Mississippi State University’s research park is opening its doors today for an Open House.
Thirty-minute tours will be given of the Center For Advanced Vehicular Systems, the Diagnostic Instrumentation and Analysis Laboratory and the ERC from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. Any student is welcome to tour, said Claire Feldman, president of the engineering student council.
“Students can take the blue route shuttle or drive across 82 to the research center,” Feldman said. “Just go through the front door of CAVS, DIAL or the ERC.”
CAVS will show its three main research thrust areas and its awarded research project, Challenge-X, said Bob Kirkland, business development officer of CAVS.
“The three main thrust areas are computational manufacturing and design, human and systems engineering and alternative power,” Kirkland said. “The alternative power thrust is currently working on altering the voltage and alternator on military Hummers.”
During the DIAL tour, visitors can see the labs and meet researchers. Tours will also showcase what types of science and engineering are involved in the research being performed, said Charles Waggoner, deputy director of DIAL.
“We have a wide variety of activities going on in our labs and virtually all will be open for students to become familiar with what we do,” Waggoner said. “DIAL’s activities often involve the merging of the science of making measurements with the engineering of process control.”
Visitors will gain a better understanding of what projects are undertaken at the research park, Kirkland said.
“I think the tour will provide engineering students with an awareness of some of the opportunities that are available to them here at the research center,” Kirkland said. “We have over 100 students involved in the Challenge-X program, and we are now able to give students hands-on opportunities to use what they’ve learned in class.”
The ERC will be providing tours of their supercomputing systems and the cave automatic virtual environment.
The CAVE is a room-sized facility which allows multiple viewers to experience a high-resolution, three-dimensional, audio and video display.
The tour should encourage students to consider research in their own fields of study, Feldman said.
“MSU is ranked 25th in research expenditures nationally,” Feldman said. “Since research is one of things state is recognized for, we want to increase awareness about it.”
The idea for the tour started with a student request to see what research went on at the park and from there with the help of the staff at the research park and Dr. Taylor, the Engineering Student Council, ESC, was able to put together a tour Feldman said.
The ESC is open to other suggestions from students and students can participate in a comment forum on the Web site www.msstate.edu/org/erc, Feldman added.