VIP@Maryland
Program Overview
The Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) Model for Experiential Learning creates long-term, large-scale projects that unite undergraduate education and faculty research, innovation, design, and entrepreneurship through multidisciplinary teams. "Vertically Integrated" refers to VIP team compositions, which typically include sophomores, juniors, seniors, graduate students, post-docs, and faculty.
Originally created at Georgia Tech and Purdue University, VIP has been making an impact for over 20 years at universities across the globe and launched at University of Maryland in Spring 2024. This Spring, 66 undergraduate students participated in interdisciplinary VIP research at UMD. Researchers worked closely with their teammates, faculty mentors, and peer leaders to further their group’s project.
Project Description
Go With the Flow! Hands-on Fluid Dynamics Education
Having a hands-on lab component to fluid dynamics courses has always been an important part of the pedagogy. However, traditional instruction has required expensive room-sized equipment that is used by relatively large groups, limiting the time for exploration and real understanding of the important principles. The goal of this VIP project is to develop a series of instructional kits that can be purchased by individual students and used at home, permitting a more creative and individualized exploration of the material, and a greater sense of ownership and depth of understanding. Although intended to support college-level fluid dynamics courses, there are opportunities to generalize to K-12 as well.
The kits that are planned or in development include: manometry, propulsion thrust stand, wind tunnel with force balance, pipe flow losses, fan/pump characteristics, and flow separation and form drag. The kits are enabled by the recent development of high-power ducted fans, inexpensive DC power supplies, and inexpensive motor controllers. The tasks prioritized for this project include: development and iterative refinement of prototypes, 3D printing of prototypes, development and testing of lab handouts for student assembly instructions and test instructions, conducting focus sessions with student groups to improve the product, sourcing appropriate off-the-shelf components, and developing final parts for injection molding for at scale deployment.
Faculty Mentor:
Dr. Ken Kiger, Mechanical Engineering
Wind TERPines
The overall goal of this project is to explore wind energy and its benefits. This VIP project applied as a team and prepared a proposal for the Department of Energy Collegiate Wind Competition. The team looks at both the design of a small offshore floating wind turbine and the siting of an offshore wind farm off the coast of Oregon. UMD students in this VIP will make connections with K-12 students by building educational awareness of wind energy and implementing outreach programs. The group will also interact with members of industry and government research.
In the future, the Wind TERPines VIP may develop initiatives to develop the local and university community on the benefits of wind energy. The project, originally built off of the work of the Wind TERPines student organization, aims to work with students from many academic disciplines and develop further projects based on group interest.
Topics include:
- Design of a working prototype
- Review of existing designs and farms
- Research of energy initiatives and community impact
- Development of business plans to implement and scale projects
- Facilitation of outreach and awareness campaigns
Faculty Mentor:
Dr. James Baeder, Aerospace Engineering