Every year, the Gifted Education Resource Institute (GERI) brings 7th and 8th graders from around the world to Purdue for a taste of college life. This year, one of their courses was in Toy Design, led by Karthik Ramani (Donald W. Feddersen Professor of Mechanical Engineering). Students learned the basics of design, and then collaborated to build motorized robots out of cardboard, which told a story.

Purdue University is ranked 15th in the world in U.S. utility patents -- just part of a record-breaking year for startups and commercialization. Suresh Garimella appeared on Inside Indiana Business to discuss their success.

This is the story of three Purdue University Mechanical Engineering researchers who have just received a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to further the field of dexterous micro-manipulation: tiny robots, controlled by humans, in 3D in real-time.

Necessity is the mother of invention -- so when a group of Purdue students got frustrated with their GoPro accessories, they decided to invent their own. It's called the Switchback, and it allows users to quickly and easily rotate their GoPro, or put it on another mount, without messing with screws or pegs. The first prototype came about as part of their sophomore-level design class, but they have since gone into business to manufacture it.

Meet Rob St. Claire: came to play Purdue Men's Club Volleyball, interned at Apple, became an acoustical engineer, and now is in grad school -- and still playing volleyball!

The future of composite manufacturing is here, as we celebrate the opening of the $50 million Indiana Manufacturing Institute. As part of the U.S. Department of Energy's Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation, the new facility will operate out of Purdue Research Park.

It's partly because we don't fully know the limits of lithium-ion batteries. That's why Amy Marconnet and her team are dissecting the batteries and thoroughly testing the heat-transferring properties of the materials inside.

Aerial Agriculture LLC, a startup company launched by Purdue ME students, aims to revolutionize the agricultural industry by building drones in-house to capture multispectral images of entire crop fields.

It's easier than ever for Purdue Engineering students to study abroad in east Asia, thanks to a grant from the US State Department. The team behind the grant includes Jim Jones, associate head of the School of Mechanical Engineering.

It's an understatement to say that technology has changed higher education. But sometimes those advances don't translate into student success. For example, in one sophomore-level Purdue mechanical engineering class, 22 percent of students withdrew, or got a D or F. That's why a group of ME professors began Purdue Freeform, a new method of blending online learning, classroom instruction, and student-centered collaboration. Now that student failure rate is down to 10 percent, and their ideas are being shared across campus, and with other universities.