Skip to Main Page Content
ASU News
Arizona State University
ASU News
  • Home
  • Explore
    • Discoveries
    • Solutions
    • Creativity
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Global Engagement
    • Arizona Impact
    • Sun Devil Life
    • University News
    • ASU Insight Videos
    • Athletics
    • Events
    • Media Relations
    • Manage Subscriptions
    • Follow ASU News
  • Expert Q&A
  • Video series
    • Got a Minute?
    • Devils in the Details
  • Magazine
    • ASU Thrive
  • Books and essays
    • Sun Devil Shelf Life
    • Narrative Storytelling

ASU students make waves in international robotics competition

The all-female Desert WAVE robotic submarine team — first-time competitors — win third place at international competition


August 8, 2019

Desert WAVE, the all-female underwater robotics team of Arizona State University students in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, made a splash in San Diego this past weekend. The Women in Autonomous Vehicle Engineering team won third place in the 2019 International RoboSub Competition — a major feat for the first-time competitors.

Hosted by the Office of Naval Research and RoboNation, the competition tasked 55 teams from more than 12 countries with designing and building an autonomous underwater vehicle. Desert WAVE prepared for the event by meeting weekly for several months with their mentors, engineering lecturer Daniel Frank and Faridodin Lajvardi of the Si Se Puede Foundation. Together they turned the tide in their favor by building relevant industry-related skills in computer-aided design, 3D printing and teamwork. robotic submarine The all-female Desert WAVE team's robotic submarine won third place at the robotic submarine during the 2019 International RoboSub Competition in San Diego. Photo courtesy of Desert WAVE Download Full Image

After placing fifth in the semi-finals, Desert WAVE swelled to third place in a competitive final round after Harbin Engineering University from China and Far Eastern Federal University/Institute for Marine Technology Problems from Russia. Their standing made Desert WAVE the highest-ranked from the United States and earned them a $3,000 prize. Other U.S. competitors included teams from the California Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Tech, the University of California Berkeley, the Ohio State University, the University of Maryland, the University of Florida and Texas A&M University.

Desert WAVE was created by a partnership between The Polytechnic School, one the six Fulton Schools and Si Se Puede Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing resources for underserved communities. Desert WAVE is also sponsored by Blue Robotics and MakerBot.

The partnership provides young women engineers with the opportunity to work together on engineering projects. Their efforts carried them to the top of the competition worldwide.

Excited about ending the competition with high marks, the team members – many of whom are freshmen – are already looking forward to competing in the RoboSub competition next year.

The team poses with one of their biggest sponsors and supporters, Shebbie Jacques (bottom row, center).

Photo courtesy Desert WAVE

Desert WAVE students carry their AUV, Phoenix, back from the course after a run.

Photo courtesy Desert WAVE

Acoustic testing at the TRANSDEC facility.

Photo courtesy Desert WAVE
Creativity Polytechnic campus Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering The Polytechnic School Engineering Diversity Student
Erik Wirtanen
Erik Wirtanen

Web content comm administrator, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering

480-727-1957 erik.wirtanen@asu.edu

Next Story

New understanding of an old alloy leads to prestigious award Shashank Kaira works in Professor Nik Chawla's Center for 4D Materials Science

Strong, lightweight aluminum-copper alloys have been used in aircraft and automotive designs for decades, but little is known about their structural mechanisms during deformation.Recent Arizona State University materials science doctoral graduate Shashank Kaira set out to find answers. His research, published in the journal Acta Materialia, earned a competitive Acta Student Award for the impact of...

Read the article

More from Creativity

ASU student-produced podcast focuses on community history, memory, healing

Tempe campus , Downtown Phoenix campus , ASU Library , Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication

ASU Gammage hosts annual High School Musical Theatre Awards

Tempe campus , ASU Gammage , Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts , Arts

ASU's Zócalo Public Square named finalist in multiple categories for SoCal Journalism Awards

California , Downtown Phoenix campus , Tempe campus , Media Enterprise

New understanding of an old alloy leads to prestigious award


August 9, 2019

Strong, lightweight aluminum-copper alloys have been used in aircraft and automotive designs for decades, but little is known about their structural mechanisms during deformation.

Recent Arizona State University materials science doctoral graduate Shashank Kaira set out to find answers. His research, published in the journal Acta Materialia, earned a competitive Acta Student Award for the impact of its results. Shashank Kaira works in Professor Nik Chawla's Center for 4D Materials Science Recent Arizona State University materials science doctoral graduate Shashank Kaira works in Fulton Professor of Materials Science Nikhilesh Chawla’s Center for 4D Materials Science. Kaira recently earned a highly competitive Acta Student Award for his research on imaging aluminum-copper alloy behavior during deformation, published in the peer-reviewed Acta Materialia research journal. Photo by Jessica Hochreiter/ASU Download Full Image

The Acta Student Award is given to first-author graduate students who have papers published in one of the four Acta journals. Publishing in the materials science journal Acta Materialia is highly competitive — only a handful of papers reporting on research judged to be making major contributions to the field are selected for the international student award.

“I am extremely honored to be the recipient of this prestigious award and really grateful to receive such recognition for our work published in Acta Materialia, one of the most revered peer-reviewed journals in the field of materials science,” Kaira said. “I’m hopeful I can continue to innovate and effectively contribute to the emerging field of materials science.”

He collaborated with Nikhilesh Chawla, Fulton Professor of materials science in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU, as well as other ASU materials science graduate and undergraduate students. The ASU team also worked with researchers and in facilities at the Argonne National Laboratory to explore the microstructural evolution and deformation behavior of aluminum-copper alloys.

Kaira and the research team took a different approach from traditional characterization methods, which can be destructive to the alloys and restrict the insights the characterizations are able to provide. The team instead used using 3D X-ray imaging to view deformation over time to better understand what happens.

“By using this state-of-the-art technique, we were able to see things that were happening with respect to how the structure deforms in a way that provides all kinds of new insights and new mechanisms that we haven’t been able to see before,” Chawla said. “Shashank was able to answer questions that have been unanswered for the last 50 years or so.”

Shashank Kaira

The advanced characterization techniques Kaira and the research team used allowed them to better understand the nanoscale processes occurring in aluminum-copper alloys. They looked at the complex 3D dispersions of brittle intermetallic precipitate particles that strengthen the alloy — think of the crunchy chocolate flakes in soft mint ice cream. When immense pressure is put on the alloy, these particles deform and change the properties, strength and behavior of the metal.

“Understanding such phenomena in metallic systems can be key to nano-engineering their microstructure and aid in designing next-generation structural materials with enhanced mechanical properties,” Kaira said.

This research was conducted at both the ASU Tempe campus in Chawla’s Center for 4D Material Science and at the Argonne National Laboratory Advanced Photon Source in Chicago.

Researchers in Chawla’s Center for 4D Material Science use X-ray tomography and other techniques to study the microstructures of materials as a function of time — the fourth dimension — and its effect on 2D (flat) and 3D (cubicle and spherical) objects.

To work at the Advanced Photon Source in Argonne National Laboratory, Kaira needed a solid proposal for how he was going to use the facilities, and a precise plan for his experiments during the few days every six to nine months he had access to the lab's equipment.

“There are a lot of hoops to jump through and there is a lot of preparation that has to be done prior to going on the trip. Then it’s a lot of pressure because you have three days to get everything done,” Chawla said. “Shashank was really good at doing all of that and navigating through all of the challenges just to do the experiments, then coming back with terabytes of data and analyzing it.”

An example of in situ imaging of the deformation of a small piece of aluminum-copper alloy over time.

An example of in situ imaging of the deformation of a small piece of aluminum-copper alloy over time. Shashank Kaira used imaging facilities at the Argonne National Laboratory Advanced Photon Source in Chicago to gain new understanding of what happens to aluminum-copper alloys when pressure is applied.

Kaira says he is thankful for the help he received from Chawla, his ASU research team members and his Argonne National Laboratory collaborators, as well as the research results the collaboration made possible.

With the aid of the facilities and tools available at the Argonne National Lab, Kaira was able to make observations that answer fundamental questions about the role of precipitative particle deformation and gain new knowledge that can be used to develop better and more sophisticated aluminum alloys for the aircraft and automotive industries. The Acta journal editors recognized these important contributions with the Acta Student Award.

“Shashank was one of my best students in the last 20 years here at ASU,” Chawla said. “I know he worked really hard for this. I’m not surprised, but it’s pretty amazing that he got this award.”

Kaira is now a failure analysis research and development engineer for Intel. His doctoral research into understanding microscale phenomena in different materials using advanced characterization techniques has been useful in his current work.

“A significant part of my doctoral research involved fundamentally understanding a multitude of microscale phenomena in different materials using advanced characterization techniques,” Kaira said. “A thorough understanding of such complex material and device interactions can play a crucial role in enabling the development of robust next-generation semiconductor devices and microelectronic packaging technologies.”

Kaira's Acta Student award is the second granted to an ASU engineering student in recent years. In 2016, ASU biomedical engineering doctoral student Ali Navaei won the Acta Student Award for his research results published in Acta Biomaterialia.

Discoveries Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy Engineering Grants / Awards Student life Alumni Graduate student
Monique Clement
Monique Clement

Lead communications specialist, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering

480-727-1958 monique.clement@asu.edu

Trending on ASU News

test
Solutions ASU research makes dog park cooler Tempe campus School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning College of Global Futures Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory
Aly Stoffo wearing a crown of greenery and smiling with her arms raised and a body of water and trees in the background.
Entrepreneurship ASU sustainability alum’s business reconnects people to nature School of Sustainability College of Global Futures Sustainability Entrepreneurship
Portrait of Whitney Hansen
University News ASU psychology professor receives Outstanding Lecturer Award Online Tempe campus The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Department of Psychology
Firefighter on scene of outdoor fire
Arizona Impact ASU professor: Arizona should brace for fire season despite wet winter Tempe campus School of Life Sciences Expert Q-and-A Environment
A nurse in blue scrubs poses with her arms crossed.
Arizona Impact Federal grant to fund 140 scholarships to prepare nurse educators Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation Nursing Health care Education
Headshot of Cody Weyhrich
Solutions Glaunsinger Innovation Award recipient develops today's most thermally stable 3D printing polymer Tempe campus School of Molecular Sciences Academics Grants / Awards
Arizona State University
ASU News

Contact us

Manage Subscriptions

ASU News

  • ASU Insight Videos
  • Media Relations
  • Discoveries
  • Solutions
  • Creativity
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Global Engagement
  • Arizona Impact
  • Sun Devil Life

University

  • Admissions
  • Financial Aid
  • President's Office
  • About ASU
  • ASU Home
  • Emergency

Events

  • ASU Events
  • Athletics
  • Maps and Locations
  • Jobs
  • Directory
  • Contact ASU
  • My ASU
Number 1 in the United States for Innovation
  • Copyright and Trademark
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Emergency