Iron Range Engineering

Industry Relationships

2012-01-20T14:40:00.007-06:00

This semester, John Godec and I are tackling a project as a two member team with the guidance of our team mentor, Mike Shoberg. Compared to my previously larger project groups, this should entail an increase in responsibilities, work, and organization by each team member. I believe our combined experiences here at Iron Range Engineering (IRE) have well prepared us for this rather extensive undertaking.

Our project is with Cliffs Natural Resources’ Hibbing Taconite Company. We are working on a project that includes pumping system, structural, and workplace design, along with safety, environmental, economical, and operational analyses.

On Monday, January 16^th we had a tour of the Hibbing Taconite mining facility. The tour was then followed by a meeting to discuss the scope and projected deliverables desired by each party. We discussed the goals of the project, as well as the areas of technical learning we plan to accomplish. I am confident in speaking for John and Mike when I say; we were delighted to recognize the tremendous amount of enthusiasm and extensive interaction that was reflected by the engineering staff at Hibbing Taconite as we discussed various aspects of the project. From my past three projects here at IRE, I’ve found that sharing a strong interest and close relationship with our industry partners are very important factors in delivering relevant, practical, well-reasoned solutions for our clients. I believe these circumstances are not only beneficial for our industry partners and design projects, but also in efficiently refining our engineering practices. I look forward to each step in developing and evaluating solutions for every hurdle that our design project provides us.

-Tom Happy

The Life of a Co-op Student

2012-01-15T20:44:00.003-06:00

This is my final semester at Iron Range Engineering, but this semester, I am experiencing something even more bizarre than a traditional university and IRE. I am co-oping with Essar Steel Project Management Company Ltd. as a Automation Engineering Intern.

It has only been a week, but I feel alienated from IRE. My only way to communicate with IRE is through the blogs we have and emails. This bestows much larger responsibilities on a student. It requires the student to be willing to do school work after a full day at the office; but you can't stop there! This first weekend (and I'm assuming the next 15) was almost entirely consumed by school work. This must be kept under control for the entire semester to avoid cramming and sleepless nights towards the semester's end.

My project for the semester is linked with my work at the office which will be the automation for the pellet plant. Automation is the computerized version of a running plant. It displays how full a tank is, open and closed valves, and much more. The point to having automation is so that most of the plant can be controlled remotely from a control room, and so that when something goes wrong, it can be fixed or shutdown before it gets out of hand. For example, if a tank is getting too full (75%) a warning alarm will go off to inform the control room technician that some action might need to be taken to fix this issue. If the issue is not fixed and the tank gets to 90%, an emergency switch is activated by the automation program, shutting off the pumps that are adding fluids to the tank so that no overflow occurs.

The co-op is a great experience that I recommend to every student that is willing to take on a larger workload for a semester. It isn't for everyone, but we all knew engineering wasn't going to be easy. I like a challenge, and I have to think I'm not the only one. On top of my job and my work, I have the FE test this April and a wedding in the summer. Did I mention I'm house hunting too? oh yea, I also organize and attend multiple sports/community outreach events each week. Doing all this, I still manage to get 6 hours of sleep each night, usually. The word boredom has been erased from my vocabulary for the next 4 months.

I have altered the analogy of the Little Engine that Could, into the Little Engineer that Will. Itasca Community College Engineering and Iron Range Engineering have taught me everything I need to be successful. I know that I can do all these things because over the years it has become routine. These programs are set up to push each student to their limits. It has done the best job possible of preparing me for a real career. These skills I have would be under-developed or even nonexistent if I would've attended a regular university. I know I made the right choice coming to Iron Range Engineering!

One Month's Reprieve

2011-12-11T23:09:00.002-06:00

Following the end of all project and competency work on November 23 rd , IRE students were given a one week period in which to touch up all of their semester’s work into two compilations. The first compilation was the projects’ technical document, where all of the groups compiled everything that they had accomplished over the semester’s work. The second compilation was the individual student’s binders, where each student compiled all of their learning and professional accomplishments to assist in defending their semester’s learning. The following Monday (of December 5 th ) the project groups gave their final presentations to their peers and to some engineers from industry; followed by three days of straight defense for the individual students (and instructor’s too! J). For groups that had projects in industry, their presentations to their clients also happened during this two week period.

Now that the semester is finally over, I can stop to appreciate what I have done in the semester; however more importantly, I can take some time to observe what I have not done that I regret not doing, whether I was able to do them or not. However, while being able to just observe what went well, and conversely what didn’t, is rewarding for a student reflecting on his learning, taking the time to work on improving the process is at the heart of the IRE model. The consequence of being trained into the IRE model is that this process, dubbed Metacognition, becomes routine in everything that we as students (and for the first generation students as professionals) do in our work. So not only can I appreciate what happened over the semester, I can also ask “How can I do better?”

And on January 9 th we get to do it. Enjoy your break everybody!

Christmas Break

2011-12-11T15:33:00.000-06:00

Christmas break is finally here! This means that we can all enjoy a few weeks off from getting up early and being efficient workers. However, this doesn’t mean that we can take couple weeks off from learning! Since we are all life-long-learners at IRE, I can only imagine that there will be many learning activities completed by our students over the break. We can apply our heat transfer knowledge to decrease the heat loss out of our fish houses. Or maybe some of the electrical engineering students will make a fancy circuit to catch Santa Claus in the act of delivering our presents. Whatever situation we find ourselves in I’m sure we’ll come up with some way to make it better.

Proofread by Ron.

Co-op at United Taconite

2011-12-10T21:48:00.001-06:00

As a student at IRE I have had the unique opportunity to have a three semester long “co-op” as a reliability engineer with United Taconite. I am going to graduate at the end of fall semester 2012, and then continue to work in this position at United Taconite. In my first semester in this co-op, I have been required to write documents on the different steps in the design process, as every student at IRE does every semester. The main difference here is when on a project team working on a project at IRE, the team collaborates to create this document, and it is written on the one semester long project they are working on. As a reliability engineer, I do not work on large, many months long projects. They are much smaller in scale. They also do not appear to fallow the design process. In the beginning of the semester I did not know how I was going to do this. After a few projects, I tried to sort them out and apply different steps of the design to the different projects. This is the method in which I wrote most of the documents needed at IRE. Through this writing, and putting them all together into a technical report I made a discovery. A small project done by a reliability engineer does fit the design process! It was not at all intuitive, but through a lot of reflection and drawing relationships I found it to fit quite well. This got me thinking about how versatile this process really is. It can be applied to almost anything. Not every problem uses all of the steps, but this process is a logical way to approach any issue or problem. The scope can be years or it can be days, either way the design process still applies.

Congratulations

2011-12-10T17:15:00.001-06:00

Today the Generation 1 students were down at Minnesota State Mankato to receive their diplomas. This day marks a huge achievement for each individual student, as well as for the program. The students earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering. They are the first graduates in the state of Minnesota to receive a degree from a program founded on the principals of project based learning, and likewise IRE is a first of its kind in the state. From everyone at IRE, I would like to say congratulations to all the Generation 1 students who have helped mark this day in history.

Proofed by: Ron Ulseth

Finally Graduating

2011-12-06T16:12:00.002-06:00

For those of you who have been following since the beginning, the first generation students are finally graduating. From our perspective this seems to have taken a very long time: Just two years ago we were just getting ready to start our first semester here. We have come along way, and I know that I am a better person from my journey through the last two years with this program.
All of the first generations students are excited to start their engineering careers we began preparing for so long. We are ready. Here we come.

Proofed by Matt Hudson

Society of Hispanic Engineering Conference

2011-12-01T15:44:00.001-06:00

Iron Range Engineering gives the students an opportunity to develop their professionalism by attending leadership conferences. Cari and Carissa recently attended a conference in Anaheim, California.

The conference was geared towards developing the Hispanic engineering community, but we still got a lot out of it. The conference ran for two days and there was a career fair the following day. We attended ten different one hour workshops as well as get some volunteer hours in helping with registration for the conference. In the workshops topics such as interviewing, resume writing, and balancing work and home life were discussed.

This conference helped us to see how many different places and things an engineer can do. Companies as different as BP and General Mills sent representatives to the conference to teach young engineers about various. One of the most informative workshops we attended was sponsored by Lockhead Martin, a weapons company, which was titled Networking 101 for college students. This was important because we went to company sponsored hospitality suits where there were recruiters available to talk to about jobs. We attended these on Thursday night and had no idea what to say. We decided after that, we needed to attend a networking workshop to be more prepared for the career fair on Saturday.

Also in preparation for the career fair, we had our resumes critiqued. The biggest thing they wanted to see on our resumes was a project description, especially if there was no engineering related work experience. The career fair was a new experience for us. We were able to meet with representatives from different companies, hand out our resumes, and get some cool “swag”.

The conference was an overall success and a great opportunity to see different things available to an engineer. We both enjoyed getting companies’ point of view on what they are looking for in their new hire engineers. We will take the things we learned at this conference, build on them, and use them throughout our careers.

By Cari and Carissa

Dyssynchrony Project

2011-12-01T11:36:00.002-06:00

It has been roughly one year since the start of the dyssynchrony project. The focus of this project is to mathematically model dyssynchrony in the heart, create a physical model that shows dyssynchrony, and write journal publications on the research that has been done. After one year, two of the three goals have been accomplished at a high standard. These being the mathematical model and the program developed, as well as the journal publications that have been submitted to Mankato State's Undergraduate Research Center. The mechanical model, although completed, is not able to produce desired physiological results of dyssynchrony. But experimentation can still be done, and so far, the results are viewed to be life like. Our team is now putting together the final report for mondays final design review and looking forward to getting more accurate results with the mechanical model.

Proofed by: Andrew McNally

Thank You!

2011-11-23T20:40:00.002-06:00

As this semester at IRE is coming to an end, the 3^rd Generation students would agree that it has been one of the biggest learning experiences of our student careers. Building relationships with the Generation 1 and Generation 2 students has really helped us get through this semester. They have always been willing to help us out whenever we have had questions. They have made this semester more enjoyable and brought many laughs to lighten the mood, day and night. As a group, we would just like to thank all those students for putting us under their wing and helping us through this learning experience. Many of them probably don’t think that they have made an impact on us, but they have. We have learned much from them, from helping us get used about the program, to teaching us technical information and demonstrating how to be more professional. It has been our pleasure to get to know this great group of people. To the Generation 1 students in particular, we would like to say, thank you, and wish the best of luck with your future. We know all of them are very talented and are going to make it far once they get into the “Real Engineering World.” Just don’t forget that the students that aren’t graduating wouldn’t mind a visit during the next semesters from you first gens.

Proofed By: Adam Geilser and Andy Lillesve

United Taconite Project

2011-11-23T12:35:00.001-06:00

This semester myself and three others have a project with United Taconite. Our objective is to suggest new materials and/or a new design for filter concentrate chutes. These chutes currently build up with filter concentrate and cause costly downtime. We have met with the client a few times to discuss the scope of the project as well as design options. As a result, we have decided on a passive design with few or no moving parts due to the ease of maintenance. The main focus of the design is selecting the best material for the application.

To aid in the selection and to satisfy design grade requirements we designed and conducted an experiment to compare the coefficient of friction of different chute materials. Here, a hinged framework was built to hold the chute materials at an infinite range of angles. A known amount of filter concentrate was placed onto each material sample. The frame was then lifted until the concentrate slid off the sample material. At this point the angle was recorded. Using some basic principles of statics and Newton's second law we were able to solve for the coefficient of static friction. Finally, a chute material was selected.

In order to quantify the rate of build up, we set up a time-lapse camera at United Taconite to take pictures of the chutes at specific intervals over an eight hour time period. Using Photoshop, we overlaid a grid pattern into these pictures to give us a standard method to measure the amount of buildup. Knowing the amount of buildup and the time intervals we are now able to calculate the rate of build up.

We are in the final stages of the project now, which includes: finishing the final design, writing the technical report, and preparing the final design review. There is a lot of work left but I know we will get it done.

An End To The Beginning

2011-11-23T10:43:00.004-06:00

The first semester of my IRE experience is coming to an end. During the past two weeks, tension has been high. The question in everyones mind has been, can I finish all my work on time? Even through all the stress and hard work, I have found myself in numerous conversations with other students about what we have learned this semester and what we can improve on for next semester. All of the conversations I have had started from the beginning, what we did, how we did it, how we felt about it then compared to how we feel now, what worked, and what did not work. Through this metacognitive process, I have realized that I am not the same as when I started. I have different styles of learning and a different understanding of what this experience is all about. I have made the transition into this style of learning. Looking forward from here, I feel that next semester will flow smoother and my learning processes will be refined even more. Behind all of the stress and pressure, I can feel the excitement and curiosity of what is in my future.

Proofed By: Emily Kilpatrick

The Next Step

2011-11-21T10:52:00.004-06:00

Today is November 21, 2011. I started my college career August 24, 2006 at Itasca Community College. 5 years in the making and school is officially over for me in 17 days. The excitement is unbearable. Its felt like a decade has passed with the amount of time and energy spent in getting my engineering degree. While I am very excited to graduate and already have a job lined up, I'm still in aw; is this really happening to me, am I finally graduating? What does the working world have in store for me? Am I going to succeed, or is something else in store for me? While I ponder these questions I know one thing is certain. I am prepared for what ever life is going the throw at me. While college has been very important in developing me professional and technically, its time for the next stage in my life.

I will most certainly miss everyone at IRE. I want to thank my friends for all the good times we had. I also want the thank the faculty for everything as well. IRE certainly has been a very dynamic learning environment and I might not know what the future holds for me, or fully understand all the things that go into my next step but one thing is for sure I'm ready...

Anodizing

2011-11-17T15:01:00.003-06:00

Last week several of the students conducted a lab to anodize some aluminum parts.

The process involved a degreasing bath at 150°+ for 5 minutes. Then, the parts were rinsed and dipped in a de-oxidizing tub at 110° for 3 minutes. This prepped the aluminum parts to successfully accept the anodizing process. Next, the aluminum parts were connected to the positive lead of a 3 amp source and dunked in 70° acid/water tank for 2 hours. Now the parts had an oxidation layer on them, with a honeycomb structure, which was quickly dunked in a dye tank for 15 minutes at 140°. The dye leeched into the "porous" oxidation layer, before a quick transfer to 210° bath of chemical to seal the pores shut. This finalized the anodizing process and helped to keep the color in. Lastly, the parts were rubbed with a mineral oil and set out to cool and dry.

The parts below are aluminum pieces off of a Honda dirt bike, anodized and dyed red.

Freedom

2011-11-15T08:36:00.003-06:00

While our most recent visitor, Dr. Thomas Litzinger, was here, an interesting observation was made by a student while discussing the IRE model.
"Freedom is the best and the worst thing that we have at Iron Range Engineering."
This has been becoming more and more apparent as the semester comes to a close. At the beginning of Generation 3's first semester, we thought that time was on our side, we couldn't have been more wrong. Time is a fickle mistress, pretending to fulfill our dreams, all the while plotting the demise of the unmotivated student. This is another valuable teaching tool that IRE provides, time realization and management skills, it's time to realize how the world survives outside of academia. Let's hope that next semester's learning curve is considerably less steep.

Proofed by Ron Ulseth (student)

Crunch Time

2011-11-13T19:58:00.003-06:00

With Thanksgiving a little over a week away, the realization comes that the semester will soon be over. But before this can happen there are a few important dates. Wednesday, November 23 is the day that all competencies are to be complete. Also, on this date the first draft of the project technical paper is to be submitted. This means that many of us have work to do tying up loose ends and finishing oral exams. During this time the coffee comsumption will increase dramatically, the midnight oil will be burned, and the tensions will rise as many students spend the majority of their day at the school. Client presentations, Final Design Review and exit interviews will follow shortly after.

The semester wraps up on December 9, with the senior graduation taking place at Giants Ridge on December 8 and Mankato commencement on December 10.

2011-11-10T13:02:00.001-06:00

At Iron Range Engineering, students are required to do a certain number of volunteer hours that contribute to the community. This is part of the professional development learning that helps I.R.E. students learn about responsibilities outside the workplace. The Wind Turbine Team worked on fulfilling their community outreach (volunteer hours) in October. They spent the afternoon working at a community event called Community Connect. This event was for people who are less fortunate and need some assistance. The members of the group did jobs like greeting, serving lunch, registration, and exit interviews.

This ended up being a very rewarding day for the members and made them feel great satisfaction that they helped others in their community.

D2 Presentations

2011-11-02T14:48:00.000-05:00

This past Thursday, IRE students gave formal presentations as project teams to other IRE students, faculty, and staff. These presentations gave project teams the opportunity to improve their professional/public speaking skills and to update others in IRE on the progress of their projects.

Through the course of the semester, IRE students have given several presentations in various formats. All of these presentations have helped to improve each student’s individual public speaking skills. Each project group will present formally one more time in front of the IRE community at the final design reviews. This is where the students will be able to show how much they have improved their public speaking skills since the start of the school year.

Proofed by Grant Roy

MAX Scholar Visit

2011-11-01T22:18:00.001-05:00

This past Thursday and Friday a group of students and 3 faculty members visited IRE from Minnesota State University Mankato from the MAX Scholarship program. Four students from IRE are involved in this program and participate in weekly meetings with the Mankato students. The MAX scholarship is a diversity scholarship funded through the National Science Foundation.

The first night here IRE students and MAX scholars went bowling and visited about the program. The next day involved a mine tour of Minorca, a lunch with all IRE students, a speech about IRE from Ron, and debates within the scholar group.

Everyone had a good time visiting and meeting new people, or re-meeting for a second time, and the Mankato students finally got to experience the Iron Range.

Proofed By: Emily Kilpatrick

Dave Ellis Leadership Conference

2011-10-31T10:02:00.000-05:00

This past weekend three IRE students and one Itasca Community College student attended a Dave Ellis leadership conference titled “21st Century Leadership in Education” in Acton, Massachusetts right outside of Boston. It was held and hosted by Research for Better Teaching at 1 Acton Place. This conference was very personal with approximately forty attendees, most of which were school teachers, administrators, and business professionals.

The layout of this conference was quite different from those that we are used to. We had seven minute lectures followed by discussion, an activity, and then feedback. It was very active and each day was different.

Some of the actions we learned that leaders must take include: repeatedly asking for what you want, provide lots of feedback without reprimand, celebrate constantly, accept and embrace your role as a leader, and create a clear vision just to list a few. We learned how to listen for brilliance in everybody and the process that needs to be taken to find multiple solutions for any problem. We will be able to bring what we learned at this conference back to IRE to share with the other students.

Thank you Research for Better Teaching for hosting the conference and Dave Ellis for such a wonderful learning experience.

Proofed by: Emmy Stage

Midterm Has Ended

2011-10-24T22:23:00.001-05:00

It is that time of the year, where we have passed the midway point of the semester. For the students, it is time to evaluate where we are in completing individual deliverables by the end of the semester. For some they are right on track while others are a little behind schedule. As students, we are not in panic mode at this time, but soon deliverables will be due and stress levels will rise. It is important that all of us maintain some type of individual schedule.

For the seniors that will be graduating this fall, it is time to see what we need to complete to graduate. In addition to school work, some of us are taking the Fundamentals of Engineering Exam on Saturday. Passing this test is one of the many steps to becoming a Professional Engineer. The test is eight hours long and staying focused throughout the exam will be challenging. So, it is important to have a successful week of studying for the exam and completing the required school work at the same time.

The coming weeks will fly by and staying on top of tasks will be challenging. Everyone has a different way of tackling the challenges ahead, but we all have each other for support. The challenge of finishing the semester in time is something that some of us have completed many times, but it is always interesting. For the Third generation, it will be a challenge but they will be successful with a little guidance from the seniors.

To top it off, many of the fall graduates are looking for jobs, and the juniors are looking for internships for the summer. This is another time concern we have to contend with. All of wish we could have 30 hours in a day, but we know that will never happen. To be successful the students will have to track their progress and be efficient with the remaining time.

Proofed By: Austin Mekash and Tom Happy

Public Speaking at IRE

2011-10-23T21:49:00.003-05:00

It is expected when IRE students graduate their communication skills are greatly increased. A communication skill practiced often at IRE is public speaking. Public speaking is a trait that many engineering students lack as they enter their professional careers. IRE desperately wants to change this; because it is important that engineers are able to express their ideas through public speaking. Therefore, over the course of two years at IRE, students are presented with many opportunities to improve their public speaking skills. What makes these opportunities so valuable is the feedback students receive from their peers. This allows them to see what areas they need to improve in.

This past Wednesday, the Generation 3 students (juniors) were presented with yet another opportunity to improve their public speaking skills. We each presented our IRE elevator speech to a group of classmates. An IRE elevator speech is how an IRE student would explain our program to somebody they just met on an elevator. The groups consisted of 4-5 students, and the presentations were roughly five minutes in length. After each student presented, every member of the group would take a couple minutes to give the presenter feedback. The group highlighted the student’s strengths and weaknesses in all the different categories such as professionalism, confidence, appropriate dress, etc.

After all the presentations were done and feedback sheets were given out each student took some time to review their sheets. They then wrote a paragraph or two on how the presentation went, what were their strengths and weaknesses and how they would improve for the next time they presented.

Spring Semester Projects

2011-10-19T10:19:00.002-05:00

So... because of MEA weekend, today is the end of the week. This week is especially important because this marks the half way point of the semester. For some of us this is not big deal, for others, this midpoint makes their eyes wide and their minds race on where the time has already went. Many of our projects have begun to take shape and groups such as my own are presenting their design options to their clients before carrying on into manufacturing and other steps.

Today faculty went around to the students and asked them where they might like a project next semester. The different types of projects that may be available next semester are: industrial, mining, biomedical, or other fields. This is important because it makes it a much more enjoyable experience to work on a task you are interested in. Also, non-graduating seniors need to take a look at the topics that they have left to cover to make sure they have met all requirements. By trying to predict the learning that may come from the projects, a student can hopefully schedule their learning so that a majority of it comes directly from the hands on engineering done in the R&D.

Proofed By: Grant Graupmann

Internships while attending IRE

2011-10-17T12:44:00.008-05:00

This year, students at Iron Range Engineering have the option of working on an internship program while they attend their normally scheduled classes. Every Tuesday, several students work on their internship at companies throughout the Iron Range. This program is preplanned into their busy schedule and they are required to keep up with their projects and studies during this time away from school.

Working on an internship while attending school simultaneously may seem to be overburdening and sometimes impossible, but this time spent at internships is invaluable. On the job training adds an entire dimension to our learning, and the contacts we gain while at our respective companies will prove to be useful throughout our careers.

This summer, I had the privilege of working at an internship with Minnesota Power in Duluth, Minnesota, and I am still working at my internship throughout this fall. The knowledge I am gaining about the power industry is immense, and I am gaining incite into what industry is looking for in graduating engineers.

It is true that engineers are required to be lifelong learners, but more importantly I saw many engineers teaching while on the job. These engineers were constantly training new engineers in their field about their profession, and I learned a great deal from them. Teaching is something every new engineer should strive to get better at as they start their careers.

Proofed by Bryan Frey

FIE Conference

2011-10-17T09:48:00.002-05:00

Last week, the 2011 Frontiers in Education conference was held in Rapid City, SD. IRE presented two papers, and ICC, our partner school, had another presentation. Ron Ulseth presented the first paper covering the IRE model. The audience was so interested that the questions went over the scheduled time. The other paper explored Peer-Directed Learning in a Project Based Model, and was written and presented by one of our first generation students, Andrew McNally. People were intrigued at the happenings at IRE, and we were able to suggest process improvement ideas as well.

People came to the conference from all over the United States and around the world including Australia, England, Argentina, and Nigeria. These people brought many good ideas regarding aspects of engineering education. Many of the pertinent ideas came from the capstone sessions. One particular idea spoke of the benefits of an accelerated start to the project where the students jump into a quick, small abbreviated project. Another was a computer game developed to help students understand and work with dynamics concepts and applications at a high level of learning. The interface looked exciting and the game play looked fun, challenging, and educational.

The conference was a excellent opportunity for IRE to learn from other successful programs, share some of our revolutionary ideas, and make valuable relationships within engineering education.

Proofed by: Matt Hudson

Visit to Mesabi Range Community & Technical College

2011-10-10T11:24:00.002-05:00

The IRE Wind Energy Group is in the process of building a wind tunnel for scale model testing. A few of us took a trip to Mesabi Range Community & Technical College in Eveleth to speak with Dan Janisch, the Wind Energy Technology Instructor coordinating the installation of a used Vestas V-27 wind turbine generator system. Dan Janisch is providing IRE with blower fans and a place to build, use, and possibly store the wind tunnel, that is, once they have the space available. Right now the space is occupied by the nacelle and power control system for the 2.5kW generator.

Our trip was beneficial on many fronts. We got to see firsthand the scale of what Dan referred to as a small scale turbine. Not really small unless it is compared to the 2.5 megawatt turbines on Taconite Ridge. It may be “small” but still impressive. I cannot wait to see Mesabi Range’s wind turbine in operation. The IRE Wind Energy Team was invited to attend the tower and turbine lift in a couple of weeks. Dan also extended the invitation to other IRE students and faculty. There will be more to follow when the date is finalized. Their group is waiting on the crane availability, but has the support base ready and was enlarging the diameter of the holes in the bottom section tower connection ring.

We met some very dedicated students and a truly enthusiastic instructor who loves what he does. Dan Janisch has offered help and support for the future and would like our two programs to share learning opportunities whenever possible.

Thank You Mr. Dan Janisch

Dan Marshall, IRE

Wind Energy Team

Proof read by Tyler.

The Brain and Being Human

2011-10-09T21:35:00.017-05:00

A group of IRE students recently returned from the 47th annual Nobel Conference held at Gustavus Adolphus College. This years topic was The Brain and Being Human. Over two days, the top dogs of neuroscience shared their cutting-edge work. Discussion topics spanned from "how monogamy may have evolved and its implications towards treating autism" to "exploring how all of us are actually programmed to move to music". At the same time, Dr. Mayberg and Dr. Donoghue showed us the future... their work involves implanting devices into the brain to treat depression and to give patients with paralysis an opportunity to control an arm with only their thoughts. This was an excellent opportunity to peer into an emerging science and it revealed the kind of work some of us may be doing in the near future.

Proofed by: Grant Roy

Full Time Student and Co-op

2011-10-07T16:51:00.000-05:00

This semester, IRE students have had the choice to work on companies while participating on a co-op, and still attend IRE full-time. The semester projects that students normally do are replaced by the projects that are assigned at their work sites. In order to increase learning efficiency, co-op students can apply what they learned at their companies towards competencies for IRE. Most of the learning is independent, but co-op students are required to meet once a week to attend seminars and work on competencies. Under this structure, students get experience using metacognitive skills in the workplace while being able to graduate within four years.

Proofread by Brian S. and Tom H.

Options Document

2011-10-07T10:16:00.000-05:00

This week at IRE the options document was due. The options document is where all the design ideas are collected and recommendations are made for which design to move forward with. The Children’s Occupational Therapy group came up with the options for the team’s Chippy Tree and Troll Bridge. The Chippy Tree is a tree that children will be able to throw balls or bean bags at. The tree will have a few knots, or holes in it that the children will aim for. When a child gets the ball in the hole there will be lights or sounds celebrating their good throw. The troll bridge is an adjustable height stairway for children to learn to walk up stairs. There was a lot of research that went into finding good options for these projects and the team is looking forward to the experiment phase and the final building of each of the projects. The team would like to thank Banner Engineering for their well-documented guide that is published online. It was very useful in researching the sensors that the Chippy Tree will need. The team would also like to thank Smith Williams Studios and Gilly Arts for allowing us to work with them on these projects.

Proofread by Jeremy Goodell

Communications Workshop

2011-10-03T16:07:00.003-05:00

Today we had a workshop with two guest speakers at IRE. Traci Nathans-Kelly, Ph.D. and Christine G. Nicometo, M.S. from the College of Engineering of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, talked about the three main styles of communication, (written, verbal, and visual) and then broke those main styles up into topic areas. We were given multiple examples of good and bad forms of communication. We also discussed what forms of communication need to be more formal, and what can be less formal. Today, there was a lot of eye-opening communication facts presented that will benefit IRE as a whole. We would like to thank Dr. Nathans-Kelly and Master Christine for traveling up to Virginia to increase our professional communication skills.

Proofread by: Tyler Bartek
Re-proofread and corrected by Ron

United Taconite Filter Chute Cleaning System

2011-09-06T15:58:00.001-05:00

The last semester has begun for the Gen 1 students, with that a new project. The United Taconite Filter Chute Cleaning System project is lead by Cory Moran and other team members Bill Bacon, Deric Phillips, and Alex Learmont. The United Taconite project involves a process improvement for their filter system. The filter chutes build up with wet concentrate effecting performance. The system has to be shutdown to be cleaned, affecting plant operations. Our semester task is to correct this issue in a durable, cost-efficient manner.

Proofed by Cory

Minnesota Cup Update

2011-08-31T16:51:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, Eric Schaupp and Matt Hudson presented at the Minnesota Cup as finalists in the student division. Throughout the summer, the two worked to develop a business plan furthering the project work completed in the spring semester of 2011. The format for the finals was eight minutes of presentation then twelve minutes of question and answer. After the Q&A, the judges gave feedback on the presentation and how the questions were handled. The Minnesota Cup provided extraordinary opportunities and learning experiences in areas such as business, marketing, entrepreneurship and presentations.

Proofed by: Eric Schaupp

The Beginning of the End....

2011-08-29T08:24:00.001-05:00

An interesting time is about to begin for the Generation 1 students. One semester stands between us and the rest of our lives. This semester is going to ramp up fast and be full of learning on both the technical and professional side. Many of the 1st Generation students are also currently taking part in a project based Chemistry 2 class. The Chemistry class is a night class that includes a lab portion and is taught by ICC's very own Gordy Savela. This, coupled with the heavy workload that already exists, is sure to make this semester a busy one. Time management will be the key to success for all students. Being that I have seen this before (three times to be exact), I am confident I will be able to handle everything on my plate, including a 3 credit politics class at Mesabi. This general education class is a small piece of serentity that helps me keep my sanity in the crazy world that is Engineering Education.

Proofed by: Matt Hudson

Keewatin Taconite Trip

2011-08-27T18:35:00.006-05:00

The KeeTac 2 group visited the plant for the first time on Friday and collected information about their semester project. The overall scope of what we will be doing consists of redesigning a system that feeds concentrate to a testing system. This system called NOLA (nuclear online analyzer), is designed to determine the percent silica in the product for system control. Currently there are numerous pumps running constantly to feed these samples which is unnecessary in terms of energy consumption. Our group will be working with KeeTac Engineers to come up with different ideas to design and implement a more efficient means of delivery to the testing room.
The trip to the plant itself was very interesting in that we got to see more than just our project area. We walked for quite a distance through the plant and viewed the mill itself which was very interesting to see in person. The group is very much looking forward to working with KeeTac and are gearing up for our next design review with our mentor.

School Has Officially Started!

2011-08-26T16:20:00.004-05:00

The first day of school started with a five hour bus ride to Mankato. On the way down students were divided into their project teams to establish goals and guidelines for the semester. After arriving in Mankato, students participated in a variety of events depending on their level of study in the program. Throughout the day, new students received ID cards and everyone attended orientation at the library and career development center. Later that evening, the student body met with the program directors and MSUM faculty for welcomes and introductions before retiring to the hotel for the evening. During the second day there, a team building event was led by Mankato personnel. The bus returned from Mankato just in time for a number of us to head off to Chemistry 2, a night class with Gordy Savela. The trip allowed new and old students to interact, and was a great way to start the semester off.

Proofed by Tyler Bartek

Recent happenings at Iron Range Engineering

2011-08-18T15:54:00.001-05:00

The last few weeks of summer have been extremely busy for the interns working at Iron Range Engineering while getting things all set up for the fast approaching school year. They have assisted in the construction of new dividers which will be used to rearranging the classrooms, library and labs. These workspaces will be specific areas for project teams which will provide an exceptional working environment. In addition, these new areas will be complete with more storage, more tables and more white boards!

Proofed by Andy

ASEE Conference Closure

2011-06-30T08:32:00.004-05:00

Yesterday was the final day of the ASEE Conference, but it was my most productive day. It started off with a blast of useful information. At 7:00 a.m. I attended a session on teaching sustainability. The first three presenters did a fabulous job explaining their papers, all of which IRE and ICC could utilize ideas from. My second session was on entrepreneurial skills and mindset. Although the presenters had good information, none of it was new to the IRE model. They did mention Formula SAE Cars on a tangent conversation, which would be awesome to build on a team at IRE. The third session I attended was on problem solving and modeling. Jennifer Cole presented her paper on how to assess students' mathematical modeling abilities. She had many good points in her paper and presentation that I believe IRE can use to improve our mathematical models. I then moved on to a session for communication. Sandra Soto discussed an interesting method of presenting called Pecha Kucha. A Pecha Kucha presentation is a 20 slide PowerPoint in which the presenter spends 20 seconds per slide presenting the information. The whole presentation is 6 minutes and 40 seconds long. The majority of students surveyed said that even though this presentation is more challenging, it is better, and they would prefer to use this style rather than traditional. Michael Alley nearly blew my socks off when he presented his paper on bullet lists, good or bad. His presentation was by far the best of the conference. He engaged his audience for the whole presentation, and never even stopped to turn around and see what was on the projector screen. He didn't even have a mirror or reflector to see it... Trust me; I checked. So now you're thinking, "Wow! That sounds like a whole lot for just one day." But wait, there's more! I had the privilege of seeing not only Mason Hansen, an instructor at ICC, present on Itasca's learning community, but also seeing Ron Ulseth present the Iron Range Engineering Project Based Learning Model. I was surprised at how few questions were asked, (about 10 out of the 30 people) but Ron did do a very good job explaining the model. The project based learning session concluded my first ASEE National Conference. I have 12 pages of notes and an experience of a life time. I want to thank Ron Ulseth for allowing student interns to attend this Conference. I would also like to thank Itasca Community College, Iron Range Engineering, and all of their sponsors and funding organizations, because without them, this trip would not have been possible. I have learned a lot in these last three days, not only for my personal growth, but things that I can offer to students and faculty at IRE. If you would like more details on the sessions, contact Ron Ulseth for my ASEE National Conference Sessions Summary.

Day 2 in Vancouver

2011-06-29T01:05:00.002-05:00

Today was rather short, but very productive. I started off the morning by going to a session on Educating Students for Professional Success. The very first presenter was Robert Gustafson P.E. who explained how to teach students to become teachers. As an IRE student, we are required to lead learning conversations, so this presentation seemed to have many good pieces of information to extract from it. I then moved onto computer and electrical engineering laboratories. There was not much in this session that was beneficial to IRE, but I learned more about nano technology along with wireless communications. My last session of the day was ASEE International Partners, which was led by the President of ASEE. Anette Kolmos from Aalborg University, Masa Takei from a Japanese University, and Myongsook Oh from a Korean University, all presented their current status of incoming students and the percentages of engineering students. They also discussed their future plans to improve the amount of engineering students that enter and graduate from their institutions. It was a great opportunity to meet the presidents of other countries. My final blog post for the ASEE Conference will be posted tomorrow night. Thanks for reading!

Proofed By: Andrew Nelson

Robotics is Over, But the Fun has Just Begun!

2011-06-27T19:51:00.002-05:00

Today was the first day of the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) Conference in Vancouver. The Robotics Competition was concluded today with Itasca Community College placing 8th out of 16 teams. Congratulations to Brian, Matt, Ashley, Ryan, and Steve. The sessions that I attended today were Project Based Learning, the Main Plenary, ABET Assessment Outcome J, and Engineering Economics. It felt like IRE was being praised in my first session, because all the things the speakers wish they could do with their programs we already do! The Main Plenary session was almost the exact same thing, but instead of 40 people in the room, there were thousands! After the project based learning sessions, I then moved onto ABET Outcome J. The first 2 speakers had nothing to do with ABET Outcome J, but before I got too worried, the 3rd speaker said just what I wanted to hear. She talked about 3 different types of activities students can do to prove competence in ABET Outcome J, which all seem to be good ideas. Though she was the only speaker of 5 to actually speak on ABET Outcome J, I feel got enough information from her session. I then relocated myself across the street and up 2 flights of stairs for an Engineering Economics session. The first speaker mentioned how helpful "clickers" are in a lecture because it keeps the class engaged. However, the con to the clicker is that every student must buy their own. The instructors believe students do not use it enough to justify the cost of one. However, Ron figured out how to incorporate the clicker into his class without that con by simply purchasing them all himself. This way the clickers remain in the classroom for all classes to use, and everyone can stay engaged during a lecture. When I said this during the comments part of the session, many people looked surprised as if they hadn't thought of this option, or maybe surprised that an instructor would actually perform such a favor for their students. One man asked, "What school is this?" To which I answered, "Itasca Community College, located in Northern Minnesota." I should've added "The Best Place to Start" with a wink. I finished up the day by attending Becky Bates session where she was competing for national best paper. She is competing against 3 others, each from different regions of North America. She presented her paper on testing in groups very well. I hope she wins! Stay tuned for day 2 in Vancouver.

STEM Camp

2011-06-27T10:59:00.002-05:00

July 11th - 15th is Science Technology Engineering Mathematics (STEM) camp week here at the Mesabi Range Community and Technical College. During this week, 7th-10th grade students will be doing activities that relate to STEM. This year's focus is on Natural Disasters. The interns at IRE have signed up to lead two activities that engage the students in an engineering perspective. Being that the focus is on natural disasters, we chose to model flooding and hurricanes. In two hour blocks, the students will be split into groups to design a solution for the given problems. In the flooding activity, the students are to create the best way to control water when flooding occurs. This will be done by giving them a platform for them to mold river beds. At the end, water will be released at the top of these platforms to see how it gets distributed. The team with the most water control wins. For hurricanes, the task will be to design a structure with a given set of materials. When the groups have finished, they will test to see if their structure stands against an industrial fan. There will be five different distances at which the fan is placed to model different strength hurricanes. This will be a great way for IRE to give back to Mesabi's campus and also to create relations.

Proofed by Andy L

Vancouver ASEE Conference

2011-06-26T23:00:00.000-05:00

After the 3.5-hour drive to Minneapolis, a 3.5-hour flight to Seattle, a 2-hour lay over in Seattle, and finally a 35-minute flight to Vancouver, we finally made it to Vancouver. The city is beautiful. I am very excited to go to the conference tomorrow. David Janassen is presenting on project-based learning tomorrow, which I hope to attend. Ron Ulseth, Bart Johnson, Mason Hansen, Andrew Nelson, Ryan Telander, Steve Spooner, Matt Drazenovich, Brian Stevensen, Ashley Bredemus, Katy Marking, Emmy Stage, Emily Kilpatrick, and I are all representing IRE and ICC here in Vancouver. The conference starts at 7 a.m. and will finish for the day around 5:30 p.m. There are a total of 207 sessions tomorrow. Unfortuanetly we won't be able to go to all the good ones, but we will see most of them and take notes. Look for my blog tomorrow for details of the events.

Proofed by: Andrew Nelson

Almost There

2011-05-05T02:27:00.002-05:00

Finals week is coming to an end and everyone is scrambling to finish their work. People have been taking exams all week and compiling evidence. Though all the exams are finished, we still have to have our individual meetings with the instructors. In this meeting we present the evidence we have compiled over the semester and negotiate our grades. Some of us have survived off of coffee and cookies for the past 48 hours, but we're determined to finish.

Proofed by: Christine

Finals are Coming to a Close!!

2011-05-04T13:12:00.000-05:00

Finals week is now on the down slope, as we are getting close to finishing out the semester. Just one hour ago marked the end of oral exams being done. And in 24 hours all work is to be completed and handed in. Students are starting their defense interviews right now to prove what they have learned throughout the semester. In these defense interviews students are to bring a professional/seminar binder, design binder, and competency binder. Within these are the work and deliverables we have created during the semester. We will go through them with the faculty and discuss the level that your evidence shows and the grade that it portrays.

This means that IRE is hectic right now. Some students have seemed to gone crazy from staying up for almost 48 hours finishing work. Others are frantically finishing reflections and getting all of their evidence together. It is definitely an “on the edge” type of day. But as for the good news, when the individual students are done with their defense interview, the school year is done and it marks the beginning of summer :)

Proofed by: Tom

Future Engineering Students!!!!

2011-05-03T20:31:00.003-05:00

Even though we are scrambling to finish up the semester and get out and enjoy some nice weather (yeah right?!?), students are still finding time to show people around IRE. Over the past couple of weeks, there have been groups of people visiting IRE for a number of reasons.

Two weeks ago, IRE and Mesabi Community College teamed together to host a high school engineering competition. High school students from around the Range spent the morning in the IRE lab learning about what it means to become engineers and experience a part of the problem solving process that many of us tackle every day. Groups of students were given arrangements of solar panels, several different types of light sources, multimeters, mirrors, and basic wiring tools. The students were asked to develop a model of what electrical current they expected generated by the solar panels. The student were then expected to predict what would be generated in their circuits when the judges of the competition, IRE students and faculty, lighted the connected solar panel with an unknown light source.

These events are great for students in high school to get experience in engineering right from the source. Students really enjoyed the competition and so did the staff. Hopefully IRE will be able to host more events to show the community outside of already decided engineering students. Engineering is a field that has a huge demand for graduates and the US needs engineers more now than ever before. We are hoping that some of the high school students are now even more excited to start down the path of becoming an engineer.

Proofed By: Brianna Frey

IRE Golf Outing

2011-05-01T21:00:00.001-05:00

On Thursday, May 5 IRE will be having a golf outing at the Eveleth Golf Course. It provides an opportunity to wrap up the semester with a student life event, as most students will have had their exit interviews. It gives a relaxing couple of hours for students to relieve some stress before they depart for the summer. Hopefully it will be a beautiful evening.

2011-04-29T17:21:00.003-05:00

Venari, an entrepreneurial team at IRE, just returned home from a successful visit to MSU Mankato College of Business. We were there as guests of the marketing and management final presentation. This presentation was an evaluation of the first shot at an IRE/COB partnership.

The presentation went well for Venari after refining the mistakes made a day earlier at IRE's FDR (final design review) presentation.

In attendance was the Dean of the College of Science & Engineering John Knox, the Dean of the College of Business, Marilyn Fox, along wi

th Mike Nolan, Dr. Queen Booker, and several others from the business and marketing departments. They all asked great questions of our project and presentation, as well as congratulated us kindly for all of our hard work. They seemed very pleased with the outcome of our alliance this semester, hopefully allowing

future students to gain the same experience.

Left to Right: Dan Huju-(IRE) Frank Jackman-(MSUM) Deric Phillips-(IRE) Mollie Kramer-(MSUm)

Conclusion to the Tesla turbine project

2011-04-29T11:09:00.002-05:00

On Wednesday, April 27^th, the Tesla turbine team presented at the Iron Range Engineering final design review. The feedback from the presentation was overwhelmingly positive. At the end of the presentation, the team demonstrated the capabilities of the Tesla turbine and the pulse unit showing the culmination of the semester long project. On Thursday, the team drove to Minnesota State University, Mankato to present to the College of Business faculty and students. This was a completely different audience and therefore the presentation was changed to suit. The team removed some of the technical aspects and focused more on the market potential of the turbine. Overall, the team received positive feedback from the College of Business. In addition, the business faculty stressed the importance of working on multidisciplinary teams and reiterated their commitment to building ties between the College of Business and Iron Range Engineering.

Final Design Reviews

2011-04-27T16:40:00.003-05:00

Today each group presented their semester long project to the rest of the students and faculty at IRE. The presentations went very well. Every person at IRE has made large strides to becoming very successful presenters. The content presented today was also reviewed positively by the faculty present. We also had a few guests today for FDR. The business students from Mankato who have been working with the entrepreneurial groups, along with one of their instructors, Dr. Booker, came to help and watch the presentations. I can say I learned quite a bit about each of the other projects and the successes they have had throughout the semester and was quite impressed with everyone. The projects we presented were also compared to successful masters level projects, so we felt pretty good, but not all of the feedback was positive. We all received personal and group feedback on presentation skills and on content. These comments are necessary and helpful, so we can make the next FDR that much better.

FDR signals the approach to the end of the semester. With all the work everyone has to do, I, at least, have not given it much thought, but we all will be starting our summers very soon. For the rest of the semester we will be finishing our technical reports, the rest of our oral exams and we will do a final defense for our semester grades.

Proofed by: Erin Lamke

Made To Stick

2011-04-26T21:45:00.002-05:00

For my leadership/management assignment, I read the book "Made to Stick". The goal of the book is to help people convey their ideas so that listeners can easily remember those ideas later; the meaning of the message sticks in the listener's mind. Ideas can be made sticky if they incorporate several features of the acronym "SUCCESs": Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotion, and Stories.

Simple: The message should be simple and focus on the core of the idea.
Unexpected: A message that is not common sense or not predictable is memorable.
Concrete: The idea isn't abstract; it uses concepts and analogies that people are familiar with.
Credible: People can readily believe and accept the idea.
Emotional: Sticky ideas can attach to people's emotions and make them care.
Stories: Stories inspire people to act and allow people to simulate themselves in a situation.

The biggest culprit to a sticky idea is the Curse of Knowledge; when we assume the audience knows what we already know, we can easily lose them. We need to be able to communicate our messages to people of any knowledge level.

I believe the SUCCESs method is very useful for engineers to implement when expressing their ideas. It can enhance our messages, so people are more willing to listen to and understand their ideas. It can also help them communicate their ideas to both technical and non-technical audiences.

Proofed by: Dan Huju

Tesla Turbine Group

2011-04-26T16:15:00.000-05:00

Over the past weekend, the Tesla turbine team finished conducting experiments with the team’s acrylic Tesla turbine. Tests were conducted at Mesabi Range Technical College inside one of their industrial shops. The team has have been working in partnership with the Mesabi Range Trade students this semester and this was another opportunity to strengthen ties between the two campuses. The team will present the results of our testing at the Iron Range Engineering Final Design Review (FDR) this Wednesday, April 27.

The team has also been working with Mankato business students to develop a business plan for the project. The Mankato students will be in attendance for the Iron Range Engineering FDR. Additionally, the team will be headed down to Minnesota State University, Mankato (MNSU) on Thursday, April 28 to present to the MNSU College of Business students and faculty.

Proofread by: Matt Hudson

FDR Team HibTac

2011-04-25T16:09:00.002-05:00

The Hibbing Taconite (HibTac) team went out to give our final design review today. The engineers at the plant were very happy with the end deliverables of our project. The team decided to go with a single hydraulic ram and a pump package to provide adequate power to lift the large counterweight. This hydraulic ram is going to be mounted on top of the existing structure that is used now to cradle the counterweight and pulley assembly. The team designed a ingenious setup that flipped the hydraulic ram up on end, providing a downward force that directed a gambrel and cable assembly to lift the counterweight. An explanation of the final design and proposed modifications to the existing structure was the purpose of todays visit. It was the last phase of communication between the team and the plant. From here on the engineers on sight are taking over our plans and design recommendations we provided at todays meeting. A lot of time was spent modeling the design on Autodesk Inventor, which is comparable to solid works or Pro-E software packages most of us have used in the past. Using a 3-d modeling software to design the new counterweight lift system was a huge benefit for us in trying to communicate our design ideas to HibTac. Having the ability to pull up our model at will and rotate our model to the perspective in question was a huge asset in our tool belt. This model was then used to generate the 2-d autocad drawings which the plant is used to with their autocad drafting software.

Proofed by: GG

Summer Plans

2011-04-22T14:02:00.000-05:00

As the semester comes to a close a lot of thought is being put into what should I do with my last summer as an undergraduate. I really don't know what I should do. I have great aspirations to do some fun stuff, but that's similar to other summers. I think everyone should take a little time this semester to see what really interests yourself and do something this summer that is one of those memorable times of your life. The winters are so long in northern Minnesota with short but beautiful summers. Just take some time to unwind and relax and get the most out of it you can. You only have one life to live and these are the best times of your life.

6 Thinking Hats

2011-04-20T20:16:00.001-05:00

For my leadership/management book, I chose to continue reading Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats. I believe this book can be used for management skills. The ideas that the book talks about are very useful for running meetings.

As implied by the title, the book talks about 6 hats. The colored hats are metaphors for different types of thinking that may go into a meeting. There is the white hat, which is used strictly for stating facts about the discussion topic. The red hat deals with the emotional side of the topic. The black hat is used to look at the topic with caution, doubt or with a negative view. The opposite of the black hat is the yellow hat. This is concerned with the positive aspects of an idea or situation. The green hat is used to focus on creativity, bringing new ideas to the table or updating existing ideas. Finally, there is the blue hat. This is the organizational hat. Whether it’s a product development meeting, weekly update meeting, or any other type of meeting, the 6 hats strategy can be applied.

This strategy could help lead meetings in a very positive direction. In a typical group of people, there are people that talk loud and talk a lot and there are people that are quiet and don’t talk much. The people that are loud and like to talk a lot tend to dominate meetings. A lot of times this is a bad thing because the only perspective that is heard is from those people. Under the direction of the 6 hats, not only does everyone get to talk and let their perspective be heard, but also all types of perspectives are heard under the different hats. By allowing everyone’s perspectives to be heard, the discussion becomes very valuable.

Model Completed!!

2011-04-20T10:59:00.002-05:00

I am one of three students working on a biomedical-cardiovascular project this semester. Currently in the field of biomedical engineering there is not heart model that allows for an analysis of the inefficiencies caused by dyssynchrony. Dyssynchrony is when the two sides of the ventricle wall do not contract at the same time, creating sloshing, which can cause many problems within the heart. Due to a confidentiality agreement not a lot can be said on the description of our model.

We have been working on our heart model the past two months and finally on the 15th attempt we got it completed and it runs correctly! YAY!! We are extremely excited about this. Although, our final design review is next Wednesday and many deliverables and findings are due. Those include starting to thermodynamically analyze our model, evaulate other heart data we have been given, and create a journal entry that will be entered into a medium impact journal. We are looking forward to see what findings we can learn from this model. We are hoping that this will allow for advancements in Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy.

Proofed by: Andrew McNally

Metacognitive Learning

2011-04-19T14:04:00.000-05:00

Recently I turned in a summary on metacognitive learning which is required by all students at Iron Range Engineering this semester. In our program which is project based, we do all of our academic learning based on four knowledge dimensions or levels of “competency” in whatever subject is being studied at the time. These levels of knowledge from basic to extreme are:

· Factual Knowledge

· Conceptual Knowledge

· Procedural Knowledge

· Metacognitive Knowledge

To understand anything of course, begins with factual knowledge which simply means being aware of a subject and being able to discuss it in simple terms. What is important though, for us current and future IRE students, is that we understand the concept of metacognitive learning and the role it plays in this program. We have had this subject pounded into our heads by the IRE instructors from day one and only now am I starting to see how reflection on learning activities truly plays a key role in retaining learned material and dealing with the unknown through relation. Awhile back, Ron Ulseth requested that we take just a little of our time to reflect on activities of the past day or week and maybe even keep a journal of metacognitive reflection. I believe this will enhance an individual’s ability to retain information and is one of the most important aspects of this program. New students, if you read this and are vague on the subject of metacognitive learning, start looking into it now because you will be much less confused as to what is required of you here at IRE.

IRE Entrepreneurial Project

2011-04-18T20:10:00.003-05:00

This semester, IRE allowed two groups to attempt entrepreneurial endeavors. The group I am part of is made up of only two students, Dannyl and me. I chose to work on a small group for a couple of reasons; I want to have a larger responsibility towards my project work, and it was a change of pace from the 4+ person groups I have been on in the past.

The project specifics are sensitive because there is a great possibility of it becoming a spin-off company in the next year. I wont get into specifics of the project itself, but I'll explain our recent accomplishments and future goals.

As part of the project scope issued to us in January, we are working with MSU, Mankato College of Business students on preparing for the MN Cup competition and our new-found contest, Collegiate Invention Competition. We recently traveled 3 hours south of here and met with the owner of Wild Wings, one of the most prestigious hunting clubs in the United States. It is the only N.A.G.A. Diamond Sponsoring clubs in existence. We also met with Chad, the owner of Wings North, a club about an hour north of Wild Wings. Chad was referred to us by his father, the owner of Wild Wings. During our interview, we were able to learn about the inner workings of pheasant farms and gun clubs and gather valuable insight for the business aspect of our project, which should improve our MN Cup edge.

Now that we are closing in on the end of the semester, Dan and I are working hard to fit as much project work into our schedule as possible before we go our separate ways this summer. Though, right now we are focusing on learning requirements and professional outcomes. Not to mention the Final Design Review next week. We hope to continue working together throughout the summer when possible, and into next semester.

Hibbing Taconite Project Wrap-Up

2011-04-17T18:39:00.002-05:00

After mulitple meetings with the engineers and mechanics, we have narrowed our design down to hydraulics. The team has been working to complete two different mounting designs for the hydraulic system for installation. When the designs are finished and our price estimates are complete, we will then present our final work to Hibbing Taconite. We are nearing completion, even though we planned on having our final deliverable done by Friday, April 15th. We set our finish date early so that if we ran into issues or had delays, we could still finish before the end of the semester. Also, we set our end date sooner so that Hibbing Taconite could install the lift system as soon as possible because they are ready to get it installed. We should have it ready by the end of this week. Proof read by: Matt Hudson

IRE Internships

2011-04-16T12:22:00.015-05:00

All of the resumé critiquing, practice interviews, and job hunting is starting to pay off for the students of IRE. Many of us have interviewed several times, whether it be in person or over the phone. Much of the time, these job interviews come with tough competition, often times we are competing against other IRE students. This vie for internships has helped us all hone our speaking skills and gain confidence in interviews. This competition will prove very helpful to us when IRE's first generation steps out into the real-world job hunt after graduation this coming December.

This summer, IRE will have interns all over the state. Many of us are working for some very impressive big-name companies. Most of these companies have hired 2-3 IRE students for summer employment. These employers include:

proofed by Cory

Manufacturing Processes

2011-04-15T08:31:00.002-05:00

This semester, Bart Johnson has been coming over from Itasca Community College and guiding learning for manufacturing processes. As part of the learning, we got to lay up some carbon fiber, Kevlar, or fiber glass. When making any of these types of composites, a mold is usually needed. The students just chose objects in the classroom to use for molds. The popular objects were hardhats, cups, and Frisbees. Making composites is a really messy process and it takes a lot of talent to make high quality products.

To make our product, we first wrapped our molds with saran wrap so the resin didn't stick to the mold. Then we had to cut out pieces to fit over our molds. Once we had our pieces fitted, then we mixed up the resin. The resin is the binder that holds the layers of fibers together. We used a paint brush to apply the resin and then we fitted the fiber around our mold. This has to be quick because it takes about twenty minutes for the resin to start hardening. The product I worked on used a couple layers and then cut strips to fit into the detailed spots on our mold. Once we had finished applying the resin and fitting the fiber we let it dry. After it was dry, we cut away excess fibers and we had a finished product.

This experience was valuable to us because we heightened our knowledge in the manufacturing of composites. As engineers, we might have to design a product using these materials and knowing how to make it is always helpful in the manufacturing process. Also, as engineers, we might be designing composites. Its was definitely worth our time to get exposed to this process.

Proofed by Christine

Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration

2011-04-13T23:41:00.001-05:00

On Tuesday April 12, a group of IRE students attended the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration (SME) at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center. The conference was hosted by the University of Minnesota Duluth. The conference started with a couple short courses before the luncheon and keynote speaker Michael Hatcher, a Vice President at United States Steel Corporation.

The afternoon consisted of thirty minute presentations that fell into either the General, Non-ferrous, or Processing Sessions. At each of these presentations the presenter would share their research findings, discoveries, or project updates to the attendees. As students, we did our best effort to split up and attend as many sessions as possible, allowing us to share and discuss the knowledge and information gained on the car ride back.

Some of the sessions that I attended were The Discovery and Development of Canada’s Next Mining Camp, Vermillion Gold’s Exploration Program for Gold Deposits in the Vermillion Greenstone Belt in Northern Minnesota, and Securing Talent in this New Decade of Mining. In these presentations as well as the others that I attended, each had interesting information as well as tips that are definitely beneficial. There was a ton of rock solid knowledge to be gained about the area, the industry, and the future direction of mining.

After the afternoon sessions concluded, the trade show and vendor reception opened for all attending to interact with the exhibitors to see what each had to offer. We spent a solid 3 hours visiting the exhibits and having conversations about the IRE program, what their company made or sold, and what engineering opportunities their companies offered.

All in all it was time very well spent, very valuable knowledge was gained, and the IRE program name was spread throughout.

Proofed by Erin Lamke

All Work and No Play is Horrible

2011-04-13T19:06:00.002-05:00

Today a group of the students headed down to the cities for a trip to Target Field. We loaded up at 7am and were in the cities by 10:30. Unfortunately, the Twins got their butts kicked 10-5 by the Kansas City Royals. Still, we had fun under the sun and enjoyed a nice baseball game.

Now, back in the classroom at 7pm tonight we are back at it getting work done and trying to hammer out what is needed for the fast approaching deadlines. IRE is a learning experience that is unique and the staff has added little days like today to help ease the stress and make sure students also have fun experiences too.

Proofed By: Tyler Bartek

Get Creative

2011-04-12T09:44:00.005-05:00

In this ever so increasingly competitive world, it is inherent to think that we need the most proficient engineers in our nation, region, state, and even hometown. IRE’s industry-driven, project-based learning curriculum aids in the development of such engineers, but we are going beyond that to induce creativity that will supplement later problem solving and design. This is being done by encouraging students to engage in a passionate pursuit—something of interest that will be engaging and give us a break from “engineering” while using our minds in a new way.

I have chosen to take up airbrush painting with the intent of eventually being able to custom paint motorcycles. The idea for my passionate pursuit came from my interest in motorcycles and my old beater in the shed that needs a new paint job. Other students are pursuing music, cooking, archery, bowling, photography, among others.

I think this is a great way to get students to start thinking more creatively and to do something other than engineering school. This will be something we will be able to take with us long after graduation.

Proofed by: dp

SME

2011-04-11T11:42:00.003-05:00

Tomorrow a group of students will be heading down to Duluth to check out the annual SME conference. SME is the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, & Exploration. The topic of this years conference is: A New Decade in Minnesota Mining. This should prove to be a interesting adventure into some of the latest ideas and technology that is being looked at in Northern Minnesota Mining. The prospect for future growth and development in this area looks bright for the years to come and I would suspect that this will be interesting to see what is on the horizon for things to come. This is an intriguing time for the mines as steel prices continue to climb and foreign consumers need more raw material that they don't have. Stay posted to see what topics and discussions we get our selves into and look back for a recap later this week.

Proof: Ty B

Co-ops for Seniors

2011-04-11T09:57:00.001-05:00

One of the goals of Iron Range Engineering is to provide students with engineering work experience to prepare them for their careers. Internships and co-ops are great ways of getting that experience before taking on a full-time career. The downside is that co-ops can increase the length of schooling because students normally need an extra semester to accomplish this. Now, IRE is offering the option for senior students to work on professional and design competencies while completing a co-op. This option takes the place of working on a semester project, and students will still be able to graduate within 4 years. As of now, about 2-3 students will be in co-ops next semester, including myself (I will be working at the Boise paper mill in International Falls, MN). It will be very busy (40 hour work week plus learning), but it will be a great learning experience.

Proofed by Matt Hudson

Nicer Weather - Time to practice self control

2011-04-08T09:18:00.002-05:00

Well, there are only 4 full weeks left this semester! Many of us are working hard to make sure that we can pull through and get everything done. One of the hardest parts for all of us in the coming weeks is going to be looking outside and seeing shining sun and greening grass. Today weatherchannel.com is predicting the temperature in Virginia to hit 60. Many of us enjoyed at least two afternoons per week of football and other activities in the fall, but this was in the beginning of the semester. Now we are throwing the football in the room while deadlines are fast approaching.

Even though it is getting nicer as the days go by, we are all going to need to buckle down and resist the urge to blow off the extra time needed as deadlines approach. Ask most any professional working and he or she will usually tell you, "I work around 40 hours per week, but it can get pretty crazy around project deadline times." This is just another example of how IRE is more like the real world than people could have imagined.

Proofed by Brianna

Engineering Ethics

2011-04-07T14:57:00.002-05:00

Today, students from IRE attended an ethics conference at Itasca Community College (ICC). We were joined by students from ICC engineering and Industrial Technology - Power Generation program (A new program given by ICC). This conference raised awareness of numerous ethical situations with poster boards that the students had made. Topics ranged from nuclear energy to building designs to hunting ethics. Most of the IRE groups chose to use ethics topics that deal with engineering. The topic that our group chose to do was genetic engineering. We thought this was a good topic because there only exists an area of grey. This caused a lot of discussion amongst the people that watched our poster presentation. Overall, the conference went well and relations between ICC and IRE grew.

Proofed by: Brianna Frey

Tesla Turbine Undergraduate Research Conference

2011-04-06T21:24:00.003-05:00

The Tesla Turbine group was recently accepted to present at Mankato State Universities 2011 Undergraduate Research Conference (URC). On April 4th we presented at a poster session showing our accomplishments over the semester. The presentation went well but more importantly we got further experience presenting to both technical and non-technical audiences. There were inquiring minds about the Iron Range Engineering program as well as our Tesla Turbine project. We were glad to inform the people in attendance on both accounts.

While at the URC we had the opportunity to view some of the other student’s projects. One of particular interest was titled “Exploration of the Mesabi Iron Range”. The student presenter was Ryan Rague, a geology major working in conjunction with Cliffs Natural Resources. The URC project was about the extensive 20th century mining of high-grade iron ore and its depletion. The results from his geological experiments and subsequent data suggest that more high-grade iron ore is below previously mined areas. He is continuing his research in more mining areas.

From the positive feedback and interest we received along with what we learned, I am looking forward to attending the URC in 2012.

Proofread by: Matt Hudson

Tesla Turbine Update

2011-04-06T21:20:00.004-05:00

Over the past two weeks, the Tesla turbine team has been developing a variety of models to simulate air pulsing at 500 Hz. The first idea investigated the use of an electric solenoid to control the pulse time. The team found that the solenoids available on the market had a maximum frequency of 10-15 Hz. After brainstorming additional ideas, three different models were developed. Various calculations were the preformed (include finite element analysis) to determine the optimal design. The design chosen is shown below:

The team then contacted several local machine shops to determine whether:

The design could be easily fabricated
Whether there should be any modifications
Estimated cost of delivery

Lehman’s Machine Inc. in Iron, Minnesota stood out by being very helpful with design suggestions in addition to having one of the lowest quotes. Today, the team visited Leyman’s and were greeted with great hospitality. The design was discussed in further detail and steps were laid on how next to proceed. Tomorrow, parts for the design will be finalized and ordered allowing construction at Leyman’s to begin early next week.

Proofread by Eric Schaupp

Trip to CAT in Peoria, IL

2011-04-06T10:33:00.003-05:00

A group of IRE students along with students from the Eveleth campus of Mesabi Range Community and Technical College drove down to Peoria, IL on Sunday. We started in the snows of Minnesota and ended in the balmy 85 degree weather in Illinois. We visited four facilities in and around Peoria, including a production plant for track machines, a distribution plant, as well as a research and testing facility for Caterpillar. These were all highly informative and interesting tours, where we were exposed to some machines that only exist in a handful of locations in the world. The size and precision of the manufacturing processes employed by CAT in these plants are staggering, for instance one of the facilities, the one for storage and distribution of parts, has 51 acres under the roof.
Besides seeing the CAT plants in Peoria, we were able to get to know several of the industrial technology students from the Eveleth campus. We have started a relationship that could be very beneficial to both programs in the coming years.
On our way out of Peoria we were able to swing into Chicago and visit the science museum. It is a very interesting place, with hundreds of amazing exhibits. Bodyworks and a captured German sub from WW2 were two of the most notable exhibits, but they had everything from tornadoes and a cola mine to flight simulators and a toy manufacturing line. All in all, it was a very successful, interesting and educational trip.

Proofed by DP

Hydraulic Vendor

2011-04-05T16:52:00.002-05:00

Today the Hibbing Taconite group met with a hydraulics vendor from Nott Company this morning. The vendor was able to walk us through the process of selecting a hydraulic cylinder and a possible pump package. We also learned what type of hydraulic flow controls are needed to control the system and what kind of safety equipment is needed to be put on the hydraulic cylinder. The vendor was able to work with us and come up with a line drawing of how hydraulic fluid will flow through the hydraulic system. Now with this new knowledge we are able to ask our contacts at Hibbing Taconite if these new specs will meet their needs.

Proofed by Tyler

A balance of stress and fun

2011-04-05T09:17:00.004-05:00

Even though the semester is winding down at a very rapid pace, we are still making time to have a little fun. Now that spring is approaching, everyone's getting a little antsy to be done with school. With less than 5 weeks of school left, the stress is beginning to increase at an exponential rate…but here at IRE, we still make time for fun. Everyone has lots of work to do; learning all their competencies and finishing project work. Now that the sun is shining and the days are longer, there will plenty of fun outside, whether it be football games, soccer games or frisbee. Everyone can take a breather for an hour or two. We still continue to have our lunch speakers each week to give us valuable insight into working life and give us their stories of experience. Next week, some people will be going to the Society of Mining Engineers conference to learn about the mining industry that we are apart of and are funded by. Also, next week, IRE will be making the spring trip down to Target Field to watch the Twins take on the Kansas City Royals. The following week, stress will be pretty high with us taking the FE exam (only practice) on Thursday…but then we get a few days off to spend with friends, family…and lots of good food for Easter. After we come back from Easter "break," it's all about finals. To help the stress with those last 2 weeks, IRE will be going out for a round of golf and will hopefully be having a grill out. As Tyler stated below, crunch time is upon us.

Sprinkled in the last few weeks will also be some volunteering opportunities. With the snow melting, IRE has been keeping in contact with the city of Fargo. We are ready and willing to go help sandbag and do what they need to help protect the city. IRE has also adopted a portion of highway 53, so we will be taking time to go clean up the highway. And to help a little more locally, we will be doing one more campus clean up for Mesabi Community College.

Needless to say, the next few weeks are going to busy ones.

Proofed by Korpi

Polaris - "Trail Domination"

2011-03-30T19:19:00.003-05:00

Ben Dieter, from Polaris Industries, visited us yesterday as our weekly lunch speaker. The purpose of his visit was to talk about his experiences with work and the small business he also runs. Through these experiences he has developed a very diverse background in his career. Saying his presentation skills were great would be a understatement! He talked about his first months at Polaris in their Engineering Development program that covers marketing, manufacturing, design and how beneficial the experience was for him. He also talked about the time and pain that is being invested in your education, and how it is worth its wait in gold. He told us to be good at something and pull from that and make sure to take opportunities. He stressed that your education needs to be paired with experience.

"People are your greatest asset," he said, so you need to get along with them. Try and prepare yourself to be a better leader and edge that into your personality. Engineering Economics was mentioned, and how its nice to know about it when in a design phase of a project.

"The world is a changing place... so you need to also adapt... a lot of people don't like change." A lot of students asked how he balances his time between family and work. He said, "You cant do everything, so prioritize your action items that are urgent and important. Talk to who's in charge and delegate what you think you can get done and the time it will take you to do this."
It was a great presentation, very motivational, and hope to hear him speak again.

Proofed by: dp and EL

Crunch Time...Again

2011-03-30T16:57:00.002-05:00

So we are entering the last 5 weeks of the semester, and I personally still have 6 competencies to prove, as well as a project to complete by the third week. On top of all that the internship hunt has heated up as of late and stress levels are at a maximum. I am reminded of how much I just can't wait to be done with school and to have a job. We recently had a lunch speaker that made a few good points. Most important of these is to decide what you value as an individual. I am learning day by day that spending 12+ hours a day at this place is about as far from an ideal situation as I could possibly be. I am confident that I will be able to finish my project on time. Thankfully I have a lot of interest in the Counterweight Lifting system we are working on, so I can stay on task when doing project work. As for the learning, its a war full of tough battles (electronics, material science) and fun experiences (hydraulics, lifting systems), but a war nonetheless. Once this experience is over, I am sure I will look back and realize that the stress levels only prepared me for future employment and that while I may be everwhelmed at my first job, I will have most of the skills necessary to be a success. Proofed by: Erin

Hibbing Taconite Project Update

2011-03-28T09:57:00.000-05:00

Friday, the Iron Range Engineering student design team working on the Hibbing Taconite Counterweight Lift project made a trip out to Hibbing Taconite to provide the industry contacts with a project update. After a brief run through of the project background and scoping to bring all members of the meeting up to speed, we presented the three ideas of how to successfully complete the task.

After some discussion, the two feasible ideas were compared against each other in all aspects. The Screw Jack and the Hydraulic Ram each have benefits and downfalls, but both would work well for the task at hand. There was much discussion between the Hibbing Taconite engineers and operators as to which design would have the least maintenance, be the easiest to operate, and the easiest to implement.

At the end of the meeting it was decided that Hibbing Taconite needed more time to review the ideas and would provide us with an answer early this week. Once an option is chosen, final design drawings and parts lists will be delivered for review and implementation.

Proofed by Roth

United Paper Mills

2011-03-25T00:15:00.001-05:00

Our Blandin project group is going to the UPM (United Paper Mills) plant tomorrow afternoon for a second on-site visit. On our previous trips to Grand Rapids, we toured both the UPM plant and the Rapids Energy Center, from which UPM solely gets its energy from. As seen personally from the tours, these are huge environments that consist of steam and water piping that extends for what seems to be miles.

The last time we were at UPM, we toured the #6 dryer line and somewhat familiarized ourselves with the complex components and processes that are fed with large amounts of steam supplied by REC. Fortunately, our group attended a Kadant (supplier) seminar previous to this, which helped in identifying many things that would have been quite foreign to us in terms of what to look for in component and steam optimization.

Since that time our group has been working on ways to optimize steam energy without concerning ourselves with individual components. Because of this, the trip there tomorrow is important. We want to map certain steam lines to see what is used, what is recovered, and what is wasted. Check back for updates.

Job Fair

2011-03-22T15:22:00.002-05:00

Today, March 22 there was a job fair at the Thunderbird Mall in Virginia. A large group of Iron Range Engineering students took advantage of this opportunity. It was a great way for us to network with area businesses and industry; as fourteen of us will soon be making the transition from our comfortable college life to the real world. There were representatives from Cliffs Natural Resources, MN Power, Mesabi Nugget, Minnesota Diversified Industries, United States Steel and many other businesses. Many of which have already been supporters of IRE and played a big role in our education.

Governor Dayton

2011-03-16T08:50:00.004-05:00

Last Friday, Governor Mark Dayton made a trip to the Iron Range and Iron Range Engineering was lucky enough to host him and other Minnesota representatives. Tyler Bartek, Carson Krueger, Grant Graupmann and I were able to walk the governor through some of the projects that our groups worked on last semester and a couple from this semester. He seemed more than interested in the students and projects by not only being attentive but also asking questions about the projects and about what we were planning on doing after we graduated from the IRE program.

After describing our projects to the governor, our program co-director, Ron, spoke his piece describing the history of the program, a little about how the program works, how we pair with industry, and about how we need more space for a growing program (adding ~25 new students in the fall). Governor Dayton apologized for not adding our request for money for a new building back into his bill. Robb Bigelow from United Taconite and LaTisha Gietzen from Polymet Mining described how having the IRE program on the Iron Range is such an asset to their companies and to the region as a whole.

Overall, it was a great event and a great opportunity.

Entrepreneurial Project Team Survey

2011-03-15T09:48:00.004-05:00

Our friends at the MNSU College of Business finished writing the survey for our market research. This survey will help us figure out who our target market is and the general price figures we can shoot for. If anyone reading this is interested in guns, hunting, or shooting clays then this survey is for you. www.surveymonkey.com/cobire

Thanks for all your help.

Final United Taconite Presentation

2011-02-26T19:18:00.002-06:00

On Thursday February 24th, 2011, the United Taconite (UTAC) Filter Wash team presented our project and findings to the steering committee at the United Taconite Pellet Plant located in Forbes, MN. The purpose of the steering committee is to approve funding for projects that the senior members of UTAC wish to implement into their plant. Therefore, this presentation of our project was a big deal for IRE.

Matthew and I were the speakers who presented our findings to the committee and the feedback was everything that we could have hoped for. We received many compliments on our work and it made the many late nights we put in working on the project all worthwhile. One of the compliments I would like to share:
"The level of design detail and experimentation goes beyond what we would have
gotten had the project been contracted out."
This was extremely rewarding to hear from someone who is highly regarded in the engineering community of the Iron Range.

To go along with this, I would like to talk a little about the preparation for the presentation and what we did as a team. First of all, practice makes perfect. Matthew and I rehearsed this countless times and at first, we received feedback from other members of the group as to what we could improve upon. After this, we gave the presentation to the faculty members of IRE so we could get some "expert" input as well. The day before the presentation, Matthew and I were the lunch speakers for IRE and had printed out comment sheets for all the students at IRE so that we could get even more feedback on our presentation and speaking skills.

In closing, UTAC stated that they are planning on budgeting the project so it can be implemented in the 2012 fiscal year. I feel this is a huge step for IRE in justifying that we become engineers by practicing being engineers.

Blue IRE logo for student use

2011-02-23T09:39:00.010-06:00

Ok, since everyone is always asking me for a copy of the IRE logo, I am posting one here on the blog for you to copy/paste for your word documents, PowerPoints, and posters.

By the way, the colors for the logo were decided last week. This blue and grey style is the official color scheme.

I made this file in a PNG format. This means you will be placing only the words on your documents. In other words, it wont have a white box around and behind it, which means you can place it over pictures and colored backgrounds without looking unprofessional.

Instructions:

Click the logo to open it to full screen.

Then you can right click copy, then paste to your project, or in certain formats you can simply drag from the blog and drop it on your project.

If that doesnt work for you, try to right click and save as.

Time Management

2011-02-22T15:57:00.002-06:00

Throughout my time at IRE, I have come to realize how important time management really is. This is true for both my personal and professional life; there has to be a balance, but projects also have to get completed effectively and efficiently.

The past week and a half have been a very hectic time for myself, and other members of Team United Taconite (this team had a project last semester for a local mine) because we have to present our project once again. This presentation is going to be given to senior members of the United Taconite Mining Company so we really want to "nail" it. Unfortunately for us, we are all now part of different teams and have to divide our work for our new projects, United Taconite, and our technical learning. This means that we have really been feeling a time crunch.

I deal with "time crunches" by creating something of a budget. I make a list of all the things that I need to get done within the next few weeks and I prioritize them. I know that some people also incorporate a time budget with the work that needs to get completed, but for me, I make a list of PRIORITES and then the BACK BURNER. I feel that this really helps me to see what I can get done, what I need to get done, and what is accomplishable in the time frame that I have.

I understand that not everyone is going to time budget themselves the way that I do, but I do think that it is important to understand how to budget a work load for a given time frame. This is something that I have gained experience in by attending IRE because of the industry partner projects I have worked on. As such, this gives me invaluable experience that I will be able to use in my career.

Proofed by Cory

Hib Tac Midterm

2011-02-22T10:22:00.000-06:00

Hibbing Taconite group is progressing well, we have been drawing the counter weight structure in a 3-D drawing program. After this is done, we will perform finite element analysis on the structure with the added lifting equipment. We are also preparing our poster for speakers and visitors that are coming on Wednesday and in the future. This week’s main event is midterms! We are all busy working on our projects and getting our personal learning done in time before mid-terms end late next week. We are all very busy and trying to manage our time. After midterm, a group of students are taking a week long spring break trip with Florida as the end destination.

Proofed by Alex

Student Life: Wild Hockey Game

2011-02-16T21:50:00.003-06:00

Yesterday, a number of IRE students traveled to the twin cities for a student life event. After arriving and checking into the hotel, the group walked a couple of blocks to Burger Moe's to eat before attending the hockey game. The Wild played host to the Vancouver Canucks, currently rated number one in their division (same division as the Wild). The game was tied one to one after the first period, but the home team came up short in the second and third giving up three goals losing by a final of four to one. The Wild played hard making for an entertaining game from a spectator standpoint. Today, students wanted to take advantage of the shopping opportunities of the Rosedale Mall located in Rosedale Center. The mall gave people a chance to get some breakfast before the ride ahead. A small group of us ate at Famous Dave's rib shack in Forest Lake before making the last leg of our trip back to Virginia. The trip was a great way to relax and recharge before the big push to spring break.

Proofed by Roth and Korpi

Blandin Paper Company Tour

2011-02-14T17:52:00.001-06:00

In order to put context to the dryer optimization project for Blandin, myself and the rest of the Blandin team at IRE went on a tour of the paper drying section at the Grand Rapids, MN UPM Blandin site. This was extremely beneficial for us because we were able to connect many things we had learned from the KADANT seminar to the operations at the paper mill. The tour consisted of an overview of the plant operations from the DCS control room, an "inside" look of the dryer sections, and a trace of the steam piping system.

The tour also allowed us to ask questions of our Blandin contact on ideas for optimization that we were able to obtain from the KADANT seminar as well. This meeting was deemed as a "rescoping" meeting since we now had a deeper knowledge of the system components used for the optimization of steam.

All in all the tour and meeting at Blandin Paper Company was extremely helpful and the personnel involved were very happy to help answer any questions we had. I feel that because of the visuals that went along with the tour that I will be able to make an accurate model describing thermodynamics and heat transfer concepts that are occurring within the dryer section.

Hib Tac

2011-02-14T14:06:00.002-06:00

Today the Hibbing Taconite group went to the Hibbing Taconite facility. Here we toured the two crusher drive houses. We took measurements and pictures of the counter weight system for the lifting device we have to design for the counter weight system. We have spent the last few weeks talking to vendors that deal with lifting equipment. The three different types of lifting equipment that we are looking into are screw jack, cable hoist system and hydraulic cylinder. We also have been talking to vendors about equipment prices and what are the limits of the equipment. We will be preparing for a presentation in the coming weeks.

Read by Alex Learmont

Tesla Turbine Update

2011-02-11T08:17:00.001-06:00

Last week, Eric Schaupp and I travel led down to the cities to use the laser cutter at Century College in White Bear Lake, MN. The purpose of this trip was to design a functional prototype of the Tesla turbine. This week, we have been going to Itasca Community College to machine the shaft for the turbine. Next week, we will be conducting a multitude of experiments on the prototype to determine optimal turbine design. To build the prototype and machine the shaft, CAD drawings were made using Autodesk Inventor. At Century, we initially had problems exporting the drawings to CorelDraw to be printed but thankfully Tierney Putman (the lab technician) was a great help. A total of 72 pieces were cut on the laser cutter. Nick Esler and Tom Happy, the other two group members, have been working hard to determine how to calculate rotational velocity and torque of the turbine. By Monday, we should have a working prototype ready for testing.

Proofed by Eric Schaupp

IRE logo in PNG format for student use

2011-02-10T13:08:00.004-06:00

Kadant Seminar

2011-02-09T14:57:00.002-06:00

Yesterday, Team Blandin attended an all day seminar in Grand Rapids at the Sawmill Inn. The seminar was put on by Kadant. The seminar was about ways to optimize the dryer section. This was a great opportunity for the five of us in so many ways.

First of all we learned so much about the drying system. This was a very technical seminar and we were able to relate many of the processes to our learning competencies. Some of the things we learned were how heat is transferred through the dryer cans, how steam flow throughout the drying process, and then ways to reduce steam usage in the drying process. We learned much more but these were the three things that stuck out in my mind and related mostly to our project. This seminar also laid a great foundation for what we need to do to complete our project.

Second, we attended a conference with thirty other engineers who work in paper mills in northern Minnesota (Sappi, Blandin, Boise, and New Page). This allowed for us to visit and network with them. One question we received was if we were interested in working in paper mill and of course I answered yes. These companies would all be great places to work at. This opportunity allowed us to get some personal exposure to the industry.

Another question that we got from many of the engineers was what our program was like. This was a perfect opportunity to explain how Iron Range Engineering worked and get word of the new program out. All in all this day benefited our team in many ways.

Moving On

2011-02-09T08:40:00.003-06:00

Since IRE began, we have had the invaluable assistance of Nick Lefebvre, our Program Coordinator. Nick, a mechanical engineer fresh out of school, dedicated himself to the betterment of this program. He arranged unique opportunities, from tours and lunches, to a spring break trip to the west coast. He would solve problems before anyone else knew they existed, while making sure we as students had everything we need. Nick did all these things and many more, and recently he has taken a well deserved opportunity to advance his career, with an engineering position at Hibbing Taconite. Nick brought his determination, problem solving skills, and so much more to IRE, which has shaped it in ways we may never fully know. He will bring this to every job, and make himself and his company better for it.

I worked as an IRE Intern for one summer, where I had the opportunity to learn from Nick. His actions and advice helped me to significantly develop my professionalism and problem solving skills. The example he set will help me for years to come.