Indiana AgrAbility hosted the 4^th Veteran Farm Tour for the Indiana Beginning Farmer Program on October 15, 2016.  The tour started at the Millgrove United Methodist Church in Quincy, Indiana for a morning session with Purdue Extension Specialist talking about hydroponics and aquaponics.  The morning sessions were followed by lunch using tilapia fish and greens from the host farm, Ponderosa Aqua Farm near Spencer, Indiana.  Ponderosa Aqua Farm is a local, family and veteran owned business producing organic microgreens and tilapia fish.  The afternoon session was a tour of the farm.  Thirty veterans plus Purdue staff attended the tour.

The National AgrAbility Project along with other farm safety and health organizations collaborated with a display at the National FFA Convention Showcase.  Each organization provided information through a scavenger hunt for the students with a safety T-shirt and greater knowledge as their reward.  The National AgrAbility Project displayed AgrAbility publications, a John Deere tractor with a Life Essentials lift, and health and safety publications from Purdue Health and Safety.  Dr. Roger Tormoehlen provided the students with model pulling tractors run on a track to show how different gear ratios can affect pulling ability.  Purdue Ag Safety also distributed safety CDs to each student.

Steve Swain, Indiana AgrAbility rural rehabilitation specialist, attended a two-day training sponsored by Indiana Vocational Rehabilitation Services and the Rehabilitation Hospital of Indiana.  The conference was the Brain Injury and Resource Facilitation Conference.  The conference provided information on the anatomy of the brain and the origin of some of the functions and how research has led to new options to facilitate rehabilitation and recovery.

Steve Swain and Dr. Bill Field attended and exhibited at the Purdue University Extension Professional Development Conference on campus at Purdue.  The Indiana AgrAbility exhibit was part of the Showcase of Excellence where various extension programs on campus were able to present extension programs available to the county educators and their clientele.

Professor Meng Deng has received a grant from the Office of Academic Programs for undergraduate research. These grants are available to help offset costs of supplies and expenses for undergraduate researchers. Congratulations, Dr. Deng!

Professor Michael Ladisch completed the Grand Rapids Marathon on October 23 in 4:35:21. Run, Dr. Ladisch, run!

Maha Conferences

At the end of October, Maha Fluid Power Research Center sent its best and brightest to the 9^th FPNI Ph.D. Symposium on Fluid Power in Florianapolis, Brazil. The flights were long and the airport-crossings numerous, but the journey was worth it: Ph.D. student Ryan Jenkins’ submission, entitled “Investigation of Instability of a Pressure Compensated Vane Pump,” was among the five recognized papers at the conference. Furthermore, Dr. Ivantysynova― director of the Maha lab― was given the opportunity to speak about her team’s research and advocate once more for the use of energy-efficient displacement-controlled hydraulic systems, rather than valve-controlled systems suffering high throttling losses in her presentation entitled “Challenges and Opportunities for Fluid Power.”  Many thanks to our travelers for their strong performance at the conference!

The Purdue iGEM team received a silver medal at the annual Giant Jamboree in Boston for their work on engineering bacteria to remove and reclaim phosphorous from natural water systems.  While in Boston they also received a tour of the high profile biotech start-up, Ginko Bioworks, by our own ABE student, Evan Kelemen, who is currently co-oping at Ginko.

L to R: Jeremy Wiegand, Adam Harner, Jacob Taylor, and Dan Taylor (all ASMers - and motorheads) raced together in the Turkey Gobbler Family Enduro last Saturday near New Paris, IN.

Two members of the PUP team recently represented Purdue and the mini-PUP at the 2016 Engineering Education Festa 2016 (http://www.e2festa.kr/) in South Korea! Rachel Seals and Nolan Monholler, both ABE students, competed in the International Capstone Design division, with about 40 teams. Although we didn't make the top 3, there was a lot of interest and they both were great ambassadors for Purdue and the team. It was a very large event, and fun to see how engineering in Korea generates such excitement.