WSU Today: Feb. 22, 2019

Spirit AeroSystems, Boeing, Airbus, Textron and GE Aviation all either currently use additive manufacturing to produce parts or have announced plans to do so. The U.S. military also sees cost-saving opportunities in using 3D printing to create replacement parts for aging aircraft.

“By offering this certificate program, we join just a handful of universities nationally providing advanced education in additive manufacturing, proving that Wichita State is ready to respond rapidly to meet industry’s emerging workforce development needs,” said Dennis Livesay, dean of the WSU College of Engineering. “We are proud to be a leader in expanding the economic development possibilities associated with additive manufacturing.”

Wichita State University’s National Institute for Aviation Research has received more than $26 million in federal grants that support advanced manufacturing in the past five years. More than $10 million has come from the Department of Defense and the U.S. Economic Development Administration to support regional growth of advanced manufacturing methods, including additive manufacturing. This includes $1.9 million for a large-scale Multi-Robotic Advanced Manufacturing system, part of the 3DEXPERIENCE Center in the Experiential Engineering Building.

In November, Air Force Under Secretary Matthew Donovan toured NIAR’s Additive Manufacturing and other facilities, remarking on the potential of the technology to promote military readiness by making it easier to maintain aging aircraft. An additional $16 million grant for development of an aging aircraft sustainment program followed that visit – becoming the largest federal grant in Wichita State’s history.

Additive manufacturing is revolutionizing the manufacturing process. Traditionally, most manufacturing was “subtractive,” where a block of metal is cut down to desired size and measurements. Additive manufacturing is what 3D printers do, starting with nothing but a strand of material and making something by adding material. This approach saves money by speeding prototype development, reducing material waste during manufacturing and eliminating need for on-hand inventory. It also allows the creation of shapes not possible with a traditional CNC router or milling machine.

“Engineers working in additive manufacturing need to adapt their mindset to approach design problems in entirely new ways, and this certificate will equip them to do that,” said Gamal Weheba, professor of Industrial, Systems and Manufacturing Engineering.

The additive manufacturing certificate requires completion of four, three-hour graduate courses, which will be offered by the College of Engineering’s Industrial Systems and Manufacturing Engineering and Mechanical Engineering departments. To qualify for the program, students must be admitted to the Graduate School in a degree-seeking or non-degree status. Coursework can be applied toward a graduate degree if desired. Students must complete all 12 hours with a 3.0 GPA with no grades below a C. Students can enroll beginning fall 2019.

According to the catalog description, “the curriculum focuses on key materials, technologies and benefits, and include topics on design considerations, post processing, secondary operations and important quality and safety factors. Additional concepts important to product development in aviation and biomedical industries are addressed and exercised as term projects.”

For more information, contact Gamal Weheba,  316-978-5777 or gamal.weheba@wichita.edu.

The purpose of this training is:

• To introduce Duo Security
• Provide a demonstration on how to register on Duo, and
• Frequently asked questions

You can enroll in these sessions through myTraining located on the myWSU portal; under faculty / staff tab. The name of the training session is “Duo Security Software Demonstration.”

WSU uses Duo Security for all WSU CAS (Central/Authentication Method) Authenticated sites which include myWSU, Banner 9 Admin, Self-Service Banner, Outlook web access, PeopleAmin, Office 365 web access and more.

For more information about Duo, go to wichita.edu/Duo.

Scholarship Awards

The university is always looking for ways to enable students from all backgrounds to achieve their academic and professional dreams—and that includes funding their success through scholarships. Today, we’re happy to announce that the university has awarded roughly $1.2 million in scholarships so far this year.

This includes a new $34,000 scholarship, created by former Kansas Gov. Mark Parkinson and his wife, Stacy, which was recently awarded to two incoming freshmen. Also, the university recently announced the recipient of this year’s $26,000 Lenora N. McGregor Scholarship. The recipient, Gabe Kimuri, is a senior at Lawrence Free State High School and plans to major in aerospace engineering and music performance.

We look forward to having all of our scholarship winners on campus this fall.

In addition, Shocker Nation has been exceptionally generous in giving to the Shock the World Campaign. In just the first five years of the campaign, contributions have increased scholarship awards by 50 percent, with a continued goal of raising additional scholarship money for students with financial need. To find out more about the Shock the World campaign, and to donate, visit foundation.wichita.edu.

Teacher Apprenticeship Program

WSU’s Teacher Apprenticeship Program, also known as “TAP” continues to make a positive impact in communities across Kansas by helping to reduce the statewide shortage of elementary and special education teachers.

TAP helps para educators become licensed teachers of record. The program, which is less than three years old, already has 430 paras enrolled, and 72 of the TAP candidates have received teacher of record status and have been hired by 26 school districts. We anticipate 50 candidates will graduate this spring.

To quote a special education teacher from Independence, Kansas: ““The WSU Teacher Apprentice Program came at a critical time. Not only were we able to fill five positions that we otherwise would not have been able to, but we have teachers in positions that we have known for at least a year as para educators.”

I-35 recruitment – Shocker Cities

WSU’s I-35 recruitment strategy continues to attract increasing numbers of students by offering in-state or reduced tuition rates to students in Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri and, most recently, in Denver and St. Louis. As a result, our enrollment from these areas has grown from 262 in 2015, to 749 last fall.

We will continue our I-35 recruitment efforts in order to attract and retain the talent that is vital to meeting the workforce and economic development needs of our state.

Flag-raising ceremony held Monday

The American flag that flies outside of Grace Wilkie Hall, which houses Military and Veteran Services, will now remain flying 24 hours a day thanks to new lighting, which was donated and installed by WSU’s maintenance and grounds department.

On Monday, the flag was raised for a final time in a ceremony honoring our country and those who serve. Military and Veteran Services director Larry Burks said the flag represents not only our patriotism but also our unwavering dedication to the success of our more than 900 active military and veteran students and their dependents.

Honors College construction

And, finally, for those of you who haven’t been over to Shocker Hall, the Cohen Honors College expansion is fully underway and is expected to be completed this July.

The expansion will give the college a front door to the rest of the university and provide more accessibility, and additional study and community spaces, for our growing number of roughly 600 Shocker Honors students spanning more than 90 majors.

Scopus is considered the largest citation and abstract database of peer-reviewed literature covering a wide range of disciplines in the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities. Learn all about searching the database for journal articles, books, conference proceedings, and patents and using the metrics available in Scopus to assess the impact of published research. Those metrics include CiteScore, an alternative to journal impact factor.

With the recent cancellation of Web of Science, Scopus is now a key database for peer-reviewed interdisciplinary research as well as citation searching and metrics.

The Shocker Special “Turning Point” Competition has 43 high school team registered, including teams from Wichita East, Wichita West, Derby, Maize and Maize South high schools. In the competition, students program robots for driver-controlled and automated scoring tasks.

Wichita State's College of Engineering has a nearly 20-year history of sponsoring robotics competitions, annually hosting the Kansas BEST Robotics Competition in the fall and the Shocker MINDSTORMS Challenge, held in the spring. On March 9, WSU will host 17 elementary and middle school teams for the VEX IQ State Championship.(It was previously scheduled for Feb. 23, but postponed due to predicted weather affecting western Kansas teams.)

Newer VEX competitions are being adopted due to an increasing number of schools using VEX kits in the classroom, particularly schools that have the pre-engineering and computer science Project Lead The Way (PLTW) curriculum supported by the Wichita State College of Engineering. About 26,000 students in 269 schools statewide offer PLTW classes. Many PLTW classes require VEX equipment as part of their curriculum. Many VEX teams are comprised of robotics classes; some are afterschool clubs.

Students who will be in the 8th and 9th grades in fall 2019 who would like to learn how to use VEX robotic kits may enroll in the Intro to VEX Robotics summer camp, sponsored by the Wichita State College of Engineering. The camp will be held June 17-20. For more information, visit engineering camps.

Five undergraduate students and nine graduate students from WSU will share their findings with legislators, the Kansas Board of Regents, industry representatives and other attendees.  Students from other Board of Regents institutions in Kansas will also participate at the summits. 

“Ensuring undergraduate research and creative activity is critical to the university’s mission to be an economic and cultural driver in the state of Kansas. These students and their faculty mentors are the best representatives of the excellent work happening every day on campus,” said Kimberly Engber, dean of the Dorothy and Bill Cohen Honors College.

“The Graduate School is proud to be a part of an event which showcases the innovative research that WSU graduate students are doing that directly benefits the state of Kansas and her residents,” said Kerry Wilks, interim dean of the Graduate School.

WSU undergraduate students presenting at the event, with their respective faculty mentors in parentheses, are the following: Mouhamad Ballout (Dr. C. Brendan Clark); Lynn Buchele (Dr. Nickolas Solomey); Abby Jurgensmeier (Dr. Moriah Beck); Austin Nelsen (Dr. Nickolas Solomey); Dale Small (Dr. Robert Bubp).

WSU graduate students presenting at the event, with their respective faculty research advisors in parentheses, include: Ali Sattar (Dr. Eylem Asmatulu); Fayez Alruwaili (Dr. Kim Cluff); Suvagata Chakraborty (Dr. Visvakumar Aravinthan); Heather Forster (Dr. Bin Shuai); Jacob Griffith (Dr. Kim Cluff); Parsa Kianpour (Dr. Deepak Gupta); Jenny Masias (Dr. Enrique Navarro); Seyedali Mirzapourrezaei (Dr. Ehsan Salari); Naveen Mukundan Ravindran (Dr. Vinod Namboodiri).

For more information, contact Kerry Wilks, interim dean of the Graduate School, at 978-6244 or kerry.wilks@wichita.edu, or Kimberly Engber, dean of the Honors College, at 978-6459 or kimberly.engber@wichita.edu.