On my gorgeously sunny drive to campus this morning I heard a great story on NPR about OSU Alumnus, Joshua Mater, a US Army Captain. Mater was recently wounded in Iraq when a rocket exploded near him in May.

From the Oregonian:

Capt. Joshua Mater, now stationed at Fort Bragg, has gathered about 200 engineering textbooks donated by the faculty at Oregon State.

They’re intended to help students at Dhi Qar University in southern Iraq learn how to construct roads, provide electricity and build bridges. The school has 10,000 students, one of the largest in the nation.

snip

Ron Adams, dean of the College of Engineering, said the texts were worth about $20,000, and they’re of recent vintage.

“The specific request was for 21st century textbooks,” he said.

It goes without saying that well trained engineers will make a huge difference as Iraq sets to the task of rebuilding itself. Just goes to show, that Land Grant service before self attitude, never fades! Kudos to Capt. Mater, keep up the good work.

-jm

I try to stay away from straight reporting of the news here because you all have The Google and are more than capable of browsing the happenings related to OSU. I just couldn’t resist this one, though. We have talked about the transparent transistor technology that was developed at OSU by College of Engineering researchers and the potential for huge breakthroughs in technology because of it.

There is an interesting blurb on Forbes.com about the transparent transistor technology being licensed to a firm in California, Xtreme Energetics. XE believes that they can use the transparent transistor to make solar panels that are twice as efficient and half the cost of traditional solar panels.

From the Forbes report:

HP (NYSE:HPQ) and Xtreme Energetics (XE), a solar energy system developer based in Livermore, Calif., today announced they have entered into an agreement for the development of a solar energy system designed to generate electricity at twice the efficiency and half the cost of traditional solar panels.

Under the technology collaboration and licensing agreement, HP will license its transparent transistor technology to XE in return for royalty payments.

The transparent transistor technology that will be used in XE’s solar energy device was co-developed by HP and Oregon State University.

For those of you who weren’t aware, HP has a large campus here in Corvallis:

View Larger Map

Pretty awesome stuff! Leave your questions and comments below.

-jm

To further the goal of the exploration and settlement of the Red Planet. This will be done by:

1. Broad public outreach to instill the vision of pioneering Mars.
2. Support of ever more aggressive government funded Mars exploration programs around the world.
3. Conducting Mars exploration on a private basis.

Starting small, with hitchhiker payloads on government funded missions, we intend to use the credibility that such activity will engender to mobilize larger resources that will enable stand-alone private robotic missions and ultimately human exploration.

hosted its second annual Mars Rover Challenge. A group of OSU Engineering students from the OSU Robotics Club built and operated the winning rover.

“Their science payload was particularly amazing because of the way they used common household products,” judge Heather Smith said in a statement on the Mars Society’s Web site. “They had an electric toothbrush to clean off rocks, a standard mechanical drill, and a common thermometer.”

Definitely check out the blow by blow of the Rover Challenge…Sounds like an awesome competition! My favorite part of the website is the photo of the day with the caption:

If I’m ever lost on Mars, I want Oregon State to come find me!

I’ll second that emotion!!

(Big ups to Rachel from Anvil Media for the initial linkage!)

-jm