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Our group works with K-12 students in collaboration with Florida State University REU programs ,the Florida Center for Advanced Aero Propulsion (FCAAP) and the Mary Brogram Art and Science Museum located in downtown Tallahassee.

FSU REU
One program includes mentoring high school students with great potential for science and mathematics every summer. This Young Scholar Program is a well established outreach program at Florida State University which invites approximate 20 students from the state of Florida each summer for a six week curriculum of courses in mathematics, physics, biology, and ethics and research mentoring with a faculy member. We have mentored four students over the past two summers conducting research on adaptive materials and structures.

Mary Brogan Art and Science Museum
An on-going program has been established in collaboration with the Mary Brogram Art and Science Museum. This is a monthly Saturday afternoon program (1:00pm every third Saturday of the month) entitled: Magnificent Materials and Exotic Engineering--(ME)² geared toward kids and parents of all ages. This program includes hands on demonstrations of adaptive materials such as piezoelectric composites for energy harvesting, magnetostrictive "Sound bugs", temperature sensitive cholesteric liquid crystals, and artificial muscles. We also collaborate with fellow faculty, Drs. Ongi Englander (nanoscience) and Jonathan Clark (robotics) to bring a broad perspective of materials science, mathematics, and engineering to the general public. Below is an example of one of the programs illustrating artificial muscles.

 

FCAAP
We mentor middle school students as part of an outreach program supported by the Florida Center for Advanced Aero Propulsion. We have mentored two students thus far on how to build wind tunnel models and characterization of fluid flow around structures relevant to aero propulsion. The two students built and tested a model in our wind tunnel facility in Spring 2009. A summary of their accomplishments can be found here. See images below on their model and wind tunnel characterization.