Valparaiso University engineering students find joy in creating things that work as intended
While there is joy in creating, there might be even greater joy in creating something that works for its intended purpose, as evident by the cheering Saturday morning of the team of Valparaiso University engineering students when they realized the chocolate drizzling machine they designed and built at the behest of Opportunity Enterprises could get the job done.
The project, along with 16 others, were on display at VU's annual Design Expo held at the Gellersen Center to show off the year-long project all senior engineering students must complete for their Senior Design Class. In the first semester, the students are divided into teams, given a challenge, and tasked with coming up with a plan. The second semester they build their creation.
'It's doing what it's supposed to do!' raved senior mechanical engineering major Tommy Sztuba, who looked a bit shocked in his red apron that they'd pulled it off. Fellow team member and senior mechanical engineering major Peter Mueller said it was the first time they'd run the machine through its paces.
'This is our first big project,' said senior electrical engineering major Trevor Misoh. 'On the electrical side of things I've learned a lot,' such as working with programmable logic controllers. 'It's basically the brains of the system.'
VU offers a variety of engineering specialties, including aerospace engineering, bioengineering, civil engineering, computer engineering, electrical engineering, environmental engineering, and mechanical engineering.
Rob Schickel, adjunct instructor in civil and environmental engineering, said the project requires a range of skills from the students, from creating and presenting technical reports to developing soft skills.
'They're learning how to start from zero,' he said. 'How do you talk to someone who doesn't know anything about engineering or plans?'
Also important to engineers is keeping the end-user in mind. Lowell resident Garet Sencaj, the user of a myoelectric prosthetic hand, has been involved with the bioengineering department for years. He lost his hand and part of his forearm in a farming accident in 2012.
'I've taken part with the students in a couple classes. I've taken part with camps and given my input,' he said. Sencaj finds it heartening to see students interested in furthering the field of prosthetics. 'They've really advanced a lot in the 10 years that I've had it,' he said of his eighth prosthetic hand in a decade.
He's gone through so many because he says he's hard on them and has also given some away to people in need and the university for study. Just the hand runs $40,000, while the socket it snaps into and the electrons that go with it are another $40,000.
Sencaj left farming but has a new career as a heavy equipment operator. Students like senior biomedical engineering major Whitney Wollin are working to keep the advancements coming for Sencaj's next prosthesis.
She was part of the team that built a prosthesis that can be operated through a figure-9 harness. 'When I extend my arm the back will open,' she said, demonstrating with the harness strapped to her torso, 'and when I relax it will close.'
A force amplification system can be turned on to allow a load cell to record the force in the main cable 'so when I apply force the servo motor begins to rotate so I don't have to put as much force into it as when I was using the body system,' Wollin explained.
She's been interested in bioengineering ever since she saw a movie when she was a little girl that involved the creation of a prosthetic fin for a dolphin. This summer she's headed off to an internship with Cook Medical in Bloomington.
She's hoping it will lead to a career in prosthetics helping more people like Sencaj. 'This would be the dream, I would say, for sure,' she said, looking down and flexing the prosthetic hand.
Originally Published: April 28, 2025 at 11:32 AM CDT
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Chicago Tribune
28-04-2025
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Valparaiso University engineering students find joy in creating things that work as intended
While there is joy in creating, there might be even greater joy in creating something that works for its intended purpose, as evident by the cheering Saturday morning of the team of Valparaiso University engineering students when they realized the chocolate drizzling machine they designed and built at the behest of Opportunity Enterprises could get the job done. The project, along with 16 others, were on display at VU's annual Design Expo held at the Gellersen Center to show off the year-long project all senior engineering students must complete for their Senior Design Class. In the first semester, the students are divided into teams, given a challenge, and tasked with coming up with a plan. The second semester they build their creation. 'It's doing what it's supposed to do!' raved senior mechanical engineering major Tommy Sztuba, who looked a bit shocked in his red apron that they'd pulled it off. Fellow team member and senior mechanical engineering major Peter Mueller said it was the first time they'd run the machine through its paces. 'This is our first big project,' said senior electrical engineering major Trevor Misoh. 'On the electrical side of things I've learned a lot,' such as working with programmable logic controllers. 'It's basically the brains of the system.' VU offers a variety of engineering specialties, including aerospace engineering, bioengineering, civil engineering, computer engineering, electrical engineering, environmental engineering, and mechanical engineering. Rob Schickel, adjunct instructor in civil and environmental engineering, said the project requires a range of skills from the students, from creating and presenting technical reports to developing soft skills. 'They're learning how to start from zero,' he said. 'How do you talk to someone who doesn't know anything about engineering or plans?' Also important to engineers is keeping the end-user in mind. Lowell resident Garet Sencaj, the user of a myoelectric prosthetic hand, has been involved with the bioengineering department for years. He lost his hand and part of his forearm in a farming accident in 2012. 'I've taken part with the students in a couple classes. I've taken part with camps and given my input,' he said. Sencaj finds it heartening to see students interested in furthering the field of prosthetics. 'They've really advanced a lot in the 10 years that I've had it,' he said of his eighth prosthetic hand in a decade. He's gone through so many because he says he's hard on them and has also given some away to people in need and the university for study. Just the hand runs $40,000, while the socket it snaps into and the electrons that go with it are another $40,000. Sencaj left farming but has a new career as a heavy equipment operator. Students like senior biomedical engineering major Whitney Wollin are working to keep the advancements coming for Sencaj's next prosthesis. She was part of the team that built a prosthesis that can be operated through a figure-9 harness. 'When I extend my arm the back will open,' she said, demonstrating with the harness strapped to her torso, 'and when I relax it will close.' A force amplification system can be turned on to allow a load cell to record the force in the main cable 'so when I apply force the servo motor begins to rotate so I don't have to put as much force into it as when I was using the body system,' Wollin explained. She's been interested in bioengineering ever since she saw a movie when she was a little girl that involved the creation of a prosthetic fin for a dolphin. This summer she's headed off to an internship with Cook Medical in Bloomington. She's hoping it will lead to a career in prosthetics helping more people like Sencaj. 'This would be the dream, I would say, for sure,' she said, looking down and flexing the prosthetic hand. Originally Published: April 28, 2025 at 11:32 AM CDT
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Long-dormant black hole 'woke up' before our eyes — now, it's doing something that astronomers can't explain
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. In December 2019, an ordinary galaxy 300 million light-years from us in the constellation Virgo suddenly woke up. After decades of inactivity, the black hole at the galaxy's heart burst with light. Now, the cosmic monster appears to be doing something that is forcing astronomers to re-evaluate their understanding of these massive celestial bodies. The black hole now gives off powerful X-rays at nearly regular intervals. These outbursts are known as quasi-periodic eruptions (QPEs), and have been observed emitting from other black holes. But the bursts observed here are up to 100 times more powerful than normal, according to new research. First observed in February 2024 by astronomers at Valparaiso University in Chile, this behavior grants scientists an unprecedented view of a black hole that seems to be awakening from dormancy with no sign of going back to sleep. Led by the Valparaiso team, a group of researchers published their observations of the black hole's QPE in a study on April 11 in the journal Nature Astronomy. In addition to giving astronomers a novel view of black holes, these events are also spurring researchers to reconsider how black holes behave. "This is the first time we have observed such an event in a black hole that seems to be waking up," the paper's first author Lorena Hernández-García, an astronomy researcher at Valparaiso University, said in a statement. "This rare event provides an opportunity for astronomers to observe a black hole's behaviour in real time." Related: Supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way is approaching the cosmic speed limit, dragging space-time along with it The galaxy, called SDSS1335+0728, first called attention to itself in 2019 when it unexpectedly started gleaming. At that time, astronomers from the European Southern Observatory studied the event by consulting NASA's Swift X-ray space telescope and data from the eROSITA X-ray telescope. After investigating the galaxy's central region — nicknamed Ansky — they concluded that the flash resulted from Ansky's massive black hole beginning an active phase. But in February 2024, Hernández-García's team noticed bursts of previously undetected X-rays emanating from Ansky, caught by X-ray space telescopes XMM-Newton and NASA's NICER, Chandra, and Swift. These QPEs are momentary, recurring X-ray flares. Astronomers believe QPEs result from interaction between accretion disks — the swirling ring of red-hot matter that surrounds a black hole — and nearby objects, like a star or a smaller black hole. But Ansky's QPEs aren't typical. They're remarkable because they last 10 times longer and are 10 times more luminous than average QPEs, the researchers said. Persisting for more than four days, they each release one hundred times more energy than what's expected. These QPEs reveal a whole new aspect of black holes that don't fit neatly into astronomers' prior understanding of the cosmic bodies. In particular, these unusual QPEs can help broaden our understanding of how these events occur. For example, there's no evidence that Ansky has shredded a star into its accretion disk, which is what researchers currently believe triggers most QPEs. Therefore, there must be another explanation for the impetus that causes the QPEs in this case. The X-ray bursts may instead come from energetic shocks in the accretion disk spurred by a small celestial object repeatedly disrupting its orbiting material, according to the paper. RELATED STORIES —Incredible photo shows supermassive black hole blowing a jet of matter into interstellar space —Black holes can destroy planets — but they can also lead us to thriving alien worlds. Here's how. —Black holes may obey the laws of physics after all, new theory suggests It's also possible that these repeated QPEs come from gravitational waves. The European Space Agency's upcoming Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), set to launch in 2035, may confirm that connection by detecting gravitational waves with greater fidelity than ever before. For now, Ansky is reshaping how we conceive of black holes. "Studying Ansky will help us to better understand black holes and how they evolve," Hernández-García said.
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Valparaiso University expanding educational opportunities
Valparaiso University announces a suite of new and updated academic programs featured in the 2025–2026 academic catalog, including new minors, graduate certificates and updated majors. New undergraduate and graduate programs include: a secondary education minor, with a streamlined path for students pursuing licensure to teach grades 5–12; a project management minor designed to complement any major, building students' skills in planning, executing and managing complex projects; a human resources minor, with practical coursework in organizational development, employment law and talent management; a cyber security specialization graduate certificate, offered through the Computing and Information Sciences department; and a public safety social work graduate certificate, housed within the master of social work program, which prepares social workers to serve communities in public safety contexts. Revised academic programs include the astronomy and space sciences major, previously known as astronomy, with three concentrations, including space science, public science and astrophysics; the integrated public health and healthcare leadership major, formerly public health, with a leadership component to better prepare students for management and advocacy roles; and a Spanish major with a refreshed curriculum focused on Spanish for professional use.
