Dear Bechtel Innovation Design Center Community, 

We hope this newsletter finds you well. In this edition, we are excited to share some significant updates and changes that have taken place in our system, as well as some upcoming events that you will not want to miss. 

The Transition to Brightspace 

One of the most notable recent changes in the Bechtel Innovation Design Center is the transition from Passport to Brightspace. This transition has had a positive impact on our system, making it faster and more efficient. Brightspace offers improved features and user-friendliness. Here is a summary of the key changes: 

Notable New Features: 

• Brightspace for Training Tracking: We have replaced Open Passport with Brightspace for safety training. Safety training now involves quizzes on Brightspace, accessible by clicking the red rows in the tables in the Project Management System. This change was implemented because Passport was very slow, while Brightspace is nearly instantaneous. 
• Instant Training Updates: Brightspace provides updated training information in real-time when you view a Proposal or Resource. 
• Theme Updates for Accessibility: We have made theme updates to enhance accessibility across our platforms. 

Coming Soon: 

• Comments on Proposals, Projects, and Users: We are working on a feature that will allow users to leave comments on proposals, projects, and user profiles. This will enhance collaboration and communication within our community. 
• File Uploads for Prototyping and Workflows: We are enabling file uploads for various workflows, including prototyping. This feature will streamline your project management tasks. 

Badges to Checklist: 

Machine- and process- specific safety training has shifted to in-person for certification. This hands-on approach allows you to gain practical experience in front of machines, ensuring a higher level of safety and expertise. 

Fusion Team Update: 

Our Bechtel Innovation Design Center Fusion Team has undergone changes. The old team has been renamed to “THIS TEAM IS INACTIVE.” To join the new Fusion Team, take a quiz with the Front Desk and watch this playlist: CAD, prior to the quiz attempt. Old CAMs with no tool, machine, or operation changes can still be run from the old team, but new CAMs are required to be done in the new Fusion Team. We will not delete any student files in the old team, but we cannot guarantee their long-term availability. This change was made to improve the stability of the Fusion Team. 

Upcoming Workshop: Turn a Wood Bowl with Dan Bollock 

Join us for an exciting woodworking workshop with Dan Bollock. Learn to turn a wood bowl and unleash your creative talents. Here are the event details: 

• Date: Monday, November 6 
• Time: 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM 
• Location: Bechtel Center room 137 
• Limited to: The first four registrants 
• What to Expect: Each participant will craft their own wooden bowl. All necessary materials will be provided. 

Do not miss this unique chance to refine your woodworking skills and create something beautiful. To register for this workshop, please visit: https://www.purdue.edu/bidc/workshops/ 

We are committed to improving the Bechtel Innovation Design Center and providing you with the best tools and resources for your projects. Stay tuned for more updates, and we look forward to seeing you at our upcoming events. 

Best regards, 

The Bechtel Innovation Design Center Team 

New Operations Manager Dan Bollock

We are extremely excited to announce that we have hired a second Operations Manager to begin the transition to support extended hours.

I would like to introduce Dan Bollock who has joined our team at the Center. Dan received his BSME from Purdue many years ago. He comes to us from the Wood Research Laboratory (WRL) in Purdue’s Forestry and Natural Resources. Before working in the WRL, he was a full-time furniture maker and an engineer at Wabash designing sheet steel, stainless, and aluminum parts and assemblies.

He has a vast knowledge of woodworking joinery, machinery, finishing, hand tools, and wood. He is excited to share his expertise and learn new materials and machines from the talented staff at the Center. In his spare time, he can be found in his nicely equipped workshop next to his house making contemporary furniture, sculptures, boxes, and bowls. Some of his sculptures are on display in Armstrong Hall at Purdue.

Dan will be a great asset to the Bechtel Center where he will not only expand our skills/knowledge but will also eventually allow us to expand our hours. Thus, allowing us to accommodate more students. Please help us welcome Dan Bullock to our team!

Bechtel Workshops

The Fall semester and workshops are winding down, but the good news is we will host a new set of workshops starting next semester! Please click this link to stay updated on our upcoming workshops: https://www.purdue.edu/bidc/workshops-3/. 

Wanted: Student Employees Interested in 3D Printing & Laser Cutting  

We are currently hiring for the Printing & Prototyping lab! Are you looking for a place of work where you can learn new skills, help teach others, and have fun while doing it? If yes, then visit us at Bechtel Center front desk to learn how to get started! 

Printing and Prototyping 

The new printers are finally here! With the start of the Fall 2022 semester, the Printing & Prototyping Lab is excited to take its first steps into the worlds of resin and powder 3D printing. Our newly arrived Formlabs Fuse 1 SLS powder printer was made available at the very beginning of the semester and will be followed by our new Formlabs Form 3B+ resin printer at the beginning of the Spring 2023 semester. Alongside our new printers and veteran Peer Mentors, P&P is also happy to welcome three new hires, further expanding our available open hours, and we expect several more hires in the next month or two. 

High Bay Rework & Composites Lab 

The Center is taking steps to fully clean out and reorganize the entire High Bay. This will include the adjustment of all existing High Bay resources in the Project Management System and the addition of several new ones. Most notably, the High Bay will see the addition of a full Composites Lab developed with safety, cleanliness, and equal access for all in mind.  

As the fall 2022 semester started, the growing interest of Purdue Students in designing and manufacturing composite materials, such as carbon fiber, Kevlar, or fiberglass, led to the start of the Composite lab. As the 6th new addition to Center’s labs (metal shop, P&P, soft materials, hot works, and electrical), the composites lab will soon be a resource available to all Purdue students! The lab will offer students the opportunity to work and test composites materials, one of the most advanced techniques used in the aerospace and automotive industry. With safety handled, tools and resources purchased, the lab is now waiting for materials to ship to assemble and make the lab operational! Student teams such as FSAE, PER, BAJA, and PSR have already made use of the lab, sharing resources and knowledge to promote development in this field, just as the lab was designed to be. Here at BIDC we are excited to offer more and more opportunities and knowledge to students, so get ready to join some of the workshops we will be hosting next semester!  

Sean, an undergraduate student working on a personal research project to acquire and apply new knowledge, is supervised by John, a peer mentor at the center. He pursued this topic primarily for the chance to conduct research. Using laser cutting, he created a heat exchanger out of the metal sheet. The product mainly consists of the fins of AC motors that are in charge of keeping the motor cool and removing heat when it is operating.
He created two distinct products, each with a distinctive design. The product with round holes is simpler to attach to motors.

Senior aerospace engineering major Vebjorn Moskvil is engaged in a personal project for academic purposes. To finish his research, he is utilizing a Haas VF4 machine, and he is machining aluminum to construct the chamber for a fuel tank experiment. It will be used to dump fuel into an experiment chamber that will be launched by Blue Origin in the summer of 2023. The research chamber will ultimately be used to test a fuel tank in space.

Matthew, Brandon, and Dhruv are making a prototype landing leg for a rocket launch structure that will be carried aloft by a balloon. Their work with the Purdue Orbital Club is quite thin. They use aluminum as the material for the Haas VF4 machine to machine their product.

James Freeman, a Center peer mentor, is helping a student manufacture multi-stable beams. The student is researching how different styles of fins affect the heat exchange in HVAC systems. The research is being conducted at Herrick Labs on the Multistable heat exchanger fins for HVAC systems. The student used the FabLight laser to cut aluminum 6061 and is planning to use the Water Jet here at the Center to create the die for bending the sheets to an angle.

Atulram, a peer mentor at the center is creating a cooling plate for Purdue Electric Racing that is still in the prototype stage for the car’s electric battery. He is making the cooling plate in order to keep the battery from getting too hot. Aluminum was used to construct the prototype.

Cole Cicora a peer mentor at the center is employing the HAAS VF2 available here to mill a Purdue P. He uses the 1/2 Maximet then the 1/8 Maximet & finally the 1/8 Engraving Cutter for his project.

This is the combustion chamber for a micro gas turbine engine. It’s made out of 304 stainless steel. This part consists of an external and internal chamber that has primary, secondary, and dilution holes. It will be rolled and then welded together to make the complete combustor.

Fusion 360 is an Autodesk product. Autodesk is a provider of CAD environments, namely, Fusion 360.

One of the unique features of Fusion 360 is that it is an integrated CAD and CAM environment, meaning that they both are held in the same place. Another unique thing about Fusion 360 is that it is cloud-based, meaning that if you are working on a computer at home and then come into the center, you can still access all of your files and saved designs. Moreover, it allows us at the center to collaborate on designs and be able to view many people’s designs without actually having to exchange files through email or USB.