Prioritizing Safety
ASEM Director Discusses Electric-Shock Drowning and How to Keep Swimmers Safe
A danger that you can’t see or hear — electric shock in water — can easily go undetected. Electricity is deadly and often discovered only after it is too late.
When alternating current of electricity is running through freshwater bodies, such as pools and lakes, there is risk that a person could succumb to electric shock drowning.
Donald Burke, Ph.D., director of Advanced Safety and Engineering Management, a concentration in the School of Engineering's Master of Engineering Program, explains.
“Electric shock drowning can occur in any fresh body of water, and anywhere you may have an electrical device that has faulty or damaged wiring, and equipment can cause the body of water to become energized,” Burke said. “Then, when the human body comes into contact with that energized body of water, it overwhelms our body’s natural electrical signals that control our muscles.”
According to Burke, depending on the current level, a person could experience anything from tingling all the way to paralysis and cardiac arrest — potentially causing electric shock drowning and, if the level is high enough, electrocution.
Following some simple steps when adding electricity to a structure that is near a body of fresh water, and remaining vigilant in testing it, is a key to preventing the possibility of electric shock drowning.
Going the Distance
Blazer Motorsports Launches Crowdfunding Effort to Send Baja Team to National Competition
This archive photo shows the 2010 Baja team assembling their car. Increased funding would allow teams to improve design concepts from one year to the next.This Memorial Day weekend, Blazer Motorsports is taking a student-designed Baja SAE car to a competition where it hopes it can contend against the nation's best. To get there, the team is launching a crowdfunding campaign that it hopes will not only provide funds for this year's event but will help turn UAB's Baja team into a perennial power.
Over the past two years, this interdisciplinary team, which includes students from all five engineering departments as well as from other schools across campus, has been working on an improved Baja car to compete in Pittsburg, Kansas. Travel expenses for car and team are expected to be around $10,000.
“At UAB, we have everything we need to have a championship Baja team,” said Steve Thompson, mentor for the 2017 team. “We finished third as recently as 2011, so we know we can contend with other schools in our region, but we’ve never had the continuity we need from one year to the next.”
SOE Student Maggie Collier Named Goldwater Scholar
Maggie Collier, an engineering student with a double major in biomedical engineering and electrical and computer engineering, was recently named a 2017 Goldwater Scholar by the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation.
Collier was one of three UAB students to receive the honor this year, bringing the university’s total up to 24 students who have been named Goldwater Scholars to date. She is the fifth Goldwater Scholar from the UAB School of Engineering.
“When you graduate from high school in a class size of 16, it doesn’t really occur to anyone that you might ever have a chance to conduct world-class research or be considered for a prestigious honor,” said Collier, a native of Deatsville, Alabama. “Winning the Goldwater Scholarship reminds me that I have exceeded so many expectations, including many of my own.”
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School of Engineering Honorable Mention |
In addition to her double major, Collier is also a member of the Honors College’s Science and Technology Honors Program. She researches in the lab of Ho-Wook Jun, Ph.D., and is editor-in-chief of Inquiro, UAB’s undergraduate research journal. Collier was recently named Most Outstanding Undergraduate Student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. This summer, she will participate in the National Science Foundation’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates program at Georgia Tech.
Collier wants to earn her Ph.D. in electrical engineering or biomedical engineering and work to innovate medical technologies that involve aspects of tissue interactions, electronics and robotics.
Senior Design Projects to Be on Display in April
The SAE Baja car, shown here at the 2016 Media Day, is one of several projects that will be on display at this year's event. Two teams worked on the car this year, designing and building a new frame and drivetrain. Innovation, technical expertise, and four years of engineering training will be on display this month when UAB engineering students demonstrate their senior design projects at a pair of “Media Day” events. The public is invited to come to campus on Wednesday April 19 and Friday April 21 to meet the students and to see how they are engineering solutions to real-world challenges.
The April 19 event will feature interdisciplinary teams of students from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Their projects will be on display from 11 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. in the lobby of the Business-Engineering Complex.
The April 21 event will be held in Heritage Hall from 1 p.m. until 3 p.m. That event will feature products designed by teams of students from the Department of Biomedical Engineering. They will be joined by partners from the Collat School of Business who will give pitches in which they market the products to potential investors.
