With increasing global energy and environmental challenges, international collaborations on energy systems and educational programs are more vital than ever. To address these needs, Herrick Labs has hosted a unique cross-cultural learning experience, which includes graduate students from Purdue University, Oklahoma State University (OSU), Technical University of Dresden (TU Dresden), and Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences (HKA).

Imagine driving 1,500 miles — from Nashville to Wyoming — without ever needing to refuel or recharge. That’s exactly what the students of Purdue Solar Racing accomplished in 2024: designing, building, and racing a custom solar-powered vehicle, which completed the American Solar Challenge for the first time in two decades.

Humans have always aspired to live among the stars — and Purdue University researchers are now working to make it happen. The Resilient Extra-Terrestrial Habitat institute (RETHi), a NASA-funded Space Technology Research Institute, explores how to make future space habitats resilient to disruptions and able to deal with complex situations autonomously.

The Rube Goldberg Machine Contest comes back to Purdue with a bang in 2025! This contest, designing a machine to perform a simple task in the most convoluted and entertaining way, brings together engineers and artists to create the most whimsical contraptions.

In a “game-changing” win against climate change, research by Luciano Castillo has discovered that wind turbines can not only provide the first clean-energy method to capture carbon dioxide, but they also can do so at a cost significantly lower than CO2 capture methods in use today.

Imagine a first-person shooter video game, but brought to life in an actual arena with projectile-firing robots built by students. That’s the idea behind RoboMaster, an international collegiate robotics competition where Purdue’s BoilerBot team is giving deserving nerds their moment in the spotlight.

Purdue University Mechanical Engineering is proud to welcome new faculty members for the upcoming school year. As of January 2025, 94 tenure/tenure-track faculty will have appointments in the School of Mechanical Engineering, in addition to professors of practice, research professors, visiting professors, adjuncts, lecturers, courtesy professors, and emeritus professors.

On the first day of school, kids typically write an essay about all the fun things they did on their summer vacation. For Purdue Mechanical Engineering faculty and students, their summers are busier than most! Here's a full report on all the conferences, awards, and special events that kept us busy this summer.

Creating hypersonic vehicles that travel faster than Mach 5 is a huge goal — which may rely on a tiny material. Purdue University researchers are working to develop 2D materials called MXenes, which are ultra high-temperature ceramic materials less than a nanometer in thickness. These materials may be the key to developing future high-performance hypersonic vehicles.

How will machine learning and AI revolutionize the practice of structural design and evaluation? That’s the question being addressed by a collaboration between Purdue University and the University of Houston, with funding by the National Science Foundation (NSF). They are establishing a new center to empower engineers that are responsible for designing and inspecting structures to use AI and machine learning in their everyday tasks.