Innovation on Display at South Dakota Mines
South Dakota Mines is hosting two events that will highlight the research and design success of graduating seniors and graduate students.
The 13th annual Student Research Symposium at Mines starts at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, April 11, in the Surbeck Center Ballroom. Oral PowerPoint presentations starts at 8 a.m. on April 11 in the McKeel, Hardrock and Dorr rooms in the Surbeck Center. The event features an array of innovative research across many fields of scientific study.
Some of the research on display includes:
- Research based off the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF)
- Recycling enriched germanium from an etchant solution
- Using a lattice sheet microscopy to study and measure how well the process of phagocytosis, or the process by which cells kill bad germs, works in the body
The symposium includes poster presentations and talks from both graduate and undergraduate students on these topics and many more. Awards will be presented during a ceremony starting at 5:30 p.m. to the top presenters in both undergraduate and graduate categories.
From 9 a.m.-noon on Thursday, April 13, teams of Mines seniors will display and demonstrate around 60 different projects in the Surbeck Center Ballroom as part of the annual Design Fair.
Some of the senior design projects includes:
- A mobile trailer-turned-stage to enable remote concerts with the Rushmore Music Festival students and instructors
- A shipping container design for a hydroponic growing room to provide fresh vegetables to local communities
- A software program that aims to create a mathematical model to predict future cattle market trends and provide model comparisons via historical data analytics
Mines has a history of turning student and faculty innovation into start-up businesses that benefit the local economy. Some of the inventions displayed at the fair are industry or government-sponsored efforts that will see real-world application