The grant, funded by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), will launch the Kentucky MBDA Advanced Manufacturing Center, one of only four such programs nationwide.

“There’s huge economic potential in additive manufacturing,” said Sundar Atre, endowed chair of manufacturing and materials at UofL and a lead on the new grant. “I see the pathway to a multibillion-dollar economy built around this in Louisville — it’s not unrealistic. With this new program, we will work to make that ecosystem open to everyone.”

The new center will build on the work of Atre and his team at UofL’s , housed in the . AMIST will use its faculty, staff and 10,000 square feet of dedicated facilities to provide minority-owned manufacturing businesses with product design, technology support, talent pipeline and business development assistance in additive manufacturing.

AMIST has put a strong focus on helping manufacturers adopt these disruptive technologies. The institute already supports training for minority-owned businesses in West Louisville and recently launched a new program to provide small- and medium-sized manufacturers with training, mentorship and UofL-backed research, development and consulting.

“We know Kentucky’s manufacturing industry has a rich and proud history,” said Will Metcalf, associate vice president for research development and strategic partnerships in UofL’s Office of Research and Innovation, who leads the grant with Atre. “This is a chance to leverage UofL’s research strengths to empower manufacturers within our community to use this technology and engineer a future economy that’s built around disruptive, inclusive innovation.”��

The will provide technical and business development assistance to build capacity of minority-owned companies, expand manufacturing ecosystems and facilitate contracts and financing. Miguel��Estién, acting national director��of the MBDA, said efforts to improve equity for minority-owned businesses could add close to $5 trillion per year to U.S. economic output.

“Supporting and promoting this community is a good investment,” he said. “Money spent in the minority business community stays in the community. It is good for the U.S. economy, and it enhances our credibility as a nation because it should be our aspiration to make the economy work for everybody.”��

UofL also recently received a $50,000 pilot grant to fund work to expand access to additive manufacturing technology for minority-owned, innovation-focused startups in Louisville. That grant, from the U.S. Small Business Development Administration’s Growth Accelerator Fund Competition to support STEM entrepreneurs, is led by UofL Assistant Professor Kunal Kate, who also will help lead the Kentucky MBDA Advanced Manufacturing Center.

Kentucky Lieutenant Governor Jacqueline Coleman said the new center builds on the state’s demonstrated success in manufacturing.

“Through this effort, UofL’s AMIST is opening doors to manufacturing to all our citizens by being��one of only four such programs nationwide recognized by the Minority Business Development Agency for its innovative work,” Coleman said. “We need to be more inclusive in manufacturing and expand opportunities for women and minorities. I applaud AMIST’s efforts in creating an inclusive, innovation ecosystem around new economic opportunities for all Kentuckians.”

Companies can learn more and get involved by visiting the Kentucky MBDA Advanced Manufacturing Center .

The program, called Accelerated Innovative Manufacturing with 3D Printing, or AIM-3DP, will provide small and medium manufacturers in the automotive and aerospace sectors with training, mentorship and UofL-backed research, development and consulting. The work is backed by a new $90,000 grant, one of only three of its kind in the country, from the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities.

“The goal is to help these companies take advantage of cutting-edge, future-focused technologies,” said principal investigator Kunal Kate, assistant professor in UofL’s . “My hope is that we can build on the research and innovation we’re doing in advanced manufacturing at UofL and use it to help companies throughout Kentucky.”

AIM-3DP will partner manufacturers with UofL researchers and students, who will work side-by-side to identify better, more efficient ways to manufacture, develop new product lines and grow. The projects can be any size, though AIM-3DP will select two larger projects for more in-depth work and will split costs with the company.

AKA will provide AIM-3DP companies with coaching and training on business development, continuous improvement and leadership. Companies also will receive grant writing training in hopes that projects may lead to Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer applications to fund technology development and innovation.

Companies can apply to be part of the program .

“Our mission at AKA is to assist Kentucky manufacturers and distributors by boosting productivity and growth opportunities so they can retain and create additional jobs, be more globally competitive and produce new revenue streams,” said Scott Broughton, AKA’s center director. “AIM-3DP can help us fulfill that mission, and I’m excited to work with UofL to make that happen.”

The grant to AIM-3DP is funded by a research grant APLU received from the National Institutes of Standards and Technology, a physical sciences laboratory and non-regulatory agency of the United States Department of Commerce. The initiative explores how public universities can develop and scale partnerships with Manufacturing Extension Partnership Centers to increase the capacity of small and medium-sized manufacturers to adopt technologies key for their success.

“We know technology adoption is critical for the success and long-term sustainability of small and medium-sized manufacturers,” said Sheila Martin, vice president for economic and community engagement at APLU. “Yet barriers to uptake of new technologies still force too many manufacturers out of business. We’re excited these public universities, MEP Centers, and private sector partners are stepping up to find new models for increased success.”

The AIM-3DP program builds on both partners’ strengths. At UofL, companies will have access to a robust infrastructure for additive manufacturing and materials innovation, including the UofL , known as AMIST, and its well-equipped center for rapid manufacturing.

“Kentucky has a rich manufacturing history to be proud of,” said Will Metcalf, associate vice president for research development and partnerships in UofL’s Office of Research and Innovation. “Through this work with AKA, we will help Kentucky manufactures innovate, adopt cutting edge technologies, and stay competitive.”

Other partnerships receiving AIM-3DP grants are Northern Illinois University/Illinois Manufacturing Excellence Center and Ohio University/Ohio Manufacturing Extension Partnership Southeast.

This project will pilot a commercially viable process using previous research to convert soybean hull biomass into a low-calorie, diabetic-friendly sugar substitute while simultaneously extracting micro and nanoscale fibers to be used for lightweight fiber composites and thermoplastic packaging products via 3D printing.

“Agriculture and agricultural processing are keys to economic development and employment in the U.S. Xylose separation and use of soy hull fibers for natural fiber composites are potent opportunities for addressing worldwide farming economics, nutrition issues and material needs from a renewable source,” said Mahendra Sunkara, director of the Conn Center. “In conjunction with BioProducts LLC, the Conn Center expects the development of a pilot-scale operation in the next two years.”

The U.S. has world-scale processing facilities to convert grain and its byproducts to various industrial and food products, including alcohols and spirits, dietary fibers, industrial proteins and others. Both agriculture and agricultural processing generate significant amounts of residual biomass, including 8 million tons per year of soy hulls from soybeans.

The UofL project will utilize these soy hulls to produce xylose, a natural and low-calorie sugar, using a patented process developed by UofL and licensed by , based in Louisville. After xylose extraction, the residual fiber, which is about 80% of the starting biomass, has a modified fiber structure that can be used as a natural fiber in composites for 3-D printing applications.

These natural fiber composites also have potential uses in the automotive, civil engineering, military and aerospace industries, which rely on petroleum-based fiberglass and expensive carbon fiber composites to reduce weight and maintain assembly strength over all-metal constructions. The Conn Center project pursues the development of a stable and efficient method to process the hemicellulose-removed biomass from soybeans into lightweight natural fiber composites.

The food-grade sugar xylose from soy hulls also has high value industrial applications. This sugar can be used to produce cyclopentadiene, a key ingredient in cyclic olefin copolymer (COC), an amorphous thermoplastic used in polyolefin “shrink films” for medical, food safe and industrial packaging. This COC market, which currently depends on petroleum as the source, was valued at $14.9 billion in 2017.

The new USB grant will fund pilot phase development of innovations resulting from previous research at UofL, including 3-D printing using soy hull-polymer composite filaments, , and additive manufacturing prospects, as well as a patent application on polymer composite feedstock production. That work initially was funded by USB in 2019.

The major challenge of utilizing soy hulls to produce sugars and fibers is to create efficient, economical and achievable technology at a commercial scale. Meeting these three criteria elevates the value of this biomass. Currently, one limited outlet for soy hulls is as animal feed. Processing the hulls for a high value product such as xylose could make growing soy more profitable for farmers.

The research team is led by theme leader for at the Conn Center for Renewable Energy Research, and mechanical engineering professor in the UofL . Satyavolu and Kate recruited several graduate students and postdoctoral scholars for the two-year project, “An integrated approach to utilize soy hulls in modified fiber composites for 3-D printing applications and produce xylose as a value-added product.”

In the pilot phase, the team will pursue process optimization and design to meet the demands of a commercially viable process. This includes large volume production of xylose and composite filament samples for evaluation by commercial partners in the food and 3-D printing industries.

COVID-19 has caused a sea change in day-to-day life. Work, school, recreation, retail, medical care, everything has been altered.

Many have expressed a sense of frustration or helplessness because they feel there is nothing they can actively do to help – this virus is unprecedented. But for Speed School engineers at the University of Louisville, creating innovative solutions for the most complex problems – and taking action – is what they do best.

�ճ������(AMIST) facility at Speed School of Engineering has risen to this challenge by contributing something vital to the pandemic: protective face shields for healthcare workers, an item currently in a critical shortage due to tightening of hospital supply chain lines. The original impetus for the project was a request for 100 of the shields from the Internal Medicine Department at UofL Health.

Created with state of the art 3-D printing technology, the team has been printing face shields at their core facility, increasing their production output to 55 shields per day by running continuous shifts from 8 a.m. to midnight daily.

Ed Tackett, director of Workforce Development at AMIST, is coordinating the COVID-19 Speed School Response Team.

“We asked ourselves, ‘what can we do right now?’ How do we protect our most vulnerable citizens and how can the University play a positive role in making that happen?” said Tackett. “We have medical professionals literally on the front lines, and if we can help them be safer or keep them from getting sick, we’re going to do whatever we need to do to make that happen,” said Tackett.

What he needed was a dedicated and talented production team. He got that team with graduate assistant Kate Schneidau and four other Speed School students who wanted to help however they could with this health crisis. Schneidau is the production manager who helps manage the scheduling of shifts totaling 16 hours a day, and ensures that builds are continuously running so they can output as many face shields as possible in a day.

Schneidau said she feels a sense of pride knowing that she is contributing skills she learned at Speed School in such a direct way to benefit the community.

“It’s more than just helping produce a product that can be sold commercially. It’s a sense of camaraderie with the community knowing in tough times I can still help. I was taught all my life if somebody needs help, you step up and help as much as you can without expecting anything, because it’s the right thing to do.”

The first batch of 100 face shields have been picked up, and while the face shield production is filling the gap until the medical supply chain catches up, the Additive Manufacturing center is nimble and can adapt quickly to new 3-D printing needs that may arise due to COVID-19.

“We’re producing face shields now but that could change at any moment,” said Schneidau. “We are here as a tool to help in whatever way the medical community may need. We could shift production to ventilators if that is what is needed next.”

The community is doing their part to help, too. After a post on social media about the project, citizens with 3-D printers have stepped up, wanting to be part of the solution. Schneidau has helped to coordinate drop-off locations for the components being printed by people with their home printers, and these parts are picked up and put in the production stream at Speed School.

Schneidau said this experience is one she won’t forget and, in fact, it has solidified her interest in a career in building medical devices.

“I want to make an impact to help people better their lives – to make sure they live their best life possible,” she said.

Tackett said with all the bad news every day about COVID-19, it is great having the team of students and other people involved in this.

“They feel like they’re making a difference, and they actually are making a difference. Students involved in this will be better equipped to provide significant engineering changes in the world. It’s what we should be doing as an engineering school. We’re all going to come out of this, and we’re all going to be stronger when we come out of this,” he said.

As for Schneidau, she is a millennial leader ready to keep making a difference in her world.

“The fact that these students have these skills and are willing to step up to the plate to help – this has just reaffirmed my belief that the next generation – we got it covered,” she said. “The future is in good hands.”

Check out the team’s work:��

Classes at the UofL Hite Art Institute have found many ways to incorporate these tools, available on-campus in the GE Appliances-backed FirstBuild makerspace and microfactory. The printmaking studio, for example, has used the facility’s equipment to cut stones used in the printing process.��

“It’s pretty limitless,” said Rachel Singel, an assistant professor at Hite. “It’s just real … a dream to have those facilities available,” she said, adding that it allows students to experiment with new tools and broaden their perspectives by working with people in other fields.

Another instructor,��Power Designer-in-Residence Leslie Friesen,��used FirstBuild to teach design. She brought her class there to produce 3-D elements for a project, in part, to give them experience with different equipment, materials and methods of production.

“I think it’s really nice having the engineers and the designers work together,” said Amber Kleitz, a student in the design class. “Having all of these different facets of my design career, even as a student, I feel that I can show how versatile I am.”��

Callen isn’t sure what the future holds beyond his impending spring graduation, but he knows that he wants Mullikin to be part of it. Since his high school graduation, Callen has been a student in one way or another, first in the officer candidate school for the Marine Corps and later at the University of Louisville. He came to��UofL in 2007, first as a student in the Speed School, before transitioned to marketing, and then��returning in 2012 to the Speed School. The call for engineering was too strong.

Callen has long studied the science of their relationship. Although he knew that they had good chemistry, Callen had planned for months for the best moment to propose.

“She told me last May that she thought she’d be married by now. When I knew, it was shortly after that. You know what, I’ll never find anyone else in the world that’s going to tell me… I don’t even know how to word that,” Callen said.��“The mental aspect of it is a complex thing that most engineers don’t get, because it’s not based on logic. Basically everything we do has to be logical, because that’s how the world works.”

Part of his struggle was in finding the right way to express his love, while staying true to his engineering roots.

“I’m not in touch with my emotional side, I figured that spending the amount of time that it took to make this ring and design it would show here that I care. A lot,” he said.

Callen cared enough to spend 5½ months working on the ring.

“I figured that’d be a way I could show my feelings,” he said.��

As for the process, Callen first had to determine what kind of ring to create, but needed more data from Mullikin. The two looked at a few rings and after identifying a few qualities that she admired, he went cautiously forward. Out of all the options available, he narroed it down to the emerald cut, modified hexagonal and marquee cut.��

“So I did my own research. Which ones did I think were the coolest? Obviously I’m into geometric shapes. There are circle cuts, round cuts… all these weird things. I picked the thing that would be most geometric, which would be emerald,” Callen said.

Once that decision was final, he “extruded a basic shape” on Solid Works, took measurements from a ring Mullikin regularly wears and “went from there.” With help from Joe Vicars in the Rapid Prototyping Center, he designed a mold for the ring, which was then set in gold.

“The mold is not like a mold out of play dough. The mold is a design. To straight up 3-D print in gold would be an astronomical amount of money. People do it, but I can’t do that. I created the plastic version of the ring, so that I had an object to hold, and I sent off all my materials to a place called Shape Ways, a 3-D printing website,” Callen said.��

When it came time, Callen proposed to Mullikin on campus on the first floor of the Rapid Prototyping Center. Mullikin said yes.

After accepting his proposal, Callen took Mullikin on a tour of the facility, leaving campus to meet up with family and friends to celebrate. Now the wedding planning has begun, and true to his nature, Callen has offered to work with Mullikin to create her own wedding band, an act of collaboration symbolic of their love.��

For more on this story, check out the video below:��

Photo courtesy of Kari Donahue.��

The students, from the J.B. Speed School of Engineering’s Mechanical Engineering Department, formed 10��“startups,” then worked together to design a product, prototype it using 3-D printing and build a business case around it that could compete for a future round of financing.

Each team will present their products at a venture day event from 8:30-10:30 a.m. on Dec. 5 at the Shumaker Research Building on the Belknap Campus.

“We are excited to have a hundred design engineers leverage disruptive 3-D printing technologies to create business with new products for biomedical, industrial, transportation and consumer sectors,” said professor Sundar Atre, , who launched the incubator. “What they have accomplished this semester is truly extraordinary.”

Companies are invited to sign up to mentor the teams and provide a market focus for their products. One way UofL engages industry is through the , which seeks to create an ecosystem that spurs innovation and generates educational opportunities.

The student startups in the incubator received technical mentorship from faculty and will receive business mentorship from an investment group. Each team was assigned a student project manager and a graduate student with relevant product research and development experience to serve as chief technology officer.

Another 10��teams will be added in January, when spring classes begin. At the end of each term, investors and other community stakeholders will be brought in to hear pitches from the teams.

More information on the individual teams is available .

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