Virtual On line
June 22, 2020
June 22, 2020
June 26, 2021
Materials
16
10.18260/1-2--35106
https://strategy.asee.org/35106
466
Michigan State University (MSU) St. Andrews, Midland, MI. Dr. Tracy Zhang is a faculty member and STEM Outreach Specialist at Michigan State University St. Andrews campus. She earned a doctoral degree in advanced materials from Central Michigan University. Her current role involves promoting STEM education to K-12 students focusing on 3D printing technology area and conducting research in the development of biosourced hyperbranched poly(ester)s for the controlled release of actives across a range of applications.
Dr. Robert A. Bubeck is currently a Research Assistant Professor at Michigan State University in Midland, Michigan with over 44 years of experience in industrial research and development. He is a graduate of Drexel and Cornell Universities. Research areas include the development of new liquid crystalline polymers, semi-crystalline polymers, thermoplastics, hyperbranched polymers, and dendrimers. He has broad-based expertise in the areas of structure/property fundamentals, mechanical behavior, composites and blends, rheology, fiber spinning, 3D additive fabrication, surface science, and interfaces. Prior to joining the Michigan State University, Dr. Bubeck pursued research in materials and polymer science at the Dow Chemical Company where he attended the level of Fellow, and at Michigan Molecular Institute. Within the Dow research community, he pioneered synchrotron-based research aimed at the advanced characterization of the physical behavior, surfaces, and processing of polymers. He is an author or co-author of over 62 publications and 5 patents. He has presented invited talks at major institutions such as Cornell University, MIT, University of Massachusetts, Case Western Reserve University, the University of California at Santa Barbara, and the University of Minnesota. Dr. Bubeck is a Senior Fellow of the American Physical Society.
H. H. Dow High School, Midland, MI. Grace was a rising senior when taking the research internship at MSU St. Andrews.
Logan was a rising senior when taking the research internship at MSU St. Andrews.
Prof. Bingbing Li (the corresponding and presenting author), the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Central Michigan University. Dr. Li is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at Central Michigan University. She received her doctoral degree in Chemistry from Virginia Tech. Dr. Li’s research primarily focuses on the design of hierarchically structured polymeric materials for biomedical and environmental applications, with an emphasis on the design and property optimization of these polymer-based materials. Dr. Li has also been actively involved in macromolecular science and engineering education. She served as a research advisor for the summer interns at MSU St. Andrews during summer 2019.
In 2015, the Michigan State Board of Education voted to adopt new Michigan Science Standards that heavily draw on the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Among all the performance expectations from these science standards, incorporating high school engineering design requires more effective collaboration between K-12 teachers, higher educators, scientists, and engineers. Without such collaborative effort, K-12 teachers could face tremendous challenges for the design and implementation of meaningful engineering education lessons that could meet the standards. Michigan State University St. Andrew at Midland, MI was established in 2015 through the support of the Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation, the Rollin M. Gerstacker Foundation, the Charles J. Strosacker Foundation, and the Dow Chemical Company Foundation. The center offers various educational programs in Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics (STEAM) for K-12 teachers and students in the greater Midland region. More importantly, the MSU STEAM Center, well-equipped with materials science and engineering research equipment, provides a platform for K-12 teachers and students to collaborate with higher educators, as well as experienced scientists and engineers. This paper summarized the design and implementation of engineering education research offered by the MSU STEAM Center to high school juniors in summer 2019. The research project was focused on the computer-aid design, fabrication, mechanical testing, and statistical life data analysis of 3D-printed polymeric biomaterials. 3D printing technology has been widely used in the fabrication of biomaterials for tissue engineering. There would be value in determining the degree to which one may fashion scaffolds with readily available low-cost polymer filaments using affordable 3D printers, particularly for early-stage prototyping. This research focused on the bone defect area of tissue engineering. Bone defects, both congenital and acquired, are serious and costly impairments. Beyond a critical size the defects (i.e., fractures) are not able to heal without further medical intervention. An effective treatment technique is to implant a biodegradable scaffold at the injured site to promote bone regeneration by attracting cells to the area. Using additive manufacturing, scaffolds can be fabricated to the specific needs of patients. In this project, scaffolds were modeled and fabricated in the form of a cube using various polymers and biopolymers (e.g., PCL, PLA, PVA, PLA/PHA, and an olefin block copolymer) with different geometric configurations and infill percentages. The mechanical properties of the scaffolds were characterized using compression tests to determine the yield stresses and compressive Young’s moduli. The reliability of the mechanical properties of scaffolds was estimated with the use of Weibull statistical analysis to determine a probability of failure. The results were compared with yield stresses and moduli of different trabecular bone tissues at multiple anatomical locations, and enhanced understanding of the structural optimization of polymer scaffolds and as an aid to tissue regeneration for bone defects. In this paper, the education and research outcomes of the summer program, along with future education plans were discussed in detail.
Zhang, T., & Bubeck, R. A., & Joffre, T. A., & Bremmer, G. A., & McNamara, L. P., & Heydenburg, A. M., & Li, B. (2020, June), Promoting Materials Science and Engineering Education Through 3-D Printing Technology Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--35106
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