Proposal

Narrative

Background and Requesting Equipment This proposal requests funding to acquire a handheld, battery-powered high-speed camera with built-in touchscreen LCD capable of recording images at 1400 images per second mainly used for educational purposes in numerous course and research activities at FAU. At the moment, such handheld high-speed camera is not available at FAU and this camera will enhance educational and teaching experiences for students and faculty. Many concepts in Engineering and Science courses are too abstract and vague to understand without clear demonstrations and examples because the speed of their processes is typically very high difficult to be recognized by human eyes. As they say “Seeing is Believing,” a cutting-edge imaging facility that visualizes physical, chemical, and biological processes occurred at high speed will help students to better understand complex concepts and course materials. Currently, the College of Engineering and the College of Science has extremely limited resources for high-speed visualization tools. Hence, acquisition of the high-speed camera will be beneficial to various student bodies in interdisciplinary courses and research activities in various colleges. The camera is small and portable and therefore it can be readily combined with a portable microscope for in-class demonstrations. Educational Benefit – Course-based Activities The impact of the acquisition of the portable handheld high-speed camera on the educational benefit will be tremendous. The in-class demonstrations with well-resolved images of natural processes at the speed that human eyes can’t distinguish will enhance student’s understanding of too theoretical concepts effectively. There are very few schools in the United States that provide in-class demonstrations with the state-of-the-art high-speed imaging. Therefore, the in-class activity with the high technology imaging facility can make FAU’s teaching unique and exceptional. All students in the class can receive the benefit from the high-speed camera and they can also have hands-on experiences through the demonstrations. The PI has already received many testimonies from more than 200 students in his past classes in two years that their course projects will be significantly improved and benefit from visualization of imaginary concepts. The high speed visualization tool will also greatly help the students in the number of courses in the College of Engineering impacting around 200 students per semester (EML6930 Introduction to Microfluidics and MEMS, EML6930 Innovation in Sensing and Actuation, EML3523 Experimental Methodology, EML4127 Applied Thermal-Fluid Engineering, EGN3331 Strength of Materials) and more than 300 students per semester in CHM2045 General Chemistry in the College of Science. At the time of graduation and when applying for job positions, FAU students who acquire hands-on experiences in this facility will definitely attract better attention from the academic and industry recruiters. Educational Benefit – Research-based Activities The portable high-speed camera-based imaging can also be used to educate students with research experiences in the projects associated with the Office of Undergraduate Research Inquiry (OURI) and the Summer Undergraduate Research Funds (SURF) programs. Since 2015, a total of 25 undergraduate students have participated in an undergraduate research grants program under the supervision of the PI. In all of their projects, visualization of multiscale phenomena such as fluid flow, insect flying, chemical reactions, and heat transfer is essential and high-speed imaging can help to achieve successful research outcomes. All these students have presented their results at an FAU’s undergraduate research symposium and a SURF poster session.

Facilities

No renovation of facilities or upgrades are needed for this project.

Hardware Requirements

This project requires a portable handheld high speed camera capable of taking 1400 color images per second.

Software Requirements

The camera software is available from the manufacturer with no additional cost.

Personnel Costs

There is no request for personnel costs.

Other Costs

No other costs are expected.

Timeline

The high speed camera will be ordered in the 2018 spring term as soon as the funding is awarded. The faculty and students will be able to access the camera by the end of the 2018 spring.

Sustainability

The equipment will come with manufacturer warranties. When the maintenance is required due to malfunctions, the PI will use his personal research fund to fix it.

Resource Matching

Department of Ocean and Mechanical Engineering provides the laboratory space.

Implementing Organization

Department of Ocean and Mechanical Engineering