Mechanical Engineering

Students and teachers from Whites Creek’s Academy of Alternative Energy, Sustainability and Logistics visited the School of Engineering's wind-solar energy demonstration site on Love Circle for a day of 'hands-on learning.'     When Whites Creek High School students and teachers looked for a ground-mount solar cell installation to visit,… Read More

The Vanderbilt Aerospace Design Lab is off to a strong start defending their national rocketry title in the 2015-16 NASA University Student Launch Challenge competing against a field of 39 other university teams. On Nov. 14 the student team successfully launched… Read More

  Anna Douglas holding one of the batteries that she has modified by adding millions of quantum dots made from iron pyrite, fool’s gold. (John Russell / Vanderbilt) If you add quantum dots – nanocrystals 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair – to a… Read More

Instead of looking at space atmosphere as a toxic vacuum, look at it as an asset, said Les Johnson, who handed a silver 4-inch square of solar sail material as light as small bird’s feather to an audience member. As the piece of sail traveled through a standing-room-only crowd in… Read More

From left, Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center Director Frank Dobson, Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos, Professor Carolyn Morgan, Professor Morris Morgan III, Provost Susan Wente and School of Engineering Assistant Dean Burgess Mitchell. (Anne Rayner/Vanderbilt University) A couple of memorable laboratory disasters, a few disappointing test scores, and… Read More

Addisu Taddese, National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship recipient, holds a medical capsule robot. (Heidi Hall/Vanderbilt University) Researchers around the globe who want to customize medical capsule robots won’t have to start from scratch – a team from Vanderbilt University School of Engineering did the preliminary work for… Read More

Physicist, science writer to speak Nov. 5 at engineering school, University Club of Nashville A physicist by day and a science author and editor by night, Les Johnson – Senior Technical Advisor for NASA’s Advanced Concepts Office, Marshall Space Flight Center – shares his passion… Read More

For well over a decade, Vanderbilt Engineering alumnus Brock Smethills (BE’13) and his family have been driving to a picturesque spot just south of Denver, envisioning the futuristic wonderland it would become. Houses where the residents pay mere pocket change for utilities thanks to solar power and a one-of-a-kind system… Read More

Brock Smethills is COO of Sterling Ranch. (Heidi Hall/Vanderbilt University) A recent alumnus who distinguished himself in the aerospace field returns this week to talk about his latest big challenge — launching a 20-year, 12,050-unit sustainable community just south of Denver. Brock Smethills (BE’13) is chief operating… Read More

By the end of the five-hour GM Ride & Drive event, 220 registered drivers had taken 693 total test drives.   Three gleaming, new Corvette convertibles – Torch Red, Arctic White and Laguna Blue – are in a nose-to-tail line at 10 a.m. on a sunny Friday waiting for Vanderbilt… Read More