2024 CASMART Student Design Challenge at the 2024 Shape Memory and Superelastic Technologies (SMST) Conference; Cascais, Portugal; 6-10 May 2024

University Of Tulsa, Tulsa OK

Investigators

Abstract

This award provides travel funding for students studying at US universities to participate in the 2024 Consortium for the Advancement of Shape Memory Alloy Research and Technology (CASMART) Student Design Challenge. The objective is to broaden undergraduate and graduate student participation for the CASMART competition, which will be held at the 2024 SMST (Shape Memory and Superelastic Technologies) Conference and Exposition in Cascais, Portugal. This project supports not only the intellectual efforts of the students and their presentations for the CASMART competition, but also impacts the field by broadening participation. Students will have the opportunity to interact with leaders from government, industry, and academia from around the world. Furthermore, the CASMART competition itself creates opportunities for collaboration and feedback from peers and experts in the community. The CASMART student design competition has been held five times, starting in 2015. The sixth CASMART competition is hosted at the 2024 SMST Conference and features teams developing and using shape memory alloys and technologies in a wide range of application areas, from elastocalorics for efficient solid-state refrigeration and cooling, to battery fire-prevention devices. The student teams are conducting cutting-edge research and will bring these exciting results to the competition, where they will share their work with the conference attendees. Efforts on this project will include pre-conference coaching opportunities for students. This project will also directly broaden participation at a leading international conference for the shape memory alloy community. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.