Research News

Dr. Bush's team asked to help develop an protective brace for Nick Ward after he injured his hand playing basketball. Dr Bush's group scanned Nick Ward's hand so we could develop a custom device that fit every contour of his hand. We also collected force data so we could identify the type of loading the device might see during a game. Since Nick was not able to handle a ball right after surgery, Xavier Tillman filled in an conducted all the ball handling. Then Larry Drzal and his team printed palmar and dorsal shield to match the hand contours and Tom Pence's group ran a stress analysis on the structure with the applied force data. Nick wore the hand shield during the Big 10 tournament!

Vice President of the Society of Women Engineers, Lindsay Fricano, and Mechanical Engineering (ME) Associate Professor Tamara Reid Bush hosted a workshop for women engineers in the machine shop. The primary goal of the event was for women to learn how to use the machinery and to become familiar with the shop environment prior to beginning their design classes. The event included shop safety training as well as hands-on work with the drill press, band saw, lathe and mill. Each piece of machinery was taught by a senior level mechanical engineer. Four stations were formed so that attendees received exposure to the most commonly used machinery in the shop with small groups of women at each station. Over 20 women attended the event which received excellent feedback. A big thanks to Rick Castaneda, Brianna Forsthoefe, Ruiwei Sui, and Jack Michalski - all helped with safety and machine training!!

Dr. Tamara Reid Bush Presented at American Society of Bio-mechanics Conference in Rochester, Minnesota.

Dr. Tamara Bush organized the Track for Sports Biomechanics, Injury and Rehabilitation at World Congresss of Biomechanics. Her track had 600 submissions. She also was also given the honor of introducing the plenary speaker, Julie Steele. Julie is a world-renown biomechanist from University of Wollong, Australia.