive - ��Vlog��ý Little Rock

��Vlog��ý Little Rock engineering student using 3D printer to make masks for healthcare workers

John Hill — Wed, 22 Jul 2020 13:52:56 +0000

A University of Arkansas at Little Rock student is putting his engineering skills to good use by printing face masks to protect healthcare workers who are battling COVID-19. “The goal is to be able to supply these masks to hospital and healthcare workers,” said Trigun Maroo, a doctoral student majoring in systems engineering from Surat, India. “They are facing a shortage in masks and other personal protective equipment. This is one way that we get more masks ready for the healthcare workers.” Maroo started the project after being contacted by a friend, Dr. Supriya Jambhekar, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, who asked if Maroo had 3D printing capabilities to speed up the manufacturing of face masks. “These masks are much better for personal safety than a cloth mask,” she said. “This mask will be more effective to protect the wearer from catching an infection from others. Ideally, if all healthcare workers wear these or similar masks, they will be more protective to them.”�� Maroo is printing face masks that are being tested at Arkansas Children’s Hospital and in Tennessee to see if they can be produced on a large scale.

Trigun Maroo

“Trigun helped a lot by printing out these masks to check the viability and do-ability of the project,” Jambhekar said. “If we need a large number of masks, it will be very helpful if people like Trigun can help to print out these masks.” For Maroo, the beauty of this project is that it provides a way for non-medical personnel to help in the fight against COVID-19. “Projects that impact the community positively and directly have been my interest,” he said. “This special opportunity was no different, and I contacted Dr. Wright immediately. Dr. Wright has been very kind and has supported me a lot in this endeavor. I am very grateful to him.” Dr. Andrew Wright, an associate professor of systems engineering, also serves as Maroo’s mentor on his Signature Experience project and doctoral research. These projects are designed to inspire ��Vlog��ý Little Rock students to conduct research and creative projects to enrich their academic experience. Although Maroo’s initial research project was nearly completed, Wright encouraged his student to switch to the face mask project and offered a 3D printer from the Department of Systems Engineering that Maroo could use to work from his home. Maroo’s project earned first place in the Engineering/Engineering Technology/Construction Management category at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock’s 2020 Student Research and Creative Works Expo.

��Vlog��ý Little Rock uses 3D printers to make PPE for healthcare workers

John Hill — Fri, 10 Apr 2020 16:28:10 +0000

With healthcare workers across the state facing a shortage of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), the University of Arkansas at Little Rock is using 3D printers to create face shields for a local hospital. In partnership with the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce, ��Vlog��ý Little Rock is printing the frame of the face shields, while a partner Little Rock business, Mr. Plastic, is printing the clear shield. Once put together, ��Vlog��ý Little Rock is delivering the much needed face shields to healthcare workers at CHI St. Vincent.�� “Those treating and testing individuals with possible infection of COVID-19 have a significant need for Personal Protective Equipment,” said Dr. Lawrence Whitman, dean of the Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology. “Everyone wants to help out our medical workers on the front line, and this equipment protects them and gives them a feeling of safety.” U.S. Representative French Hill, a Republican from Little Rock, applauded the university’s innovative efforts during an April 3 visit to ��Vlog��ý Little Rock to observe the 3D printers in action. “Friday, I saw firsthand how the University of Arkansas at Little Rock is innovating to help our medical professionals on the front lines,” Hill said. “With 3D printers from the Little Rock School District, they are manufacturing critical protective face shields to go straight into the field. Together they will save and protect lives.” The effort began with employees from the Graduate Institute of Technology and the Department of Art and Design using their 3D printers to print the face shield frames. Armand Tomany of the Graduate Institute of Technology and Ben Dory, artist-in-residence in metals in the Department of Art and Design, began printing the face shield components at their homes.

Dr. Larry Whitman, dean of the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock College of Engineering and Information Technology, demonstrates the use of a plastic face shield for health professionals working with CODVI-19 patients. The face shields are being made at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock by 3D printers. Photo by Ben Krain.

“I’ve been involved in 3D printing for five years,” Tomany said. “Dean Whitman asked if I could help with the effort. I have a small print farm at home with five machines. I was able to make about 50 face shields for St. Vincent.” ��Vlog��ý Little Rock has set up a print farm on the fourth floor of the Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology, where Tomany, Ben Gilbert of the Graduate Institute of Technology, and students Alex Kingston and David Whitman are working. “This is a very cool project to be involved with,” said Kingston, a senior electronics and computer engineering major. “It’s a bit of a learning curve, but you do what you need to do. With the shortage of PPE, this is a great way to pump out equipment for our healthcare workers.” It has become a community effort to help in the fight against COVID-19. The Little Rock School District has loaned eight 3D printers to ��Vlog��ý Little Rock. With each frame taking anywhere from 46 to 70 minutes to print, time is the immediate concern.�� “The challenge is that there are so many different makes and models of 3D printers, but we are on top of it,” Tomany said. “The immediate urgency is what drives us. We are trying to make enough PPE for the healthcare workers before the state reaches its peak of COVID-19 cases. If we get people all over the state working, then we can get a lot done.” Additionally, the Department of Systems Engineering as well as the STEM Education Center have joined the 3D printing effort. Andrew Wright, associate professor of systems engineering, and Trigun Maroo, a doctoral candidate, Kent Layton, director of the STEM Education Center, and the center’s student worker, Alex Alvarez, are all using 3D printers to make PPE. ��Vlog��ý Little Rock had already donated 150 face shields to St. Vincent, and they hope to donate 200 more this week. “It shows the innovation we have on campus to get all these people to come together for a good cause,” Whitman said. In the upper right photo, Jay Chesshir (left), president and CEO of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce, and U.S. Rep. French Hill (right) inspect the 3D printers that are printing face shields for CHI St. Vincent. Photo by Angie Faller.

��Vlog��ý Little Rock team attends Clinton Global Initiative University

Ajani Oyindamola — Tue, 13 Feb 2018 18:17:26 +0000

Three University of Arkansas at Little Rock students attended the Clinton Global Initiative University Oct. 13-15 at Northeastern University in Boston to discuss their design of a water pump to provide clean drinking water to a rural village in Haiti.�� This is the second year ��Vlog��ý Little Rock has participated in the (CGI U) Network, a growing consortium of colleges and universities that support, mentor, and provide seed funding to student leaders, innovators, and entrepreneurs who are developing solutions for some of the world’s most pressing challenges. Team members include Lottie Richardson, a fall 2017 systems engineering graduate, Tanner Harris, and Samuel Shelton, both spring 2017 graduates of ��Vlog��ý Little Rock. Dr. Andrew Wright, associate professor of systems engineering, also attended the event as the faculty liaison. “We would like to see the students learn how to take their ideas to implementation,” Wright said. “Part of implementation is developing funding and partnerships. Interacting with other like-minded students will help them build their partnerships, develop their ideas, and develop ways to get funding for their projects.” The team attending CGI U is working with a nonprofit organization that introduces clean water solutions to redesign and build a water pump that will provide access to clean drinking water in a rural village in Haiti. “Students our age are going above and beyond for people in this country and others,” Richardson said. “It’s humbling. It makes you feel like there are still good people on this Earth.” CGI U was founded in 2007 by former President Bill Clinton after the success of the Clinton Global Initiative, through which global leaders convene to implement plans to combat global challenges. The ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Office of Community and Career Engagement has sponsored the CGI U efforts at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock.

Indian students complete summer research program at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock

Ajani Oyindamola — Tue, 10 Oct 2017 13:15:39 +0000

A group of nine students from India completed internships in cutting-edge research areas at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock this summer.�� Dr. Seshandri Mohan, professor of systems engineering, initiated the international exchange program between ��Vlog��ý Little Rock and Vishwaniketan, an institution affiliated with the in India. Participants included Rahul Sharma, Yash Dutt Sharma, Shubham Gupta, Tanya Gupta, Yanshshree Anil Patil, Mohan Patle, Varad Anil Deshpande, Vatsal Paresh Gala, and Rajeev Kishore Sugandhi. The partnership brought Vishwaniketan students who are pursuing undergraduate degrees in engineering, computer science, information technology, and mechanical engineering to Little Rock for a six-week research internship from June 19 to July 29. Upon completion of the internships, the students returned to their home universities to complete their degrees. ��Their completion of the international research internship will give them an advantage on their resumes. ��Vlog��ý Little Rock has previously conducted similar exchange programs with Pondicherry University, SRM University, and Don Boscoe University, all in India. Mohan said many of the students who participated in these internships returned to ��Vlog��ý Little Rock to pursue a graduate degree. “The students say they are enriched by this experience beyond what they expected out of it,” Mohan said. “They understand how to take responsibility and pursue research internships. Hopefully, some of them will return to ��Vlog��ý Little Rock.” The students conducted research and experiments in four areas: robotics mentored by Dr. Andrew Wright, associate professor of systems engineering, and graduate assistant Trigun Maroo; entity resolution mentored by Dr. John Talburt, professor of information science and Acxiom Chair of Information Quality, and graduate assistant Yumeng Ye; machine learning mentored by Dr. Mariofanna Milanova, professor of computer science; and Internet of Things mentored by Mohan and graduate assistant Hadi Salman. In the Internet of Things project, interns Mohan Patle, Yashshree Anil Patil, and Shubam Gupta built devices that can be used in smart homes. According to Mohan, Internet of Things refers to devices that are connected to the Internet. Currently, the world contains more than 12 billion internet-connected devices, a number which could increase to 50 billion by 2020. Students programmed smart sensors to perform a variety of smart home functions. They programmed pressure sensors that could be used to build a smart refrigerator, range sensors that can detect motion to know when to activate lights, and a rain sensor that could be used to control shutters. As part of the machine learning project, interns Vatsal Gala and Varad Deshpande helped build a system that can predict the sentiments for commercial products by analyzing images and reviews posted on an ecommerce website. “Thousands of websites are selling millions of products online showing their images and stating the description of the product,” Milanova said. “The opinion mining is done by extracting various features from text and images that depict various sentiments. The most important part of the project was to train the machine on this set of extracted features and calculated data so that the machine can predict the values of sentiment for a new product (entity).” In the entity and identity resolution project, interns Tanya Gupta and Rahul Sharma used an open source software package called OYSTER that was developed at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock to determine when records in an information system are about the same entity or different entity. Entities can be students, patients, customers, products, and locations. Entity and identity resolution is especially important in health care so patients can receive the proper treatment. “If you don’t bring together all of a patient’s records of diagnoses, tests, and previous treatments, it could easily lead the patient’s healthcare providers to make the wrong treatment decisions,” said Talburt, who mentored the interns. “Conversely, mixing the information together from two different patients could have many adverse consequences as well.” Gupta and Sharma took to OYSTER so well that they are considering using OYSTER to start a small business in India to help companies with entity resolution and data integration problems. In the upper right photo, nine college students from India completed six-week internships in cutting-edge research areas at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock this summer. The students also visited Gov. Asa Hutchinson at the Arkansas Governor’s Manson in Little Rock. Pictured, from left to right, are Yash Dutt Sharma, Yashshree Anil Patil, Tanya Gupta, Rajeev Sugandhi, Shubham Gupta, Sachin Sharma, Gov. Asa Hutchinson, Seshadri Mohan, Rahul More, Rahul Sharma, Vatsal Gala, Mohan Patle, and Varad Anil Deshpande.

- University News Archive - ����Vlog��ý Little Rock

����Vlog��ý Little Rock engineering student using 3D printer to make masks for healthcare workers

����Vlog��ý Little Rock uses 3D printers to make PPE for healthcare workers

����Vlog��ý Little Rock team attends Clinton Global Initiative University

Indian students complete summer research program at ����Vlog��ý Little Rock

- University News Archive - ��Vlog��ý Little Rock

��Vlog��ý Little Rock engineering student using 3D printer to make masks for healthcare workers

��Vlog��ý Little Rock uses 3D printers to make PPE for healthcare workers

��Vlog��ý Little Rock team attends Clinton Global Initiative University

Indian students complete summer research program at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock