Portland State Magazine Spring 2016

6 pORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE SPRING 2016 pa r k b l o c k s One million downloads THE UNIVERSITY’S online digital repository, PDXScholar, has achieved a major milestone: 1 million downloads. On the evening of January 21, readers around the world, as depicted on the map here, collectively downloaded that many articles, dissertations, master’s theses, conference papers, textbooks and more—all by PSU faculty, students and staff. Managed by the PSU Library, items in PDXScholar are discoverable through Google and other search engines, giving the repository international reach. Search the collection at pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu . BEFORE NASA astronaut Scott Kelly returned to Earth from the International Space Station, he shared a video of himself bouncing a blob of water between ping-pong paddles designed by student Karl Cardin. The mechanical engineering senior created an etched grid pattern on coated polycarbonate paddles that repel water in zero gravity. Cardin tested and refined his design using the five-story Dryden Drop Tower on campus, which can simulate 2.1 seconds of weightlessness. His project is one of many conducted in the field of fluid dynamics under Mark Weislogel, mechanical engineering faculty and former NASA researcher. Weislogel is one of the inventors of the zero-gravity espresso cup that has helped keep space station astronauts caffeinated for the past year. Ping-pong in space