Open Education Week is a global celebration of the Open Education movement. The Libraries has always supported and provided information and assistance about using free and open resources, and this week special events have been scheduled to help spread the word!
Join us Monday, March 4 for “Liberated: Faculty Perspectives on OER.” This faculty and student panel is co-hosted with the Office of Teaching, Learning, & Technology, and will feature perspectives from individuals who are involved in Open Education. It will be held in 2032 Conference Room in the Main Library from 1:00 to 2:30 pm. Click on the link to register!
An Open Education Pop-Up Booth will be held on Tuesday, March 5 from 1:30 to 3:00 pm in the Main Library Learning Commons-Group Area D. Click the link for all the details (and stop by and grab a cookie and button – while supplies last!)
Friday, March 8 from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm a Public Domain Celebration will be held in the Main Library Learning Commons Group Area D! Welcome books, films, art, and music from 1923 into the public domain! Stop by to learn more about what the public domain is and make a button to publicize what it means to enjoy and use copyright-free content.
Also on March 8 Guest Speaker, Nicole Allen will talk about Open Educational Advocacy (OER). It is scheduled from 1:00 to 2:00 pm in E105 in the Adler Journalism & Mass Communication Building. Nicole is an Open Education Advocate who works with SPARC, a national advocacy group which focuses on making scholarly information as open as possible. Check the website for more information and the link to register.
Then, from 2:00 to 3:00 pm stop by the area outside AJB E105 (Adler Journalism & Mass Communication Building) and try your hand at the “Egghead Game.” It is a puzzle game for primary school students which was designed by Amy Chen, University of Iowa Library, and Cody Crawford, University of Iowa Museum of Natural History. Egghead won grant funding and is the subject of a cross-institutional collaboration with Iowa State University’s Biological and Pre-Medical Illustration Program. Participants in Egghead try to figure out which birds go with which nests by taking into account the fact that male and female birds look different and that the appearance of eggs and nests reflect where their owners live. If you feel ambitious, try to remember the birds’ common and Latin (scientific) names or even learn what the Latin names mean!
If you’d like to learn more about OER, the following resources can help:
We are celebrating our favorite mathematical constant, pi, with an afternoon of trivia, library resources fair, and FREE apple pie bites!! Festivities will kick off at 1:59 pm on March 14, 2019 in the Seamans Center Student Commons.
JUST ADDED!!! How to Publish with IEEE! March 14th from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. in the Engineering Library Creative Space (2001C SC)! Jalyn Kelly, IEEE Client Services Manager, will be presenting an overview of publishing with IEEE! She’ll be covering a variety of topics, including • tips on selecting the appropriate IEEE periodical or conference • how successful authors structure quality work to improve chances of being accepted • how to avoid common mistakes that will prevent a manuscript from being accepted • insights into what editors are looking for in a submission & why they reject papers • tools & resources to help authors through the publishing process • strategies for using IEEE Xplore effectively for a literature review including how to stay up-to-date on the latest research • MUCH MORE!! This is a session you are not going to want to miss!!
What is the Library Resource Fair?
This year representatives from various library resources will be here! They’ll be available for you to talk with and explore what their particular resource provides! Trainers will be here from Elsevier (EVillage – Compendex), IEEE (IEEExplore), NLM (PubMed), ACS (SciFinder), and Clarivate (TechStreet).
Check out Compendex by Elsevier: It has the search, analytics, and navigation tools that engineers need to efficiently generate research, assess the impact and relevancy of critical information, and discover new insights for addressing the world’s toughest engineering challenges. All content and features are designed for engineers, so results and outcomes are always engineering-relevant.
IEEE Xplore by IEEE is a research database for discovery and access to journal articles, conference proceedings, technical standards, and related materials on computer science, electrical engineering and electronics, and allied fields. The digital library is your gateway to trusted research—journals, conferences, standards, ebooks, and educational courses—with more than four million articles to help you fuel imagination, build from previous research, and inspire new ideas.
PubMed, part of National Library of Medicine, comprises more than 29 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.
SciFinder, produced by American Chemical Society, is a research discovery application that provides integrated access to the world’s most comprehensive and authoritative source of references, substances and reactions in chemistry and related sciences. It gives you instant access to the world’s largest curated collection of information on disclosed chemistry and related research produced by CAS. (Everyone MUST register on campus using an Iowa email account to use this resource. Detailed instructions are located at guides.lib.uiowa.edu/chem. )
Test your knowledge with some pi/pie trivia!
We will also have an afternoon of trivia!! Get your team together, or join a team when you get here. Brush up on your pi/pie trivia and get ready to compete! Can you beat your professors? Professors, want to prove to the students that you know more than they do? Come and find out!!
Example: Which Star Trek character foiled an evil computer by telling it to compute to the very last digit of pi?
What would Pi Day be without FREE APPLE PIE BITES!!??
We will have delicious apple pie bites from Neel House Bakery.
Stop in, explore our resources, play some trivia and enjoy pie bites!
It would be irrational not to spend Pi Day with us!
Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa-sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to participate in this program, please contact Kari Kozak at kari-kozak@uiowa.edu in advance of the event.
Looking for inventors, puzzle-lovers, adventure-seekers, escape room aficionados!
We plan to build a couple of College of Engineering escape rooms this semester and we would like to get YOU (engineering students, faculty, staff members) involved! We plan to have the rooms ready by Saturday, March 30th.
We have two types of tasks for engineering students (faculty, staff) members to help create the Engineering Escape Room using their ingenuity and cleverness: 1) to design a puzzle and 2) to put the escape room together.
Seeking individuals or groups to submit ideas of puzzles, cipher codes, hidden messages, or other games and puzzles to put into the rooms. If your puzzle is selected, it will be put together with 5-10 other puzzles to create the full escape room.
Parameters:
Clues must be solvable in under 10 minutes by the average student. (The whole room should take about 45 minutes to solve.)
Cost to build the puzzle components must be under $10 for each puzzle. (We want 5-10 puzzles with varying difficulty to be in each room.)
We already have some tools you can use like a black-light with black-light pen, red lens viewer to find hidden messages in books or art, a variety of locks with both letter and numeric codes on them.
You can also use any tools and resources already in the library, as long as it can be turned back to their original state after the event.
The puzzle must be reusable. This means it can be reset-up so the next group coming in can still play the game.
Nothing can be placed behind the outlets or near the lights.
You can submit more than one puzzle. Submit as many as you like!
Submit puzzles that fit with one of the listed themes. The Escape Room organizers will decide which theme will ultimately end up in the space depending on how many puzzles are submitted. If we’re lucky, we may have more than one Escape Room!
Theme Ideas:
You are locked in a game that uses a variety of board games.
A gremlin has stolen a key to unlock the door to escape so you will need to find the gremlin to get out.
You are locked in a movie theater.
Design your puzzle and submit it using the following form by 8 a.m. Wednesday, February 13th!
Learn paper folding and create your own fun and unique greeting cards! We’ll be working on special Valentine’s cards, but you can take what you learn and make special cards for every occasion! It will be held February 12th at 2:30 pm in the Engineering Library Creative Space!
Deanne Wortman, Program Manager, NEXUS of Engineering and the Arts, Engineering Student Services, will be teaching the art of paper folding and helping you create your own special card!
We are happy to collaborate with the Engineering Technology Center, NEXUS and the Department of Music to present some exciting workshops!
The workshops will be held on Tuesdays from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. See our website for class information and links to register! They are FREE, but registration is limited – so be sure to register today!!
February 12th: Valentine’s Day Pop-up Cards – Deanne Wortman
Want to impress your friends and family with fun and unique greeting cards? Learn about paper folding to create a pop-up cards with lights and sounds.
February 19th:Standards: Guides and Regulations for Building and Testing – Kari Kozak
Introduction to standards and specifications. Learn how to access a wide variety of standards including ASTM, ISO, ADA, NFPA (Fluid), and the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations. Featuring a new database, TechStreet, to gain electronic access to these standards and more. Taught by Kari Kozak, Head, Lichtenberger Engineering Library.
Soldering is one of the most fundamental skills needed to dabble in the world of electronics. The two go together like peas and carrots. And, although it is possible to learn about, and build, electronics without needing to pick up a soldering iron, you’ll soon discover that a whole new world is opened with this one simple skill.
Basic introduction to what a patent is and how to complete patents searches. Patents provide inventor exclusive rights to products they produce and also give great detailed information on certain products and methods. Taught by Kari Kozak, Head, Lichtenberger Engineering Library.
March 12th: Effective Poster Design – Sarah Livesay
The Research Open House will be held on April 11th, and this workshop will help you make your poster presentation more effective. Learn to think about the prospective audience, poster content, and design considerations in a poster layout.
April 2nd: Arduino Piano (Plug and Play) – Jeremy Roszell & Jean-Francois Charles
Learn to create a mini piano! Learn all the steps to make your own mini piano using an Arduino and circuit board. This lightweight keyboard allows you to play an octave worth of notes using capacitive touch, no strings or hammers required! This class will walk through the basic programming and ways to personalize the keyboard. Taught by Jeremy Roszell, Engineering Electronics Shop & Jean-Francois Charles, School of Music.
April 9th: Creating Citations Quickly & Easily with Endnote – Marina Zhang
Introduction to an online citation management system that is free for everyone at the University of Iowa. It helps you to manage all your references for a paper (or many papers) as well as create the incite citations and bibliographies in a wide variety of formatting styles. Taught by Marina Zhang, Engineering & Informatics Librarian, Lichtenberger Engineering Library.
The web version of Endnote Basic will be taught: not the full client version.
April 16th: Using OpenRefine for cleaning up spreadsheet data – Brian Westra
OpenRefine is a free tool for reviewing and cleaning up spreadsheet or tabular data. Save yourself a lot of time by using OpenRefine to identify and fix problems in your tabular data. Automated functions easily and quickly handle common problems, such as splitting cells that contain multiple data values, detecting duplicates and typos, standardizing date formats, and trimming extra spaces from cells. OpenRefine also keeps track of all your steps, so you can easily reuse them or undo them if necessary.
April 23rd: 3D Scanning: Tips & Tricks – Kari Kozak
Want to make a 3D scan? Need some help figuring out how to get started? This class will take you through the basics of the three scanners that the Engineering Library has available for check and learn to make a 3D scan of yourself!
We want you to stay safe and warm, therefore we will be closing at 6 pm on Tuesday, January 29th, will be closed all day Wednesday, January 30th, and will reopen at 10:30 am on Thursday, January 31st.
We are pleased to announce the winners of this year’s Creative Kick-Start Program!
Kick-Start, a program which was developed by the Engineering Library and the Engineering Technology Centers, awards $500 to 10 projects which are submitted by engineering students. Undergrad and graduate students are eligible to submit proposals for prototyping a new project or finishing a current project. The funds for the Creative Kick-Start program have generously been provided by the Engineering Technology Centers.
Twenty-seven students are involved in the 10 winning entries. Each project has to have a sponsor and this year there are 10 faculty/staff who are sponsoring projects.
Meet the winners!
Olivia Laux, Kaylin Slinskey, Lucinda Williamson, Jared McClung and Bryan Williams are working on an Air Chair. Their goal is to design a product which will reduce damage to wheelchairs during commercial air travel. The Asonus Tech (Alerting Device) is being developed by Adam Hoffman and Philip Abangan. Their small, wearable device will alert the user – via vibration – of important noises in the surrounding environment. Sounds would include doorbells, fire alarms, etc. Body Betty, an interactive toy designed to educate children about anatomy using a doll and a fun app, is the goal of Caroline Chelsvig and Emily Leibold.
The Car Turbo Jet Engine will be designed by Greg Beaver and Walker Jarvie – and will take a turbocharger from a car and turn it into a jet engine. A wearable self-defense device called the Kineta uses voltage to shock the perpetrator. It is being developed by Ashley Mathews.
Theodore Simmons and Miguel Camarena want to design A Lyapunov-Based Control System for Path-Following WIPs. Their design will be a novel control algorithm and electromechanical system for path-following wheeled inverted pendulum (WIP) robots.
James Cory, Jayme Waite, Dakota Striet, Cecily Calcopietro, and Isaak Moore will create the Optoshoulder – equipment and methods for proper, prone bilateral execution of prone Y’s, prone I’s, and prone T’s exercise for shoulder injury patients. The Patient Table is being designed by Elizabeth LeMar to create a table that can be placed on a hospital bed, allowing patients to have access to a table that moves with their bodies, making activities much easier.
Emma Tokuyama and Daniel Kelly will be working to create a Rocket Bike – a regular bicycle converted into an electric bicycle. The end result will be a fast, cheap, and environmentally friendly way for students to get around. The Root Canal Pal will be a device designed to stimulate large nerve fibers in the facial area. It will mask the brain’s perception of pain and work in tandem with existing local anesthetic administration. Ethan Slater, Colin Zwifel, Annie Cahill, Shao Yan Zhang, and Nina VanDerZanden will be working on this project.
Congratulations to these winners! We’re looking forward to watching these projects develop!
For more information about the Creative Kick-Start Program click here.
The application Review Committee members are Kari Kozak (Head, Lichtenberger Engineering Library), Jeff Nock (Entrepreneur in Residence/Lecturer, John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center), Spencer Stumpf (Inventions Manager, UI Research Foundation), and Danny Tang (Chief Technology Officer, College of Engineering).
Are you finding that you are having trouble concentrating when you try and study in your room? Too many distractions? The couch and TV or gaming system just too close? Or that nice, soft, comfy bed? Stop in – we have extended hours!
Extended Hours
Sunday, December 9th: 2:00 p.m. to Midnight
Monday, December 10th through Thursday, December 13th: 8:30 a.m. to Midnight
Friday, December 14th: 8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday, December 16th and 17th: Closed
And, to help you stay awake and focused – we’ll be providing FREE coffee, hot chocolate, and hot cider throughout the week (while supplies last!!)
Please bring your own mug – Mother Earth will thank you!
Don’t forget our Tool Library!! We have laptops, iPads, chargers, cables, computer mice (mices?) and tools, tools, and more tools! Check out the Tool Library website and then stop at the front desk to check out what you need!
We have plenty of space for both individual and group study. We have 2 group study pods with white boards, and pod 1 has MediaScape®. Instructions for reserving the study pods are here on our webpage.
The Creative Space is also available for group or individual study! We have two 4-person collaboration tables with 43 inch (4K) quad monitors, 4 modeling stations, and 5 dry erase boards! There is room to spread out and work collaboratively on that final project!
Our lower level of the library is a dedicated quiet space! We have study carrels (with lights & electrical outlets) easy chairs, bean bag chairs, and gamer chairs. We have new easy chairs with side tables with power outlets and small movable tables! You’ll be able to find the perfect spot to focus and concentrate.
Most of us have a drawer, somewhere in our house, which contains all sorts of odds and ends. In my house it was always the “miscellaneous” drawer, others call it a “junk” drawer. Whatever you call it, I bet you have duct tape and rubber bands shoved in it – and maybe some glue sticks, a cork or two, craft sticks, straws, etc…. Did you ever just look in that drawer and say “wow, I could make a catapult with this stuff!”? You may not have been thinking that, but you could! And with some heavy-duty shipping boxes – you could make a bedroom set. Really.
Check out our new exhibit – The Duct Tape and Rubber Band Engineer – and see just some of the cool things that can be made!!
Duct Tape & Rubber Band Mania Exhibit!
Duct tape can be used for lots more things that taping your favorite shoes back together or holding the fender on your car while rubber bands have a lot more uses than holding your hair back or holding a bunch of pens or pencils together.
Okay. You’ve got duct tape and rubber bands from your junk drawer. Now what? Pick out a project! A “Rubber Band Rocket” is pretty simple (simple enough that I did it!) and a good way to start your tinkering. From there you can move on to the more complex “PVC Slingshot Rifle,” (a project James took on!). You can make the “Pyramid Catapult” (which I did, with James’ help) or make an “Enhanced Mousetrap Catapult,” (which none of us tried!). There are also instructions for a “Floating Arm Trebuchet,” a “da Vinci Catapult,” a “Robot Arm,” and “Hydraulic Fighting Robots,” for more serious tinkerers! All projects come with a list of items needed (and possible alternatives) with clear written and pictorial instructions!
Check out this video of a simple rubber band rocket!
Never tackled a duct tape project before? Never fear, Akiyama starts out with the basics. Beginning with ripping and cutting! He lists recommended tools to have on hand and gives a guide to choosing the correct duct tape for each project. (Did you know the original tape was made with “. . . cotton ‘duck’ canvas, embedded with glue.”)? The types of tape which are best used for each project are also listed. Sadly, using the lighter, decorative duct tape isn’t what you want to use when making your chair or bed frame. (although, putting your own decorative touches on after it is built is encouraged!)
Akiyama also takes you through taping techniques, including surface preparation and the best way to get the maximum adhesion. Making a duct tape sheet is important when using tape as fabric and he explains step-by-step and with full-color photographs.
Just 2 ducks (get it?) hanging out, studying and resting on their cardboard & duct tape furniture!
Next step: furniture!! The first piece of furniture is a desk chair. The list of materials needed includes (but isn’t limited to) heavy duty, double-thick cardboard, white glue, and ruler (and don’t forget the duct tape!). There are detailed instructions and drawings explaining the process – and suggestions for tinkering and making it your own! Once you get that under your belt, move on to making a desk to go with your chair. Again there is a parts list, detailed instructions and detailed drawings. Want to make all your furniture for your space? Besides the desk and chair, there are instructions for a dresser (with working drawers!), and a bed frame! Voilà! You have furnished your bedroom! Hard to believe? Check out our exhibit and see the mini-sized furniture!
How about those things you use a lot – some every day! A backpack? Messenger bag? Heavy duty toolbox? Here’s a picture of great toolbox that James built using pink & black duct tape! (part of the PVC Slingshot Rifle can be seen in front of the tool box!)
Like to kayak? There really are step-by-step instructions explaining how to build a kayak that, if properly constructed, will hold around 200 pounds in still water. You might want to test it in shallow water first! How about a lovely garden swing, just right for two people? That’s right, Akiyama shows you how! Need a hammock, too? Instructions, complete with how to create the ribbing with duct tape!
Stop by and see the exhibit and the fun things you can make with simple household items!
(My favorite is the rubber band rockets – quick, easy to make, safe
& fun to see whose rocket will fly the furthest!)
(just don’t aim it any people or animals!)
Resources:
Akiyama, Lance. 2017. Duct tape engineer : the book of big, bigger, and epic duct tape projects : from backpacks to kayaks, writing desks to rocket launchers. Beverly, Massachusetts : Rockport Publishers. Engineering Library TT869.7 .A45 2017
Akiyama, Lance. 2016. Rubber band engineering : build slingshot-powered rockets, rubber band rifles, unconventional catapults, and more guerrilla gadgets from household hardware. Beverly, Massachusetts: Rockport Publishers. Engineering Library TS1920 .A35 2016
Presented by The Lichtenberger Engineering Library, College of Engineering, the Graduate College
and the Hanson Center for Technical Communication!
December 17th & 18th, 2018
Open to current engineering and computer science graduate students, Thesis Boot Camp is the perfect opportunity to set aside time dedicated to making progress on your dissertation or master’s thesis! Along with a comfortable, quiet working environment, writing and research support, breakfast, snacks and lunches, the workshop offers students community and motivation in that final push towards the completion of their dissertation or thesis.
Several optional workshops are also scheduled. They include help with editing, formatting, and creating citations among others! Throughout the entire 2 days 1-on-1 support is provided by writing facilitators, liaison librarians, and members from the graduate college to provide assistance when you need it.
Boot Camp targets current engineering and computer science graduate students at both the PhD and Masters level, who are currently writing their thesis / dissertation. Participants will benefit from the structured time, space, professional advising and peer support of the program.
What else do you need to know? Both days begin at 8:30 a.m. and end at 5:00 p.m. – please plan to stay for the entire 2 days. It’s FREE, but is limited to 30 participants. Registration deadline is Friday, December 7th, at 11:59 p.m. It will be held in the Student Commons and in the Lichtenberger Library. Breakfasts, lunches, and snacks are included! And coffee! Lots of coffee!
More information and a draft of the schedule go here. The registration form is available here.
Mark your calendars and register today!!
Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa-sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to participate in this program, please contact (Kari Kozak, Head, Lichtenberger Engineering Library) in advance at (319-335-6046).
