“The Engineering Design and Innovation Building has been called a ‘hub of making,’” said Anthony Atchley, acting dean of the College of Engineering. “The classrooms, labs and a state-of-the art maker space coalesce to create a facility where students can take their ‘what ifs’ and ‘I wonders’ and turn them into viable answers to pressing societal needs.”
In the past few years, ideas from Penn State engineering students grew from “what if” to the world’s first yarn made from squid protein, which could help reduce plastic pollution from textile production, as well as the first computational model of the inner ear’s Bast valve, which led to the discovery of a previously unknown contributor to Meniere’s disease.
“The essence of innovation spurring such projects — and the curricula that enable them — is the backbone of the College of Engineering,”…
