Monthly Archives April 2022

Lab members Luiz Sotomayor and Khanh Vo coordinated the Raghavan Research Group’s STEM Day outreach event with the assistance of other lab members. STEM Day is a free UCF event with the goal of fostering an interest in the exciting fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics in students K-12. During STEM Day students were exposed to a variety of activities across numerous STEM related fields. The Raghavan Research Group STEM Day event introduced several groups of high schoolers to “The Balancing Act of Tensegrity.”  Tensegrity is a principle of design that states that a stable structure can be created through the balancing of isolated compressed components with a continuous tensile force. The high schoolers that participated in the research groups event were given the opportunity to create their own Tensegrity structures. This activity allowed them to learn about the aerospace applications of the Tensegrity principle.

Our NASA Minds and High Temperature Coating teams presented posters of their research at the UCF Student Scholar Symposium.

The High Temperature Coating team consisting of Vanessa D’Esposito, Steph Segler and Maximus Schieman presented their work “Evaluating the Effects of Sand Ingression on Novel Thermal Barrier Coatings Using Non-Destructive 3D Confocal Raman Spectroscopy”, which was done with the help of their graduate mentor, Zachary Stein

The NASA Minds Team consisting of Luiz Sotomayor, Lauren Bansberg, Jamie Mihelich, and Isaac Turner presented their work “Variation of Optical Properties on Lunar Regolith with Manufacturing Process”, which was done with the help of their graduate mentor Perla Latorre

To view the poster presentations click here