Dr. Lei (Leo) Zhang will join SFTC at Columbus, OH, in July 2008, as a senior software engineer. Leo joined our CAM Lab. three years ago to be in charge of the continuation of the CHT technology development. He has co-founded a small business, JYL Solutions, as the Chief Technical Officer and successfully acquired the NSF STTR funding for improving the CHT furnace model and CHT technology commercialization. As a result of the project, SFTC may work with CHTE and JYL to make the CHT technology as part of their Deform product. Congratulation to Leo on his new professional career.

The “oldest” member of our CAM-Lab, Radha Purushothaman, has successfully defended his dissertation on Evaluation and Improvement of Heat Treatment Furnace Model, on Friday, June 6, 2008. Radha joined the CAM Lab in 2001 and graduated with his MS in Manufacturing Engineering in 2003, worked on a fixture design project. After working as a research associate for a year, he returned India for some industrial practice and came back WPI in 2005 to start his study toward a Ph. D in Manufacturing Engineering. Radha has worked with Caterpillar in Illinois for one and half years as a intern student before coming back in January this year to finish up his dissertation. He has worked as both TA and RA with us for years and will start working as a formal employee at Caterpillar in July 2008. Congratulations to Radha.

Hua Bai is working with Nypro at Clinton, MA as an intern student. She started the job on Monday, June 2, 2008 and expected to continue to the end of the year. She is working on supplier chain management related subjects.

The Center for Heat Treating Excellence (CHTE) at WPI held its first semi-annual meeting of 2008 on May 29, Thursday (Board meeting and dinner reception on May 28). Dr. Gang Wang presented his project on carburizing modeling and fatigue study. Professor Rong, Radha Purushothaman, Bose Xiao, and Dr. X. Chen also participated the meeting.

Professor Rong and Feng Jiang visited Saint Gobain at Worcester, MA in the afternoon of Wednesday, May 28, 2008. The recently developed Grinding Wheel Model was introduced and discussed.

Professor Rong, Dr. Lei Zhang, and Dr. Hui Wang visited Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology (CCAT) at Hartford, CT on Wednesday, May 28, 2008. They learned CCAT’s operations and service to industry of the nation. They also introduced the research work at CAM Lab., particularly on Computer-aided Fixture design and Computerized Heat Treatment Modeling and Simulation. The possible collaboration was discussed.

On Tuesday, May 27, 2008, Puja Ghatpande has successfully defended her thesis on Simulation based Fixturing Accessibility Analysis, toward her MS in Mechanical Engineering. Congratulations to her.

WPI held its 140 th Commencement Ceremony on Saturday, May 17, 2008 ( http://www.wpi.edu/News/Releases/20078/commencement2008follo.html ). J effrey R. Immelt, Chairman and CEO of General Electric Co. (GE) delivered the keynote address. After the ceremony, Jeff and other GE colleagues had a reception with WPI students who worked on GE MQP last year or who are going to work with GE for employment, summer intern, and MQP in next year, as well as their advisors. This year, GE hired more twenty WPI graduates and additional twenty plus for interns. The GE MQPs have been constantly received awards in Manufacturing Engineering Program at WPI in recent years.

After seven weeks studying at WPI, the nine exchange students from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan, China, departed back to China on Monday, May 12, 2008. They had chance to work on four projects with WPI students and professors, as well as engineers and shop operators in project sponsoring companies. They also had a lot of non-project activities, including sight-seeing at New York, Washington, DC, and California, visiting the homes of WPI students, participating fraternity house activities, and making friends with WPI students. It is believed that they have achieved the goal of doing senior projects in different environment and learning the US culture. They will continue the projects started here before their graduation in July 2008.

Professor Rong, together with 20 other WPI faculty members, participated a workshop on Innovation. They learned and practiced the five principles of innovation theory developed by Curtis Carlson, WPI alumnus and CEO of SRI. Carl and two other colleagues from SRI coached the WPI on four group projects of how to implement the innovation at WPI and how to make WPI unique and the best technological university. The innovation activities will be continued in the following academic year.

The students and professors in Manufacturing Engineering Program of WPI got together on May 1, 2008, to celebrate the completion of the academic year. Besides the undergraduate and graduate students, Professor Brown, Professor Fofana, and Professor Rong, as well as Toby and Brendan from the Lab participated. They enjoyed a slide show of Toby’s new baby, as well as the lunch and a lot of talking.

The HUST exchange student team makes the final presentation of their senior project at Amphenol TCS of Nashua, NH on Thursday, May 1, 2008. They were surprised by the comments made by the company colleagues (Mark Hilaire, Operations Manager, Scott Ziegenhagen, Engineering Director, and the shop operators). The production data collection, analysis, and the improvement suggestions were impressed by the company. The impact on the improvement of the production was beyond the student expectation. The benefit of student learning through the project was also discussed.

The MQP in China/Korea groups presented the PQP reports on Monday, April 27, 2008. The projects are sponsored by Nypro, Amphenol, CIS, REM and two Korean Companies (Hwashin and Pyenghwa). The final presentations of four projects sponsored by Nypro, Amphenol, and WPI were also made by HUST exchange students. Professor Rong and Professor Hou from ME WPI and Professor Zeng from Management, WPI attended the presentations. They are co-advisors of these projects.

Before the end of D term, the students going to China for their MQP got together at Campus Center in the evening of Friday, April 25, 2008, for a celebration of finishing D term PQP and the final preparation of traveling to China/Korea in summer for MQP. The exchange students from HUST joined them and all of them enjoyed BBQ cookout as well as a lot of talking.

Professor Rong, Xuekun (Chris) Li, and Wei Tian visited Saint Gobain at Worcester on Friday, April 18, 2008. They met with Dr. Subbu and Dr. Y. Tian to discuss the project progress and future plan.

The project leader of Amphenol TCS Changzhou Operations, Mr. Sky Wang, visited WPI during his short working assignment at ATCS Headquarter of Nashua, NH on April 17-18, 2008. ATCS has been sponsoring the MQP in China program in both US and China. Currently one group of exchange students from HUST are working on their senior projects with ATCS and another tam of WPI students, as well as their partners at HUST, are doing their PQP for their MQP which will be conducted in China in E term in the summer. Besides discussing with Professor Rong for the summer project at Changzhou, Sky met with the WPI team Clinton McAdams and Mike Pagonis, to introduce more details of the project and discussed their questions. William Tan from last year ATCS project team came to say hello to Sky. They worked together last summer in Changzhou. Sky also talked a lot with the HUST team at Nashua during the week.

Professor Lihua Dong from Shanghai Maritime University, Shanghai, China, visited our CAM Lab on Wednesday, April 16, 2008. She met with Professor Rong and Professor Amy Zeng at Management Department. Common research topics were discussed.

Dr. Changsheng Guo from UTC, Paul Cotonoir from Becker College, Nick Cumani from Rohm and Haas, and Dr. Yinggang Tian from Saint Gobain, visited WPI during the project presentation day on April 15, 2008. Besides looking at student projects (some of them served as judges), they visited our CAM Lab and discussed on our research topics too.

WPI had its senior project (MQP) presentation on Tuesday, April 15, 2008. More than 400 students presented their projects on campus, including more than 40 projects presented by about 120 students in Mechanical Engineering Department. Many people from local companies visited WPI on that day. Some of them served as judges for student awards. Six teams from CAM Lab displayed their posters and showed their work to the visitors. Three projects were awarded by external judges.

Kevin Harrington and William Kurzmack received Mechanical Engineering Honorable Mention Award, on their p roject, Two Gait Walking Mobile Robot with Teleoperation over a Wireless Network

Richard Grossman Jr. and Natalie Senenfelder received Manufacturing Engineering MQP Award and Mechanical Engineering Honorable Mention Award, on their project, Lean Manufacturing of the Midframe Process, Sponsored by General Electric Aviation

Michael Demers, Ryan Lehrmitt, and Robert Pantalone received Manufacturing Engineering MQP Award, Mechanical Engineering Honorable Mention Award, and Best Senior Project Award from Society of Manufacturing Engineers Worcester Chapter, on their proj ect, High Efficiency Coolant Nozzle Design for Abrasive Wire Wafer Slicing, Sponsored by Saint-Gobain

Congratulations to the teams as well as their sponsors and thanks to judges.

Professor Rong was invited to the Senior Dinner of Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity House in the evening of Monday, April 14, 2008. About 40 students are living in the house in a very organized manner. Many faculty members and staff were invited to celebrate the coming graduation of their seniors. Congratulate the seniors for their accomplishment at WPI and wish them a bright future up coming.

Bowang (Bose) Xiao received the Norton Professorship in 2008-2009 academic year, for his excellence research work he has done and will be doing at WPI. Congratulations to Bose.

Eugeny Sosnovsky received the 2008 Salisbury Prize from WPI. This prize honors the senior student with the great faithfulness and excellence. Congratulations to Gene.

Eugeny Sosnovsky and Professor Rong attended the ASEE Zone 1 conference at West Point, NY on March 28 and 29, 2008. Gene is a senior student and was in our MQP in China 2007 team. He presented the MQP project on Design Process Development that he and Brad Windsor, together with partners from HUST, did for CIS, Wuxi, China. Brad was sick and unable to attend the conference. Professor Rong presented another paper on Extending the WPI Practice on Project based Education in the conference.

A new exchange student from Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea, Mr. Hu-jung Nam, arrived at WPI on Monday, March 24, 2008. He will study at our CAM Lab for six months. Welcome to Hu-jung.

Bowang (Bose) Xiao visited Oakland University and GM Powertrain in MI in the week of March 23-29. He did residual stress measurement to the test castings after air-quenching at OU and visited the quenching facility of GM engine blocks for acquiring production condition information which will be used in the future tests and simulation.

Hosted by the exchange students from HUST, the MQP in China group held its first formal social activity on Wednesday, March 19, 2008. Qi (Tom) Wang lectured the first lesson on Chinese language. This will be a weekly activity among the exchange students from HUST, the MQP in China groups of 2007 and 2008. The agenda includes the different dancing styles in China and China experience by Jeff Madden from 2007 team in the second week, and WPI Lib. resource utilization organized by Mike Fitzpatrick and China experience by Andy Anderson from 2007 team in the third week, in addition to the Chinese language learning.

The second WPI Graduate Research Achievement Day was held on Wednesday, March 19, 2008. 179 poster presentations were made, including seven from our CAM Lab. Professor Rong served as a judge in Engineering.

Professor Jianzhong Cha from Beijing Jiaotong University, Professor Arthur D’huys from University College Leuven and Professor Frank Docky from Leuven Institute of Technology visited us at WPI on March 16, Sunday, and March 18, Tuesday. They met with Professor Gretar Tryggvason, Head of Mechanical Engineering, and Professor Diran Apelian, Director of Metal Processing Institute, Professor Richard Sisson, Director of Manufacturing and Materials Engineering Program, and Professor Rong. The discussion was focused on the innovation of engineering education, particularly on the industrial projects and global experience in engineering curriculum. Possible collaboration among BJTU, Group T colleges, and WPI was explored. Professor Cha also serves as UN-ESCO Chair on Cooperation between Higher Engineering Education and Industries and a Board Director of Leuven Engineering School. Professor D’huys serves as the Vice President of Group T University College Leuven.

The first get together of the MQP in China 2008 group was help on Thursday, March 13, 2008. The WPI students going to China and Korea this year and the exchange students from HUST, China got together to know each other. Some of them will work together on the projects. Besides the project arrangement and travel preparation, several activities were planned. More news will be seen in the D term at WPI.

Professor Rong and Dr. Gang Wang participated the TMS Annual Meeting at New Orleans, LA, in March 11-13, 2008. Besides presenting two papers by Dr. Wang, they joined the dinner to honor Professor Diran Aplien as the new elected president of TMS. They also met with many friends there.

Professor Amy Zeng and Professor Rong visited Nypro, Clinton, MA, and Amphenol, Nashua, NH, respectively, with the senior project teams of WPI and HUST students, on Monday, March 10, 2008. This is the beginning of the MQP in China projects in 2008.

Radhakrishnan Purushothaman got engaged. His parents visited him and WPI, after meeting Radha’s fiancée’s family a while ago to “approve” the engagement. Congratulations to Radha.

Hua Li and Hui Wang spent a week at Caterpillar, Peoria, IL from March 2 to 8, 2008, working on a demonstration and on site testing of their new development of Computer-aided Modular Fixture Design System for Welding. Their work was highly recognized for the functions and practical application effectiveness. The research and development work will be continued toward more intelligent and robust. Thanks for their hard working and congratulate their achievement.

Six of nine exchange senior students from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan, China arrived WPI on Thursday, February 28, 2008. The other three will come in the next week to join them. They will work with WPI students and graduate students for their senior projects in next eight weeks. The project sponsors include Amphenol TCS, Nashua, NH, Nypro, Clinton, MA, and REM, Worcester, MA. This is part of the exchange program between HUST and WPI, together with the MQP in China program.

On February 27, WPI held a dinner in Higgins House to recognize the current recipients of 10 endowed professorships, including Professor Rong as the John W. Higgins Professor. President Daniel Berkey and Provost John Orr were the hosts and the representatives of the endowment donors participated the celebration. Provost Orr noted these professors are “ the faculty members who do so much to advance WPI's reputation through their scholarly endeavors and teaching talents, and to become better acquainted with the important role that endowed professorships play in helping the university recruit and retain such extraordinary talent”.

The exchange senior student from Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea, Hyoung-jun Lee, has finished his one-year study at WPI and went back KNU on February 26, 2008. He has studied on “computer-aided fixture design for part family” and enjoyed working on the topic. Hyoung-jun made a final presentation on Monday, February 25 and had lunch with Professor Rong and the WPI students who are going to KNU for summer senior projects (MQP) this year. All of the CAM Lab members enjoyed having Hyoung-jun stay with us and welcome him to visit back in the future. Best wishes to him on his finishing his BS study at KNU.

On WPI’s advising day of February 14, 2008, Professor Rong met with twelve of his advisees in their freshman, sophomore and junior years and helped them plan their next year of study.

Professor Qingyan Xu from Tsinghua University arrived at WPI on February 11, 2008. He will work with WPI’s Metal Processing Institute as a research scientist for a year, jointly sponsored by Tsinghua University/Chinese Government and MPI. Professor Xu is a friend of our CAM Lab and has visited WPI twice before. Welcome.

The students participating MQP in China program in 2008 had another get together on Tuesday, February 5, 2008. The project arrangement was further discussed and the project teams were almost finalized. The students participated last year in 2007 and exchange student from Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea, Mr. Hyoung-jun Lee, also joined us for discussion and enjoying the food. This year four WPI will go to Korea for two MQPs sponsored by Korean companies, in additional to about twelve WPI students going to China.

Feng Liu came back from Detroit, MI, after working at GM Powertrain for four weeks. He has been working on the project of Computer-aided Casting Systems Design.

Professor Amy Zeng and Professor Rong visited NSF and met with program directors on January 31, 2008. The possible expansion of the MQP in China program was discussed.

Professor Rong, along with Dr. Jingping Ge and Lei Zhang from JYL Solutions, visited Scientific Forming Technology Corporation at Columbus, OH on January 8, 2008. The collaboration among CHTE/WPI, SFTC, and JYL was discussed for the commercialization of the CHT technology and systems for modeling and simulation of heat treatment processes.

 

The archive of news, 2007.

The archive of news, 2006.

The archive of news, 2005.

The archive of news before 2004.