A new highlight video has been produced by our local public television station (KAMU), which features strengths of the group, the department, and its people.
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Detailed MAESTRO Research Overview
Engineering Communications at Texas A&M finally released their “Research Spotlight” on the MAESTRO Lab, which is a nice summary of a small piece of the work being performed by our students.
Click on the image below to watch the new video.
MAESTRO members complete conference crusade
In the past two weeks, four lab members went to four different conferences to spread the MAESTRO gospel and represent Texas A&M engineering to a variety of different communities. Allen Davis attended the Vertical Flight Society meeting in Dallas, Texas, where he presented his latest work on adaptive rotorcraft design. Jacob Mingear gave an invited presentation (a great honor!) about his progress towards developing liquid metal-SMA actuators at the International Conference on Shape Memory and Superelastic Technologies (SMST) in Long Beach, California. Patrick Walgren briefed the DoD about his work on aperture design in Delaware. Finally, Dr. Hartl traveled to Houston for the SIMULIA Regional User’s Meeting and updated the Abaqus finite element community on his work training the next generation of Aggie structural engineers. Great job everyone!
Jacob wows the crowd by integrating a liquid metal energy circuit with an SMA actuator.
Allen presents his work on morphing rotorcraft in Dallas (presentation not shown).
Graduate Summer Retreat 2018
After a hot summer where the graduate students were off doing internships in Indiana, Ohio, Alabama, Utah, and Colorado the Maestro Group decided to cool off for a weekend at a beach house in Rockport, Texas where we explored the mechanical properties of crab shells and its interfacing with sufficient amounts of butter.
Edwin Peraza Hernandez successfully defends Ph.D. dissertation
Edwin Peraza Hernandez, a student researcher developing new analysis and design tools for self-folding active material-based origami structures, successfully completed his dissertation defense. Edwin was co-advised by Dimitris Lagoudas (AERO) and his committee members included Jay Walton (MATH), Richard Malak (MEEN), and Ergun Akleman (ARCH-VIZ). Edwin will continue with the team as a post-doctoral researcher will exploring new opportunities to apply his research. Congratulations, Edwin!
William Scholten successfully defends masters thesis
William Scholten, a student researcher developing new analysis tools for SMA-based morphing aerostructures tested in relevant environments, successfully completed his thesis defense. Will was co-advised by Tom Strganac (AERO) and his committee members included Paul Cizmas (AERO), Richard Malak (MEEN), and Travis Turner (NASA-Langley). Will has committed to continuing his research toward a Ph.D. degree with Dr. Hartl. Congratulations, Will!