Talon Birdsong (left) and Matthew Hopper make adjustments to Thunderbot, the GCU Robotics Club’s first competition robot.

Story and photos by Lana Sweeten-Shults
GCU News Bureau

The weather outside was basketball.

But the GCU Robotics Club wasn’t having any of it. Never mind the electricity and frenetic energy in the air generated by a winning basketball team’s return to court.

“We have a competition of our own to get ready for,” sophomore engineering major Makayla Jewell said on the second floor of the College of Science, Engineering and Technology. She was steely-eyed and focused on the task at hand, even as the rest of the campus, abuzz outside with utter gleefulness during pregame festivities, waited anxiously in line to get into GCU Arena for the first men’s basketball game of the season.

The Robotics Club isn’t just open to engineering students. Among its members are forensics and business students, too. The club spent nine weeks building its first competition robot.

Since early October, the 30-plus member club had gone into eye-of-the-tiger mode, preparing for “THE GREATEST TWO MINUTES IN ROBOTICS!” (insert boxing announcer voice here) – well, it’s the greatest two minutes in robotics, at least according to VEX Robotics when it describes its “In the Zone” competition.

The regional event, held Saturday at Embry-Riddle University in Prescott, would be the first competition for the newbie Robotics Club, formed just last school year and chartered in February.

“Last year, we were just a start-up club. We laid down the bylaws and did a little bit of fundraising,” Jewell said.

This year, the club is upping its game – and its nerd-to-science-to-cool factor, of course.

While the group usually meets just once a week, leading up to the competition, it got together three times a week for two to three hours at a time.

Like Dr. Frankenstein marveling at his creation, the club, too, can now boast, “It’s alive!” when it comes to its first robotic creation, affectionately dubbed Thunderbot. The gear-filled build spanned nine weeks, with the team limited to building an 18-inch X 18-inch X 18-inch ’bot. It was through a grant from VEX that the team was able to land its initial robot kit, packed with the metal and plastic pieces used in the build.

“It was a pretty generic idea with what we started with,” Jewell said. “ … We didn’t want to do something too elaborate.”

Not that the team didn’t want to do something a little more wild and crazy.

Talon Birdsong, a mechanical engineering major, works on cone-stacking in preparation for Thunderbot’s first competition.

“One of our craziest ideas would be an arm in the center of the robot so it could rotate from front to back … but that was just too unfeasible,” said mechanical engineering major Matthew Hopper, who was busy tightening up Thunderbot’s bolts.

The team didn’t have to worry about its robot battling fellow ‘bots to the death in gladiator Colosseum fashion. The VEX competition – one of the few robot competitions for those on the collegiate level – was not about competitor robot annihilation. Rather, it’s task-oriented.

GCU’s electro-mechanical Thundebot, touting a blue flag that reads THNDR1, zips along the floor of CSET, its four green tires churning along below a steel square base from which emanates a jumble of black yellow and red wires and a vertical arm.

A gaggle of bright yellow cones pepper the floor, with a larger red cone on the side.

“ZZzzzzzuuhhhZZZzzz!!!” Thunderbot squeals as its driver, mechanical engineering major Talon Birdsong, controls its direction and its claw-like arm, inching the arm forward as it pinches closed on one of the yellow cones before scuttling, cone in hand, to the red cone.

That’s where it deposits the yellow cone snugly on top of the red one.

It’s just one of the tasks Thunderbot must do for the VEX competition, a two-minute flurry of cool-robot-sciencey-excitement.

Collegiate teams have 45 seconds to score points during an autonomous period, meaning the robot controls itself. The club’s programmers were able to get autonomous mode working just two days before the competition. The ‘bots then have 1 minute 15 seconds to rack up points during the driver-controlled period. Robots converge on a 12- x 12-foot field, with participants scoring points for stacking cones on goals – 80 cones can be stacked on 10 goals – placing mobile goals in goal zones, having the highest stacks and parking the robots, with a bonus awarded to the team with the most total points at the end of the autonomous period.

And then there’s the portion of the event that doesn’t involve cone-stacking, which is where GCU electrical engineering technology instructor and Robotics Club faculty advisor Ed Koeneman comes in.

Koeneman ran his own medical device company, Kinetic Muscles, for 15 years and spent many years supporting his own children in robotics competitions. He spent the first 15 minutes of the Robotics Club meeting giving students a pep talk.

Part of the challenge in the competition is for the team – some are in charge of programming, others oversee such tasks as documentation and social media – to be able to answer the judges’ questions confidently.

“The judges come into the pits and interview the team, and everybody has to answer the questions,” he said.

GCU’s Robotics Club received a grant from VEX Robotics for a robot kit that was assembled into Thunderbot.

Judges also look at their robotics log, which documents what the team did to engineer its robot.

“You’ve got to tell a story,” Koeneman said. “… They’re trying to teach these good engineering skills and have fun doing it. A big part of engineering is documentation and communication.”

After this first event, the members of the Robotics Club will have until March to prepare for its second competition – and vie for a place in the world championship. They also will spend time raising funds – they don’t have a corporate sponsor.

It costs about $3,000 a year to run a robotics team, Koeneman said, adding how the club has received support from CSET Associate Dean Dr. Michael Sheller and the Associated Students of GCU, who have been “very generous in their appropriations.”

“A corporate sponsor would be very helpful,” he said. Until then, the club is planning a Valentine’s Day fundraiser and is just enjoying the company of its fellow robotics enthusiasts. Of course, it’s also basking in the glow of competition.

At the In the Zone event, Birdsong popped Thunderbot into wheelies to try to stack as many yellow cones as possible, then pushed red cones into designated goal zones to score more points. Just as with GCU basketball fans on the opening night of the season, the room, peppered with laptops and robot science warriors, was abuzz and filled with utter gleefulness as frenetic energy filled the air.

Thunderbot won several matches before landing a spot in the quarterfinals. That’s when GCU fell in the first playoff round.

It was a solid showing for the team, which knew of its robot’s limitations before the competition and took what it learned – some 10 pages of notes – back to the lab to tweak Thunderbot.

The GCU Robotics Club recently made the quarterfinals of the VEX Robotics In the Zone competition at Embry-Riddle University with the team robot, Thunderbot.

Club vice president Doris Gamboa, an electrical engineering major, said she always has thought robotics was “a cool thing to do” and just wanted to have fun at the team’s first competition.

But ask her which team she was looking forward to beating. She just said, “Um, everyone,” with a smile.

Not that the Robotics Club is limited to engineering majors, such as Gamboa. It includes everyone from premed to business and forensics students, too.

Birdsong, who comes from a small high school with a graduating class of about 50, said his school didn’t have the funding for robotics. “But I always wanted to do it. I like the friendly community aspect of it, getting out there and making new friends with similar interests.”

As for Jewell, who wants to build prosthetic hearts in her post-GCU career,  said, “I just have a passion for robots. I think competing competitively, particularly in something pertaining to your major, is important. … And we want the community to see how much STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) is growing.”

Contact GCU senior writer Lana Sweeten-Shults at (602) 639-7901 or lana.sweeten-shults@gcu.edu. Follow her on Twitter @LanaSweetenShul.

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Shaun Wang executes a midair click recently in the Honors College conference room while viewing a mixed-reality image through Microsoft’s HoloLens. Wang is part of the Smart Urban Fabrics, or S.M.U.R.F., research and development student group in the College of Science, Engineering and Technology. The group explores cutting-edge technologies and what they’re able to do.

Story and photos by Lana Sweeten-Shults
GCU News Bureau

GCU junior computer science major and S.M.U.R.F. student researcher Shaun Wang looks as if he stepped out of a “Terminator” movie. You almost expect him to declare, “I’ll be back.”

Instead, donning a pair of spacey-cool, dark glasses so huge they cover a third of his face, Wang reaches into the air and motions his right hand into a kind of midair click and then widens the space between his thumb and forefinger, as if he were increasing the size of an image on his smartphone. It’s air guitar, only with midair touchscreen taps and smartphone motions replacing the guitar.

As it turns out, Wang isn’t swatting at imaginary flies.

One of the projects the S.M.U.R.F. research and development group is working on is an augmented reality chess program. The idea is that users can play a game of chess anywhere, without having to tote along a chess board.

Through Microsoft’s HoloLens, Wang is seeing something the rest of us can’t, unless we glance at his laptop screen or take a peek through the HoloLens.

That’s where you can see what he does: the gray, striped rug of the Honors College conference room in the College of Science, Engineering and Technology. It is covered by thin white lines spanning the screen, almost like a map of constellations with white lines fanning out through space and connecting the stars. The computer, in this case, isn’t connecting stars but mapping out the room.

Then you see something that’s not there in the real world but is there on the computer screen – three virtual white balls sitting atop the rug.

The scene is a mix of the real world – the real-life Honors College conference room space – and the digitally created white balls. The real and virtual co-exist in layers of reality and virtual reality via a program called Unity, which creates 3D environments and applications, and the HoloLens, a mixed reality device, or MR device. Also called a hybrid reality gadget, the device merges elements of the real and virtual worlds by superimposing virtual objects in the wearer’s field of vision.

Wang is one of several student researchers on a number of teams working on mixed- and augmented-reality projects this semester as part of S.M.U.R.F., or Smart Urban Fabrics, one of the groups that’s part of CSET’s Research and Design Program. About 15 students are part of the group, which meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

These student researchers will demonstrate some of their projects during Health Sciences, Engineering and Technology Day on Wednesday. It’s when thousands of high school juniors and seniors will visit the campus to see what it has to offer. The S.M.U.R.F. team will be in Room 133 of Building 57. One group at 11 a.m. will demonstrate “Critical thinking, problem solving with virtual reality,” one at 11:20 a.m. will present “The future of science education using augmented and virtual reality” and a third group at 11:40 a.m. will show its project, “Home furniture – a lesson in 3D geometry using augmented reality.”

Despite the word “fabric” in its name, this primarily computer science student group has nothing to do with fashion design. It also doesn’t have anything to do with the little blue creatures who don’t like Gargamel much.

“You weave stuff together,” S.M.U.R.F. student researcher Andrew Donson said of the use of the word “fabric” in the group’s name. “It’s like how technology comes together.”

S.M.U.R.F. student researcher Aldo Nunez (left) and fellow researcher Fon Moye are developing an augmented reality house that can be viewed via smartphone app. The papers on the table represent floor patterns in the house, which will be overlaid with virtual furniture.

The students weave together electronic, computer, sensory, engineering and software components, all threads in the cloth of technology. The goal is to build and connect systems and, ultimately, to learn how technology impacts the surrounding “urban fabric,” such as the environment or communication.

Last year, S.M.U.R.F. researchers focused their efforts heavily on climate and air quality – more specifically, microclimate. One project they worked on was designing and building a grid of sensors around campus to collect environmental data.

“We realized it was too costly to do a network across campus,” said associate professor Isac Artzi, faculty advisor of S.M.U.R.F. and the lead of CSET’s computer science program, though he said the project might evolve into something less costly in the future. “… Every two or three months, we engage in a different project.”

In the research group’s second year, students are delving into mixed- and augmented-reality projects, both of which involve adding extra, virtual components to the real world. However, mixed reality is more immersive, such as the perspective the HoloLens supplies, while augmented reality might be viewed through a more limited field-of-vision device, such as a phone.

Whatever the project, Artzi said, “The goal is always to learn and explore what cutting-edge technologies are able to do.”

Wang said the goal for him and fellow team members Tommy Fowler, Joshua Lee and Chandler Van Dyke is to simulate a physics lab by placing a virtual ball on an actual table, physically throwing it off the table, then calculating how the speed of the ball affects how the ball goes. “A classic physics lab that a student would take,” he added.

This is a screen shot of areas in the augmented reality house being developed by S.M.U.R.F. student researchers. Unlike with virtual reality, in augmented- and mixed-reality scenarios, virtual images are laid over real-world ones.

Normally, Wang said, students studying horizontal displacement and horizontal velocity in their physics class would need to use actual balls and rulers and would have to mark the exact place a ball lands.

A mixed-reality version of this classics physics lab would seem to simplify the process a bit and likely would be more accurate than relying on eyesight.

Another S.M.U.R.F. team is working on developing a mixed-reality chess program for the HoloLens.

“It would be cool to actually play chess, you know, anywhere you wanted, using these glasses. … The overarching goal is you can play anywhere you want to, and you don’t have to bring a chess board with you,” Donson said of the chess project, which he’s working on with brothers Josiah and Matthew Jibben, as well as Natalie Kidd.

They have worked on the project practically every day since the beginning of the semester, they said.

Aldo Nunez and Fon Moye have been developing an augmented reality house in which a user, launching an app, can place virtual furniture in the house.

“You can scale them. You can make them whatever size you want. You can move them,” Nunez said of the furniture.

“Why spend a lot of money on mixed-reality headsets when you can do this? Just use your phone with an app,” he added.

Of course, technology, as eye-wowing as it may be, also comes with a downside.

“This is great technology for kids to play with, without getting the room messy,” Artzi said of being able to play chess virtually, arrange furniture in a

S.M.U.R.F. student researchers Tommy Fowler, Joshua Lee and Chandler Van Dyke (from left), along with Shaun Wang, are developing a mixed-reality program using the Microsoft HoloLens and Unity game engine. The program will combine virtual balls in a real-life room that has been mapped by computer. S.M.U.R.F. will be doing mixed- and augmented-reality demonstrations for Health Sciences, Engineering and Technology Day on Wednesday.

room virtually or test physics concepts in a mixed-reality world. But he also remembers being a kid himself, venturing outside and catching lizards.

“Did you do that?” he asked his S.M.U.R.F. student researchers.

Childhood, he observed, is becoming more virtual.

“The kids 15 years from now will not know a world without virtual reality,” Artzi said, which makes the projects the S.M.U.R.F. teams are working on even more relevant.

With the kind of cutting-edge projects they’re doing, S.M.U.R.F. students likely won’t see the things they’ve learned unravel like poorly weaved fabric. For them, it’s more likely that, much like the Terminator, they’ll be back, and so will their innovative high-tech ideas.

Contact GCU senior writer Lana Sweeten-Shults at (602) 639-7901 or lana.sweeten-shults@gcu.edu. Follow her on Twitter @LanaSweetenShul.

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Could a dog really have three heads, like Hagrid’s pooch, Fluffy? Why do trolls have gray complexions? GCU faculty members Deborah Haralson, Lindsey Kojich and Darien Hall pondered the same during their “Zoology in the Harry Potter Universe” talk Friday at the Arizona Science Center as part of “The Science of Harry Potter.”

Story and photos by Lana Sweeten-Shults
GCU News Bureau

Quidditch pong – that’s butterbeer pong, Harry Potter style – was going strong Friday night at downtown’s Arizona Science Center.

But a little owl told the spirited muggles gathered for “The Science of Harry Potter” – part of the after-hours Science With a Twist series for adults who are sweet on science – that something magical was about to materialize in the science center’s auditorium.

GCU faculty members Lindsey Kojich, Deborah Haralson and Darien Hall (from left) explored how close to reality the fantastic creatures in the Harry Potter world might be during Science With a Twist at the Arizona Science Center on Friday night.

It’s where GCU faculty members Deborah Haralson, Lindsey Kojich and Darien Hall double, double, toil and troubled themselves over “Zoology in the Harry Potter Universe,” a one-hour, science-based, Potter world-themed talk designed to analyze the various creatures in the Potter universe, compare those creatures to similar ones in mythology and the muggle world, and even do a little debunking of these creatures, pondering whether they could operate in the real world or could exist solely via magic.

Haralson said she was at the Arizona Science Center with her father two months ago for the Doctor Who-themed Science With a Twist when she heard about a Potter-themed adults night out and started a conversation with the center about helming a science-based talk.

“I had given a talk at last year’s Phoenix Comicon that was similar,” said Haralson, who teaches computer science and information technology in GCU’s College of Science, Engineering and Technology.

It was at Phoenix Comicon that she addressed “Cybersecurity in Star Wars: It’s an Older Code, but it Checks Out,” in which a panel of cybersecurity experts discussed how poor password security led to the annihilation of two Empire Death Stars, among other ways the Empire went wrong.

Like with “Cybersecurity in Star Wars,” “Zoology in the Harry Potter Universe” took a beloved fantasy franchise and brought real-world science into the picture, looking at the feasibility of the Potter world’s magical menagerie.

The trio of professors, dressed in robes and witch’s hats, tackled more than a dozen creatures during the first of two sessions, from erumpent to hippogriff, giants and trolls, bowtruckle, billywig, selkie, mooncalf and pukwudgie, to name a few.

Hall, who teaches biology, genetics and human anatomy and physiology, had a bit of fun with her research into the Potter universe’s giants and trolls.

The difference?

Haralson spoke about the cybersecurity issues in the “Star Wars” universe at Phoenix Comicon last year and decided to bring the same scientific pondering to the Arizona Science Center on Friday night for a Harry Potter-themed Science With a Twist.

“They’re both oversized humans … but trolls are very unintelligent, have a foul odor and their whiskers have magical properties. … Giants have human intelligence; they’re much smarter.”

Then Hall went into science mode.

Humans can reach some unusual heights, she said, but it’s mainly because of a pituitary gland issue.

“Robert Wadlow reached 8 feet, 11 inches. … He only lived, unfortunately to 22 or 23 because he suffered from cardiovascular difficulties. … He couldn’t feel his feet,” she said, and ended up dying of sepsis that started with a blister on his ankle.

Trolls might be gray in color, she surmised, because of a genetic condition. In humans, there is a rare condition called methemoglobinemia. In her research, she came upon the Fugate family, from the hills of Kentucky, who have this ailment, a symptom of which is blue skin.

“The last known blue person (in the family) actually was born in 1975,” she said, adding that he was born blue but later in life turned a “healthy pink” and might only have been a carrier of the condition.

Kojich, who teaches anatomy, physiology and exercise science, and her fellow GCU presenters took direction from the audience, who wanted to know more about hippogriff, a Potter creature that’s a cross between an eagle and a horse.

She told the audience about some important bird features. They’re pneumatic, meaning their bones have holes in them to help make them light enough for flight. And she also gave this little detail: They have no bladder.

“So gravity makes them poop?” Haralson asked, fascinated.

Kojich said, “The hippogriff has bones similar to a normal horse. … I really don’t think, sadly, Buckbeak (a hippogriff in the Potter books) did fly because his weight would basically break his skeleton.”

She also spoke about the Potter universe’s thunderbird.

“Anyone know what state the thunderbird is native to?”

“Arizona!” answered the audience, which also asked for the presenters to talk about billywig, a fantastical creature with wings emerging from the top of its head.

“Can he fly? He would have to be similar to a helicopter,” Haralson said. “… But he’s not realistic, though he’s fun to look at. He would require additional musculature.”

Or, of course, he might just require a little magic.

In addition to the GCU faculty-led “Zoology in the Harry Potter Universe” talk, the Science With a Twist evening also featured live owls, butterbeer, the search for seven Horcruxes hidden in the center, laser shows, an activity kit area, and even dissected snakes and toads.

Live owls, dissected toads, Quidditch butterbeer pong and a GCU faculty-led talk about the “Zoology of the Harry Potter Universe” were part of the Arizona Science Center’s Potter-themed Science With a Twist on Friday. The series is for adults who love science.

The event drew hundreds who stood in line outside the science center waiting to get inside to the sold-out event.

Haralson, Kojich and Hall haven’t been the only GCU faculty to lead a Science With a Twist talk.

In September, Melissa Beddow, Director of the University’s Bachelor of Science in Forensic Science program, dissected forensics-focused television shows, comparing them to what happens in an actual crime lab.

The talks highlight GCU as a leader in STEM (science, engineering and technology), while building bridges in the community and establishing relationships with organizations such as the Arizona Science Center.

Contact GCU senior writer Lana Sweeten-Shults at (602) 639-7901 or lana.sweeten-shults@gcu.edu. Follow her on Twitter @LanaSweetenShul.

The post Where to find fantastic beasts? At GCU-led talk appeared first on GCU Today.

Story by Lana Sweeten-Shults
Photos by Travis Neely
GCU News Bureau

A Bonnie-and-Clyde type have just robbed a bank.

Charissa Nolan is on their trail.

Students tackle network forensics Wednesday at the official opening of the Arizona Cyber Warfare Range – Metro Phoenix, located at 27th Avenue and Camelback.

From behind a keyboard and the blue-tinged glow of a computer screen, she clicks a computer mouse here and tap-tap-taps on a keyboard there, hacking into the couple’s encrypted emails.

Soon, she has unraveled those encrypted emails – the telltale signs of a bank robbery plan being put into motion.

Bank robbers caught in the act – well, virtually, at least.

It was just one of the scenarios cybersecurity aficionados tackled Wednesday morning at the grand opening of the Arizona Cyber Warfare Range – Metro Phoenix, a 4,500-square-foot facility at Grand Canyon University that’s the first jewel in the crown of what will become a 140,000 square-foot innovation center but also is a reflection of the campus’ focus on becoming a leader in science, technology, engineering and math.

“I’ve always loved messing around with computers,” said Nolan, a GCU sophomore information technology major with an emphasis in cybersecurity who was at the range with her class. “My sophomore year of high school, I actually hacked into one of my teacher’s computers. He was locked out.”

Nolan loved the adrenaline rush and still has her eye on becoming a cyberwarrior.

Mueller stressed the number of cyberattacks and the number of unfilled jobs in cybersecurity.

“I would love to work for companies and keep them safe from being hacked.”

It’s a thought shared by Jeanne Barconey, an applied business and information systems major who is thinking of going into cybersecurity.

“I’m actually tired of people hacking into people’s accounts,” she said, mentioning how her family is in the medical field, so she always is hearing news stories about how medical records are a prime target for hackers. “I want to be one of the ones to stop the hackers.”

When it comes to hacker-stopping, that’s what the new cyber warfare range is dedicated to helping people do as a free, hands-on, real-time, real-world cybersecurity training center. It’s where anyone can drop by – the range is open to the community, not just GCU students – to learn everything from password cracking to keycard cloning and breaking into networks.

GCU President Brian Mueller, addressing a crowd of more than 100 media, community and industry leaders, expressed how important cybersecurity has become – and how vital a facility such as the cyber warfare range is. Cybercrimes worldwide, he said, are expected to cost $6 trillion by 2021, cyberattacks take place every 39 seconds, 4 million records are stolen by cybercriminals every day, and 50 percent of cyberattacks occur against small businesses that lead to permanent closure within six months, according to 2017 statistics from Cybersecurity Ventures.

“The cost of this is obviously HUGE,” Mueller said.

John Iannerelli, a retired FBI agent, said “we cannot afford to lose” the cyber war.

Featured open house speaker John Iannarelli, a retired FBI special agent in the cyber division, detailed that cost on a global scale.

“I have dedicated my professional life in the FBI in working cybermatters for 20 years,” said Iannarelli, a frequent contributor to CNN and Fox News. “… The reality is, we are at war, and if we don’t win this war, many things we take for granted will no longer exist.”

The former FBI special agent has participated in the investigations of the Oklahoma City bombing and the 9/11 terrorist attack but said “it’s the cyberworld that really concerns me. We have significant enemies out there, people who want to do us harm, when we look at the rogue nations out there, China to a certain degree, certainly North Korea and Iran, who are actively engaged in attacking us (and our) critical infrastructures.”

The FBI, he said, “is sadly lacking” when it comes to cybersecurity and that we need collaborative efforts, such as the cyber warfare range, to win the battle.

“This is a war we cannot afford to lose.”

Unfortunately, Mueller added, not enough people are trained in cybersecurity to fill all the job openings. More than 300,000 jobs are open in the cybersecurity industry in the country with 7,200 of those job openings in Arizona, based on numbers from Cyberseek.

“We’re one of the only universities in the country to have a master’s degree program in cybersecurity,” Mueller said.

Dr. Heather Monthie, Assistant Dean of GCU’s College of Science, Engineering and Technology, said the master’s program teaches the University’s “cyberLopes” not just hands-on skills, but management skills, and legal and ethical issues under a “hackers with halos” concept.

Mueller added that it’s not possible to bring everybody who needs to be trained to fill all those job openings to a physical location such as GCU or the cyber warfare range.

Frank Grimmelmann, President and CEO of the Arizona Cyber Threat Response Alliance, said the key is finding people who have cybersecurity skills.

“This is going to have to be done through innovative practices. … It’s going to have to be done online,” he said.

GCU is itself an innovator in online learning, touting more than 70,000 online students.

Frank Grimmelmann, President and CEO of the Arizona Cyber Threat Response Alliance, said the cyber warfare range is part of the solution to those cyberthreats. For one, it’s a way to find people who have cybersecurity skills.

“By combining the volunteer-driven cyber warfare range with substantial cyber resources through donations through the community, we create a magnet which allows us to draw into the range people who have the ability but do not have the resources to be able to recognize their whole talent and take it to the next level,” he said. “… These kids and adults, we want to attract through peer-to-peer education.”

The unique thing about the range, he said, is that it offers a “real-world environment” with hands-on learning.

Scott McCrea, GCU College of Science, Engineering and Technology faculty member, echoed that sentiment. While anyone can learn via textbook and virtually, “This is a live-fire range our students are looking at with live-fire engagements,” he said, meaning anyone in the community can go in and actually break a password code or hack into a system – for the purpose, of course, of learning what cyber bad guys do and to better know how to defeat them.

People with calluses and dirt on their hands, McCrea said, will be better prepared than the theorists.

Brett Scott, co-founder of the Arizona Cyber Warfare Range in the East Valley, called GCU “a wonderful partner.”

Brett Scott co-founded the Arizona Cyber Warfare Range in the East Valley. The Metro Phoenix range on the GCU campus, at 27^th Street and Camelback, is the range’s second location.

He said of the facility, which is operated by volunteers, “As good as you want to be (in cybersecurity), we’ll get you there.”

Many universities wanted to partner with the Arizona Cyber Warfare Range, he said, but “GCU has proven to be honorable, brave. … We are blessed to have such a wonderful partner in GCU.” (The range’s other partner is the Arizona Cyber Threat Response Alliance.)

One of the range’s primary missions is education: “We want to teach you how to attack. How on earth do you defend something if you don’t know how to attack?” Scott said, adding that other cybersecurity training programs don’t allow you to do some of the hacking activities that go on at the range.

“We have real targets. We’re running a real network. It’s designed to be destroyed. … We want you to do all that scary stuff.”

Another of the facility’s missions is in intelligence and battling other countries that are trying to attack the United States.

Scott said most people in the cybersecurity industry, unfortunately, are bad at cybersecurity. The range has an ultimate mission, and that’s to “change the cybersecurity industry.”

The Arizona Cyber Warfare Range – Metro Phoenix is open to the public at no cost. Its hours are 5 a.m. to 1 a.m. Monday through Saturday, though visitors are asked to check the range’s calendar online (at www.azcwr.org) beforehand to make sure volunteers are present. For more information on the range, call 623-300-2002.

Contact GCU senior writer Lana Sweeten-Shults at (602) 639-7901 or lana.sweeten-shults@gcu.edu. Follow her on Twitter @LanaSweetenShul.

The post Will Cyber Warfare Range have impact? Bank on it appeared first on GCU Today.

More than 2,300 students from about 60 high schools and homeschools attended GCU’s Health Sciences, Engineering and Technology Day on Wednesday.

Story by Lana Sweeten-Shults
Photos by Slaven Gujic
GCU News Bureau

Apollo, Taco and Mortimer were busy on Health Sciences, Engineering and Technology Day on Wednesday, when more than 2,300 science-loving high school juniors and seniors from around Arizona descended on GCU’s campus.

Apollo and crew shook things up.

Literally.

It’s just what they do.

That’s because Apollo, Taco and Mortimer aren’t humans but Thermomixers nestled comfortably in the DNA Lab on the fourth floor of GCU’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Students recently placed the swab of a bite mark in one of the mixers for forensics analysis and a swab from a soda can in another.

For the first time, the engineering labs were open for HSET Day.

“Yes, we named them,” forensics student Morgan Pedersen said of the Thermomixers as he lead a tour of the DNA Lab alongside fellow forensics students Erica Rookstool and Alejandro Castaneda.

The students have to have some fun in the lab, considering the streams upon streams of data they have to analyze, with all the detail and exacting kind of minutiae the job demands – a job description that’s very different from action-filled forensics shows such as “CSI.”

Castaneda also shared his DNA profile via projector to visiting high school students.

“Each peak you see is a specific DNA strand. No one else has these specific peaks,” Rookstool said of Castaneda’s profile.

“People will say, ‘Oh, it’s cool to collect blood. But it’s a totally different world. You learn how to use all these instruments (including Apollo, Taco and Mortimer). It’s very labor intensive,” Castaneda added.

In other words, it’s not quite the science-cool-glamour that is “CSI.”

Pedersen, Rookstool and Castaneda also introduced HSET Day attendees to a multitude of other machines they rely on in the DNA Lab, such as a genetic analyzer and a high-pressure liquid chromatography machine, which students use to identify the drugs in someone’s system.

The DNA Lab tours were just one of the activities on HSET Day, which also included tours of the engineering, nursing and Human Anatomy Workshop labs (better known as one of the campus’ cadaver areas), along with talks such as “Why is There a Robot in my Operation Room?” and “Treating Autoimmune Disease With the Plant Paradox Diet.” Students also could stop by one of the many exhibitor booths that peppered the campus and spotlighted everything from the Robotics Club’s new robot, Thunderbot, to a sports medicine area.

High school juniors and seniors as well as community college students attend this signature GCU academic event from 65 Arizona schools, including home school students registered as individuals.

HSET Day started out as Health Sciences and Nursing Day, but it evolved when GCU decided to emphasize science, technology, engineering and math.

Several health sciences, engineering and technology clubs set up information tables for HSET Day, including athletic training (pictured).

“The goal is to showcase the HSET programs, facilities and clubs that GCU has to offer and show that we are a leader in STEM offerings,” senior marketing event planner Cara Jorgensen said of HSET Day, which is organized by the Marketing Department’s ground event planning team.

Students could find another forensics activity going on at one of the booths set up outside by the Forensics Science Society, which was taking students’ fingerprints on balloons and then inflating the balloons to better see their fingerprint and thumbprint patterns.

If you didn’t already know, the club would tell you, it’s all about loops, whorls and arches when it comes to fingerprint analysis.

Seventy percent of the population has a loop-patterned fingerprint, but “we’ve had two or three today that had arches, which is like 5 percent of the population,” said club member Sonia Molina.

Whether 70 percent of the population or 5 percent, “all fingerprints are unique,” Molina added.

Laurel Trail, a GCU athletic training senior, also was manning a booth, this one on biomechanical analysis. The theme of the booth presentation was “Not All Instagram Hotties Should Be Followed,” which looked at how some fitness personalities on Instagram aren’t really doing their exercises the right way.

“If he lands like that, he’s probably going to tear his ACL, which is a nine-month rehab,” Trail said to a group of high school students. She added how athletic trainers are a small part of the medical profession but have a big impact on the general populace.

Besides the forensics lab, other labs that were open for self-guided tours for the first time this year were the engineering labs. Six different engineering lab spaces were on the tour.

It was in the Lopes Lab where biomedical engineering student Erica Bender pointed out a 3D printer, which was busy printing a moon.

“This is where any engineering student can come and work on a personal project,” Bender told visiting students.

High school students who attended HSET Day toured engineering, cadaver, nursing and DNA labs, listened to speakers and visited with campus academic clubs.

Faculty member Greg Bullock, who teaches mechanical engineering, said the Lopes Lab has been available since the fall of 2016: “We have 3D printers, we’ve got a laser cutter and a small router for making small parts,” Bullock said.

He said what makes GCU’s HSET programs different is that “with this school, we’re emphasizing hands-on training. It’s not like students are sitting in a classroom for an hour and a half. … We lecture for 15 minutes, then the students go through some activities.”

Besides the Lopes Lab, the College of Science, Engineering and Technology building includes a machine shop for students to use when they’re working on prototypes.

Bullock said he knows of a few projects that have made their way through the engineering labs.

“I’m aware of a new product idea surrounding motorized skateboards,” Bullock said, adding that a student team “is making an adapter so you can put your cellphone camera on the end of a telescope.”

Connor Lowe, a junior at Horizon Honors Secondary School, is thinking about going into biomedical engineering, but “I’m worried about the math,” he said while touring the Lopes Lab and being fascinated by all the 3D-printed items, including human hands. “I need to do some research,” but he said that career path was being reinforced “just from what I’m seeing here.”

Senior Ashley Andrade of Pueblo High School in Tuscon, one of six students from her school’s health care club attending HSET Day, has her heart set on studying nursing.

“It’s just something that’s in my family,” she said.

The GCU Robotics Club’s Thunderbot made its debut at HSET Day.

Shea Yeats of Greenway High, who was waiting to tour the DNA Lab and attended HSET Day with about 80 students from the Glendale Union High School District, wants to be a trauma nurse. What she loves about it is “the adrenaline rush … and it’s different every day.”

One of the more interesting parts of HSET Day for Ramon Rodriguez of Mountain View High School in Mesa was visiting the cadaver lab, the most popular tour spot every HSET Day. Attendees had to preregister, and no walk-ins were taken.

“When we went to the cadaver lab, that was very interesting. … I still have the picture in my head,” he said.

That image isn’t putting him off of science, though. Rodriguez, who took his first biotechnology class last year, wants to be a microbiologist or go into the field of biotechnology: “After that (taking that first biotechnology class), I went off with the science world.”

Apollo, Taco and Mortimer would be pleased to hear it.

Contact GCU senior writer Lana Sweeten-Shults at (602) 639-7901 or lana.sweeten-shults@gcu.edu. Follow her on Twitter @LanaSweetenShul.

The post GCU’s finger on the pulse of science with HSET Day appeared first on GCU Today.

Ruby Saunders, who has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy and other health conditions, gets help with her mobility from a wheelchair engineered by members of GCU’s Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Club. The three large buttons control the direction of the chair.

By Lana Sweeten-Shults
GCU News Bureau

This is the story about a wheelchair.

A wheelchair that doesn’t look like the typical wheelchair.

A wheelchair like no other.

It is white.

Grant Goodman (right), a junior mechanical engineering major, responded to a blog post from Linny Saunders, a Phoenix-area mother who was seeking someone to help build a special wheelchair for her daughter, Ruby (center).

It looks cushy, like a dad’s football armchair.

But small.

Like it belongs in a little girl’s room.

It’s has a plank-like tray of oversized buttons that span from armrest to armrest.

A big red button.

A big green one.

A big yellow one.

They look like game show buttons.

They make the wheelchair go.

The wheelchair goes for Ruby Saunders.

And Ruby likes to go. In circles. Forward. Back. In more circles.

A club project

Ruby might not have been able to go in any direction if not for Grand Canyon University junior mechanical engineering major Grant Goodman, secretary of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Club, which is under the helm of faculty advisor and College of Science, Engineering and Technology electrical engineering Assistant Professor Samantha Russell.

It was Goodman who first heard about Ruby.

“I had a family friend send me a link to a blog post,” said Goodman one recent Wednesday afternoon at the electrical engineering club’s weekly meeting. That family friend, Julie Rolffs, said, “Hey, I think this is something you can help with.”

He was in biology lab when he got the text, asking him to read the Place Called Simplicity blog post. As serendipity would have it, lab was postponed and Goodman had time to read the blog, by Phoenix area mom Linny Saunders.

“I have an enormous favor to ask,” Saunders wrote in the blog. “This little miracle girl of ours needs some specific help. We don’t know how to find the help, so we’re putting a call out. There has to be someone who knows exactly what to do.”

Goodman (right) and other students in GCU’s electrical engineering club worked on the wooden base for this customized wheelchair for Ruby Saunders. The club’s faculty advisor is Samantha Russell (left), assistant professor in electrical engineering.

Goodman thought he might be the one to know exactly what to do.

Linny was asking someone to build a special wheelchair for her and husband Dwight Saunders’ daughter, Ruby – Dwight was an adjunct professor for GCU at the time, though these days he keeps busy helping another daughter, Emma Saunders, and her Gem Foundation. The foundation’s main focus is a home in Uganda for children with special needs.

It was in 2011, when Dwight and Emma were on a mission trip to an orphanage in Africa, that Emma saw Ruby. She was in a dark corner, emaciated, her bones protruding and her brown eyes, too big for her face, staring back. She was a little more than a year old, yet she weighed only 6 pounds.

The Saunderses knew what they had to do. What they needed to do.

They brought her home.

She is one of 11 children Dwight and Linny have adopted from around the world, many of them with disabilities, and have added to their family, which also includes three biological children.

Ruby, this bright gem of a girl who had a rough start in life, had been diagnosed with cerebral palsy. She has limited motor function and also battles multiloculated hydrocephalus, a complex condition in which patients suffer from abnormal cerebrospinal fluid collection.

“Ruby is a quadriplegic,” Linny said. “Even if she had a giant wheelchair, it’s too big for her to handle. She has visual impairment, too.”

Linny said when Dwight and Emma found Ruby in that dark corner of the African orphanage six years ago, they were told by the orphanage, “’She’ll never do anything. It’s not even worth feeding her.’ She had no one advocating for her. She had a rough start and was severely malnourished.”

The Saunderses never accepted that grim prognosis, and once Ruby was in their care they set about making the best life they could for Ruby, who Linny said is “as smart as a whip” and always one step ahead of her: “She has us laughing all the time. She has a great personality.”

It was at a physical therapy center where the family discovered a wheelchair that seemed to help Ruby, and so the family wanted one made especially for her use outside of the center.

The family had the white foam seat of the chair but needed help with the wooden base, which contains the motor (a windshield wiper motor), wheels and adaptive switches.

Luckily, the Saunderses had instructions in hand from the agency.

“I decided I was going to work on the project in the fall of last year. … But then I realized, I was way over my head,” Goodman said.

As it turns out, the instruction document wasn’t exactly a precise, step-by-step manual.

“They jotted down some thoughts. It wasn’t official, per se,” Goodman said.

That’s when he decided to approach the electrical engineering club for help. As serendipity would have it, the club happened to be looking for a project to adopt.

Everyone agreed that making a wheelchair for Ruby would be how they would spend their time in their first year as a GCU club.

“We decided to design our own version of it and build our own version,” Goodman said.

Overcoming hurdles

Goodman talked to the therapy center and the original chair’s designer, and then the club members took pictures, decided on pieces they wanted to keep, figured out what would work and what wouldn’t, and asked the family to bring in the white foam portion.

Dwight and Linny Saunders (next to daughter Ruby, in the wheelchair) have adopted 11 children, many with disabilities. They got help from GCU’s electrical engineering club to try to duplicate a wheelchair Ruby was using at a physical therapy center. The club spent seven months on the wheelchair project.

They had to do a lot of research, he said, since many of the club members were first- and second-year engineering students and didn’t have much experience outside of the classroom. They also got help from professors at GCU and South Mountain Community College.

“It is kind of unconventional,” Goodman said of the chair. “We had to design something to suit her needs. … Ruby didn’t have the capability to maneuver a joystick.”

And so Ruby’s wheelchair includes a middle board that spans the armrests, complete with three oversized buttons. The middle green button moves the chair forward. The red button on the right moves it right, and the yellow one on the left moves the chair left.

About eight club members worked on the project, which was completed in early summer.

Linny remembers vividly that summer day when the club first presented Ruby’s wheelchair to her.

“She had expressions of great delight,” she said. “She pushes the button and spins and spins and spins. … We couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day. She was SO thrilled.”

Linny said children love to spin in circles, but Ruby hadn’t been able to do that before this wheelchair: “She loves to go and just press those buttons.”

Maribel Franco, the club’s vice president, said one of the challenges of the project was when they couldn’t get the motors to work. As it turns out, the wiring wasn’t right.

“A bunch of little things like that,” Goodman said of the project, which he thought would take a weekend to complete but ended up taking seven months.

Despite those hurdles, “It was a good reminder,” Franco said, “of this being for a good cause, so we HAD to get past the hoops.”

Academically, the project helped the students see the difference between mechanical engineering and electrical engineering, she added.

Goodman, a mechanical engineering major, doesn’t have an electrical engineering background, and what’s great about the IEEE Club: It welcomes anyone.

“It’s really cool to be able to see both those fields work together,” he said.

“It’s what makes our club so special,” Franco added. “We learn from everyone.”

The biggest lesson, of course, is that what you study in class, all the book learning, all the theory, eventually comes down to this: applying that knowledge to real-life situations.

In the end, this isn’t just a story about an engineering club.

And it isn’t just a story about a wheelchair.

It’s a story about helping your fellow man.

It’s a story about caring.

About doing good.

For a little girl named Ruby.

After the wheelchair was delivered, the family launched into a busy summer – Dwight left for Uganda, and Linny cared for nine of the couple’s 14 children at home. She also runs the nonprofit International Voice of the Orphan and went on a speaking tour for her second book, “The Memorial Box: Retelling the Stories of God’s Faithfulness” (her first book was “Rescuing Ruby”). The family also moved.

“I didn’t have the ability to put it (the wheelchair) together,” said Linny, who recently invited Goodman and his fellow IEEE Club members over for dinner. She also hoped they would reassemble the wheelchair.

“Grant is my hero,” Linny said. “For him to even contact me was a big, brave thing. … For them (the club), as young people, to take up Ruby’s cause … we cannot even express our thanks well enough.”

Russell said of the students in the club she advises, “There are many technical skills they learned throughout the project — but those can come from a classroom. I saw an opportunity for them to learn the true meaning of working in Christ’s name. The challenge in front of them was to make a difference in Ruby’s life, and they accepted it with a happy heart. I have been blessed to be a part of their journey, and I can’t wait to see all the wonderful things they will do in the future.”

“After finishing this project, I have no doubt that I am studying exactly what God has created me for,” Goodman wrote on social media. “I have discovered that God has placed a desire within me to be involved in something bigger than a field of study or a career or a means of income. Wherever I go in engineering, I want to be somewhere where I can use the skills that God has given me to bless His children.”

Contact GCU senior writer Lana Sweeten-Shults at (602) 639-7901 or lana.sweeten-shults@gcu.edu. Follow her on Twitter @LanaSweetenShul.

The post GCU club engineers hope for Ruby appeared first on GCU Today.

Kevin Hoskins (left) was one of several students who worked on a summer research project in which a mobile device with a 3D scanner was used to map human bodies for dimensional measurements. The results were presented by Hoskins and Dr. Isac Artzi (right), GCU Program Lead for Computer Science, at a recent conference of the Arizona Physiological Society.

By Lana Sweeten-Shults
GCU News Bureau

Imagine being able to tell how much a child has fallen behind on the growth chart, or if a soon-to-be mom hasn’t gained enough weight or has gained too much, just by doing a quick body scan on an iPad and glancing at a patient’s full body avatar on a computer screen.

Goodbye, measuring tape and written log.

That’s the idea behind a GCU summer internship project whose results were presented recently at the Arizona Physiological Society conference on the campus of Northern Arizona University.

“Dr. Mike Mobley said, ‘Hey, I’ve got this 3D scanner you hook up to an iPad,” GCU computer science student Kevin Hoskins said in his conference presentation.

“It’s basically an iPad with a specialized sensor attached to it,” said Mobley, Executive Director of GCU’s Center for Integrated Science, Engineering and Technology and also the co-founder of eHealth Nexus.

The idea behind the project was to take this technology – a mobile device (an iPhone or iPad) with a 3D scanner attachment – then capture body images so that researchers could wirelessly monitor and dashboard a body’s dimensional measurements. Ultimately, the goal is to detect changes in someone’s body as a way to keep track of their health.

What researchers did was take the iPad, with its 3D scanner attachment, and walk around a subject to be measured, scanning the middle part of the body, then lifting the 3D scanner from the top of the head to the bottom of the feet.

“We take the data from there, and, as computer scientists, Dr. (Isac) Artzi and I, we analyze it. We apply our algorithms and magic and whatnot to it to make sense of it, and then the physiology is where it’s applied,” Hoskins said.

Researchers exported the data as an object file, which the team split up into vertices in three-dimensional space. The team would look to the body part they wanted to measure, then would take all of the vertices and data associated with that body part to create a segment. Researchers essentially viewed the human body as a set of 3D segments, which they measured individually. Once they do that, they can calculate the dimensions.

The team members focused mainly on the neck area for their testing. They found where the vertices were, created a cross segment of the neck and used an equation for the perimeter of an ellipse to get the dimensions and the circumference of the neck.

They were able to compute the dimensions of a mannequin’s neck, down to the millimeter.

“All of those measurements were spot on,” Hoskins said. “The circumference of the neck is what we were really excited about because it showed that this algorithm in this program has promise. It was huge for us to take something from an object file like that and get a spot-on result.”

Artzi, Computer Science Program Lead in GCU’s College of Science, Engineering and Technology, said the team was able to detect the segments of a human body using a subset of artificial intelligence called machine learning.

“We are using an algorithm that can detect certain patterns, and we are defining certain characteristics of areas in the body automatically,” Artzi said. “So our algorithm would scan the human body and look for specific types of shapes.”

He said the idea is to measure, say, the length of a certain part of the shoulder of 100 people, then get an average for that measurement, which would then be used as a reference.

“So if I then am testing a new individual, I can compare the two based on a reference.”

What a user would be looking for is irregular shapes. Artzi said physiologists have told him that certain body elements get slightly deformed if a subject suffers from certain conditions. He added that body shape – the human body is usually pear- or apple-shaped – can be an indication of health conditions. So dimensional measurements are important in monitoring health and fitness.

Weight isn’t enough, the team contends, to set health and fitness goals. Body dimensions, mass body density and skin area also are important health indicators. Such metrics could be measured via 3D scanning.

“All of this (the internship and project) was from a recognized potential need in health and fitness. We saw that it would be valuable to monitor body dimensions,” said Mobley, the project originator. “You can see the applications in fitness. And there are other areas, like monitoring pregnancies.”

Besides those uses, he said a mobile 3D scanning device could help health care professionals keep track of patients with peripheral edema – the accumulation of fluid, usually in the lower limbs – or to better monitor patients with weight problems, chronic diseases (such as diabetes) or to keep track of childhood development.

What’s so exciting about the project for those involved is that it spanned more than just one discipline. “The application was intended to be in health and fitness, and it was using optics and engineering of a device, then coupling that with algorithms,” Mobley said. So the effort involved the collaboration of computer science, engineering and physiology faculty and students.

“Why isn’t there more collaboration between computer science and other scientists?” Artzi asked. “We computer scientists feel like we’re plumbers. We have no reason to exist unless there’s plumbing to fix.”

He added in his conference talk, “What I’m proposing here is that the physiology-ignorant computer science community can contribute a tiny little piece of the computational aspect of something that might be of benefit to other sciences, and that’s the main message.”

He cautioned that this project is simply that – a project in concept form that could be developed further, depending on interest.

“We have an idea and showed proof of concept. … Maybe it’s of use to someone,” said Artzi, who worked with the students – that’s Kevin Hoskins, Erik Weimer and Aaron Scirocco – along with Dr. Anju Dubey, who teaches genetics and human anatomy and physiology at GCU, and pre-med student Yen Chen.

One downside is that the scanning took longer than project researchers wanted it to.

“This technology could be useful, but the scanning took a minute and a half. For the actual application, a minute and a half is too long,” Mobley said. “We’re exploring some ideas of how to capture scans in seconds rather than a minute and a half.”

Contact GCU senior writer Lana Sweeten-Shults at (602) 639-7901 or lana.sweeten-shults@gcu.edu. Follow her on Twitter @LanaSweetenShul.

The post Old methods may not measure up to 3D body scans appeared first on GCU Today.

GCU junior mechanical engineering students Eric Fisher, Christian Clifton and Matthew Furfie volunteered to build a Whoville-themed holiday display for nonprofit We Are Their Future, including this Whoville house. (Contributed photo)

By Lana Sweeten-Shults
GCU News Bureau

Ten wire Christmas trees.

One ginormous 14-foot tree.

A 30-foot mountain range backdrop.

One Whoville house.

Four giant candy canes.

And three plucky Grand Canyon University mechanical engineering juniors, though no partridge in a pear tree.

Fisher (left) and Furfie look over the cut-out of what will be a Whoville house. They spent part of their Thanksgiving holiday building 10 wire Christmas trees, a 30-foot mountain range backdrop, giant lollipops and more for nonprofit group We Are Their Future. (Photo by Lana Sweeten-Shults)

If you were one of the few Thanksgiving stragglers remaining on campus the Tuesday before the long holiday weekend, you might have spied GCU mechanical engineering majors Eric Fisher, Christian Clifton and Matt Furfie, protective eyewear in tow, commandeering a circular saw or two.

The trio spent more than 12 hours helping bring to life a Whoville-themed Christmas wonderland for the nonprofit group We Are Their Future and its Home for the Holidays light display at Winter Wonderfest. The festival is open from 2 to 10 p.m. Fridays to Sundays through Dec. 24 at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park in Chandler, and We Are Their Future was chosen as the official charity for the event, along with group home children.

“I got here about 8 or 8:30 a.m.,” said Fisher in a passageway outside the College of Science, Engineering and Technology. By 6 p.m., the space was peppered with yet-to-be-painted wooden cut-outs of a mountain range, colossal lollipops and even a wonky Whoville house. “We have to be done today. I have to head out about 6 o’clock tomorrow morning to do the load-in for the set-up.”

Fisher heard about We Are Their Future through the nonprofit’s CEO and president, Vickie Isaac, who is married to Fisher’s pastor, Steve Isaac of Reunion Community Church in Peoria.

“I’ve done some work in the past with them, working on trying to get sponsorships and stuff. … Her nonprofit is specifically geared toward getting all kids out of group homes and finding families who want to foster and also finding families who want to adopt.”

Isaac, who is a GCU alumna and former adjunct professor at the University, worked as the director of communications for the Arizona Department of Child Safety before launching We Are Their Future in April.

“I resigned that position (with the Arizona DCS) and launched We Are Their Future because I believe the crux is getting them (foster children) into families and that government shouldn’t be parenting children,” Isaac said.

She related that a biannual report from the Arizona DCS shows that, from October 2016 to March 2017, more than 5,000 children entered foster care as a result of neglect or abuse and that, as of June 2017, the department reported that more than 16,000 children are in foster care. Also, 50 percent of the children in the foster system remain there for more than a year and 21 percent stay there for more than two years.

“The need is urgent,” Isaac told Valley Focus in an Aug. 30, 2017, interview.

Clifton, a student worker, usually builds odds and ends for classroom projects in the engineering workshop. But recently he put together a holiday display for a nonprofit dedicated to children in Arizona’s foster system. (Photo by Lana Sweeten-Shults)

With so many children in foster care, “You start looking at all the statistics of what happens in group homes and the longer a child’s in foster care, and it’s just terrible,” Fisher said.

So he was more than happy to help with the Winter Wonderfest event, and he wrangled a couple of elves in Clifton and Furfie.

“I called them up and said, ‘Hey, come help us out. … These guys were kind enough to come out today,” Fisher said.

Most days, Clifton, who is a student worker for the engineering college, is busy in the engineering workshops.

“It’s usually building adapters or mounting brackets – just odds and ends to go with a lot of the classrooms and lab spaces we have on campus that we need,” Clifton said. “You know, testing samples, or we need something to hold this device – whatever it may be – so a lot of that kind of stuff.”

But he jumped at the chance to step away from the usual engineering project and tackle something for a good cause outside of the classroom.

“Eric has spent a lot of time, and both Matthew and myself have spent the last year and a half, in and out of the workshops just building stuff, and Eric knew that,” Clifton said. “He figured, ‘Hey, you guys want to come spend a day just doing stuff, just building stuff in the shop? We both were free and said, absolutely, we’d love to.”

A GCU student-built mountain range backdrop is part of the We Are Their Future Home for the Holidays display at Winter Wonderfest. (Contributed photo)

“Christian has done a lot out here with the drawing and the cutting out of all this,” Fisher said. “Matt has been a huge help in the design of our wire Christmas trees. We’re building nine regular-sized ones and then one giant one – in a day. We’ve got some big frames there that are essentially going to be presents, but they’re going to be all (covered with) lights. A lot of this is framework to be covered with lights.”

Clifton, who pointed out what will be a Whoville house, said he, Furfie and Fisher are not artists but are getting in touch with their artistic sides to help create the Dr. Seuss-inspired “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” scenery ideas that have been dancing around like sugarplums in Isaac’s head.

Isaac said Fisher, who also was on site at Winter Wonderfest to help set up the display, is a former Marine: “He has that work ethic. … I knew he was my go-to guy.”

We Are Their Future supporters will be out at Winter Wonderfest during its six-weekend run — admission is free Dec. 1 — and though the event experienced a “few hiccups” its first weekend, Isaac said organizers have revised and regrouped. The nonprofit’s supporters will be out talking to attendees and hoping people, ultimately, will step up to adopt or become foster parents to children who need a family during a time of year that’s all about family.

“It’s for a great cause. It’s a lot of fun to get dirty and make big messes,” Clifton said before giving the team’s Whoville house cut-out a final look.

Furfie added, “We love the experience, too.”

“The idea of engaging Grand Canyon University in our initiative is one I actually love,” Isaac said. “… I was very, very grateful.”

IF YOU GO

What: Winter Wonderfest

Where: Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park, 20,000 S. Maricopa Road, Chandler, Ariz., 85226

When: From 2-10 p.m. Fridays to Sundays through Dec. 24

Admission: $20 general admission, $49 VIP access, $69 season pass (additional fees may apply), though admission is free Dec. 1. Children younger than 2 years old do not need a ticket. Some attractions are not included in the admission price.

Etc.: Parking is $5 per car

Information: www.winterwonderfestaz.com

The post Engineering students are no mean ones, Mr. Grinch appeared first on GCU Today.

The College of Science, Engineering and Technology’s first IT graduates — (from left) Jake Womer, Bridgette Smith, Timothy Prescott and Paul Rodriguez — will walk across the stage at commencement Friday.

By Lana Sweeten-Shults
GCU News Bureau

Just call them vanguards.

Pioneers.

Trendsetters.

Trailblazers.

But when you talk to seniors Paul Rodriguez, Jake Womer, Bridgette Smith and Timothy Prescott, beta testers comes to mind – apropos, considering on Friday they will become the first IT graduates from the rapidly growing College of Science, Engineering and Technology, which also will soon have its first computer science and engineering graduates.

It was in August 2014 that CSET launched its bachelor’s degree program in information technology.

Rodriguez, who grew up just a couple of blocks away and graduated from Bourgade Catholic High School, was ready to jump in despite the novelty of the program. Not that IT called to him in the beginning. He wanted to major in theater before making a hard right turn from the arts into the sciences.

“My uncle was a systems administrator. I basically grew up building computers with him,” he said. “I thought I’d go with what I’m talented in. I learned to code and build websites. … I honestly didn’t know if I was going to be good at it.”

He also didn’t know what going into a brand new IT program would mean. He learned, however, that it would mean friendships.

“It’s been like me hanging out with all my friends. We’ve gotten really close. I mean, eventually you go down different ways in your classes, and you don’t get to be with them anymore. But there’s classes where it’s the majority of my friends because I was in there studying so often I didn’t get to meet anyone else,” he said, laughing.

Prescott, the only one of the four who isn’t from Phoenix, also made note of the new friendships. The Kansas native was looking for a change from his previous college when he saw a promotional video at a concert advertising GCU.

“I was looking for a degree program that was more along the lines of my passions,” he said, and GCU seemed to fit.

He started out as a computer science major, then switched to IT his first semester and, like Rodriguez, developed close friendships with the small but dedicated cadre of students who, like him, are the first to trailblaze the way.

Courses focus on industry needs

Smith, who nixed her ideas of going into law enforcement when she chose IT and psychology, said helping faculty pioneer a new program has been like being “course developers.”

“The original program was heavily imbued with flavors of computer science and programming,” said Deborah Haralson, lead faculty of the IT program, of those early days. “Over time, we were able to better tune the program into what we were hearing from the industry and what the advisory board wanted to see in our students. As a result, this particular graduating cohort is the most technically well-rounded and adept at all forms of technology to date that I’ve had the pleasure of dealing with.”

Womer wanted to major in engineering, but the engineering program he wanted to enter at GCU wasn’t going to be available for another year, so he decided on IT.

He said what he has loved the most about being here is the professors themselves.

“They really helped the students as a whole, and many are from an IT background,” he said of the program, which emphasizes hands-on learning, less lecture time and more lab and project time.

Rodriguez remembers two professors his freshman year who reached out to everyone: Dr. Steve Powelson, who was the then lead faculty for IT, and Luke Kanuchok, lead faculty in computer science.

“We had this kind of stick-together attitude because there were only about 15 there,” he said, also mentioning Haralson, the “rock” of the department; Al Kelly, the coach of the GCU’s cybersecurity team (the team recently brought home a fourth-place win in the Western Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition); and Dr. Isac Artzi, the computer science “thought leader.”

Besides being able to compete in cybersecurity competitions, what he loved the most about his time at GCU was serving as the first president of the Innovative Computing Club.

“It basically started out as computer science and IT students trying to survive the new program, and then it quickly evolved into doing outreach projects, programming, learning ethical hacking and getting people to talk to the group from industry,” he said. “We’ve had the ability to grow the new freshmen and grow opportunities and kind of evangelize how GCU does stuff.”

He also has loved working with the community through events such as STEM Saturday and helping Dan Hazy, a recruitment specialist for CSET, with STEM events.

“I started doing programming through Minecraft, and so I would teach fifth, sixth graders,” he said. “I really encourage my younger brother and cousins to do STEM fields. They’ve been my guinea pigs, too. I mean, my brother ate Minecraft up, so I know he got proof of concept. ‘Oh, I can do this,’ he said, and he took it way out of proportion and does ridiculous stuff, and so I’ll build cool stuff with him for science fair projects.”

Three already have jobs

Three of GCU’s first IT graduates already have been working in the field, and one is getting ready for a big exam to make him more competitive in the job market.

Womer is busy studying for his Cisco Certified Network Associate certification, which will test his skills to install, operate and troubleshoot networks.

Smith works full-time for General Dynamics Mission Systems as a user experience researcher, conducting research on software and hardware systems and making sure they’re people-friendly.

“We make sure they have that human element,” she said.

Prescott, meanwhile, is a systems administrator and developer at Emerald AR Systems, a company in Phoenix that serves health care organizations that are looking to improve patient billing processes but might lack the technology infrastructure or other resources to do so.

After graduation, Rodriguez will be right here at GCU, where he works in IT Security. He started full-time two weeks ago.

“I was actually the first student worker for IT Security, and now we have three,” he said.

Little wonder that he’s blazing the trail once again.

As opposed to the IT help desk, which might help GCU staff and faculty with resetting passwords and the like, “We’re in charge of, you know, the firewalls – the security. People reach out to us for phishing. We have a great phishing awareness program that has won a lot of awards.”

He said GCU is producing the next “thought leaders” in not just cybersecurity, which is the path he’s chosen in the IT world, but in technology as a whole. While hands-on experience is good, he said, what separates the University’s students is their adaptability.

“When someone throws a curveball at you, how are you going to learn it? I think that’s what we’re good at. … We really want to encourage thought leadership, outside of stuyding. We’re really looking at expanding that and showing everyone that we will be producing the next thought leaders.”

One thing Rodriguez has heard about GCU’s IT students from companies he has interned for: “A lot of places I’ve worked at said they really want GCU students – that we outshined a lot of the students that they have interviewed that had the same positions, and we put in that extra mile.”

You can reach senior writer Lana Sweeten-Shults at 602-639-7901 or lana.sweeten-shults@gcu.edu. Follow her on Twitter @LanaSweetenShul.

The post First IT grads establish links with each other, GCU appeared first on GCU Today.

Dr. Rick Rigsby, who gave the commencement address Friday, spoke about some of the greatest lessons he learned from a third-grade dropout — his father.

Story by Lana Sweeten-Shults
Photos by Slaven Gujic
GCU News Bureau

Life’s nuggets of wisdom – you never know where you’ll find them.

Dr. Rick Rigsby seemed to draw endless amounts of them out of his back pocket Friday during his keynote talks at Grand Canyon University commencement. He quoted from the biggies when it comes to wisdom conveyance: Aristotle, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Jonathan Swift, George Washington Carver and even baseball hero Ozzie Smith.

Rigsby told graduates to make an impact in this world and to glorify God, not yourself.

But Rigsby, motivational speaker, author and pastor, found the simplest, common-sense, yet most profound words of wisdom from a third-grade dropout: his father.

“My father was the wisest man I ever met in my life. He taught me that you can take academic knowledge, and you can combine that with a grandma – ‘Big Mama,’ ‘Madea,’ I don’t care what you call her. You combine that with the wisdom of a grandfather, the wisdom of a mom, the wisdom of a dad, and what that does is it puts you in a position to glorify the Lord while devoting your life to helping each other.”

Rigsby spoke highly of his father, who grew up in Texas “during a time when rural America was breathing the last gasp of the Civil War.” His dad decided “he was going to be a man,” and after serving in World War II moved to San Francisco, where he fell in love with a forklift driver: “My mother was a bad mamma jamma, let me tell you,” said Rigsby, who peppered his funny, engaging, spirit-filled and emotionally touching speech with not just wisdom but anecdotes about getting his son to clean the toilet and testing out this new thing called Cheese Whiz at the school dance.

His dad ended up getting a job as a cook at the California Maritime Academy, which trained merchant seamen. At the height of his career, he made $500 a month but “sailed the world 10 times over and learned five foreign languages.”

Listen to these lessons from a third-grade dropout, he told the bright-eyed December 2017 graduates:

• His dad told Rigsby, “ ‘Don’t judge. … Son, I’ve been all over the world and seen good and bad in every shade.’ … By the way, young folks, if what you see is all you see, then you don’t see all there is to be seen. There’s a world out there that needs the salt of Jesus. There’s a world out there that needs the light of Jesus, and if we’re busy judging, all we’re doing is putting our earbuds in and our blinders on. … Then that third-grade dropout dropped Jonathan Swift on me. He said on one occasion, ‘Vision is the ability to see the invisible. Don’t judge.’”
• He also told him, “’Son, you’d rather be an hour early than a minute late.’ Look at me, graduates. Don’t ever show up on time. That’s mediocre. That’s basic minimum required. Show up early. It communicates something about you to the people that you’re privileged to serve.”
• Rigsby also said, “You’re being charged today to let your light shine in such a way that men will see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven (from Matthew 5:16). You can do that by not judging. You can do that by showing up early. … You can do that by being kind. Kind deeds are never lost. Just be kind to people.”

Beyond finding wisdom in unexpected places – Rigsby said, “Wisdom will wrap itself in the unlikeliest of gift wraps” – he wanted to emphasize living an excellent life. His father taught him that if you’re going to do something, do it right and that, “You are what you repeatedly do, therefore excellence ought to be a habit, not an act,” from American writer and historian Will Durant.

In living that excellent life and taking from the wisdom of academia and fathers, mothers and grandparents, he thought it important, too, to tell graduates to make an impact in the world, but all while glorifying God and not yourself.

Rigsby, who lives in Texas, said after Friday’s morning commencement that his parents made an immense impact on his life. When he was growing up, he just wanted to be in a band, but they had other plans for him.

“I wanted to party but my parents said, ‘No. You will go to college, and you will be great, and you will amount to something.’ They raised the expectations. There were 40 kids on my block. Only three kids went to college, and two of them were from our family.”

He remembers how his mom recognized he was a good speaker early on, though if you ask him about it, he said he doesn’t see himself as a gifted speaker.

“You talk about godly wisdom, and I hope this will bless parents. My mother realized I had a gift, because when I was a kid growing up in San Francisco, I talked very proper. People made fun of me, so my mother said, ‘Honey, two things – you make fun of yourself first and eventually you’ll have them laughing, and second, God gave you that gift, and one of these days, Ricky, you’re going to speak all over the world for his glory.”

Rigsby was a college professor for two decades, many of those years at Texas A&M University, where he also served as a character coach and chaplain for the Aggies football team.

His mom, Rigsby said, made it her mission to make sure he was in a position to speak in front of people as often as he could. He couldn’t just be on the football team, he had to be the captain of the team because he would have to speak in front of people. He couldn’t just be on the junior usher board, he had to be the president of the junior usher board because the president had to speak in front of the congregation.

“So every organization I was part of, my mother, an uneducated but godly woman, said you will be in leadership because leaders of organizations have to speak. She saw – and you really have to hear me – she saw God’s gift in me, and it was her appointed duty to prepare me as best she could.”

And Rigsby was prepared.

He received his Ph.D. from the University of Oregon, focusing his studies on critical media protest movements of the 20th century. He also holds a seminary degree from Liberty University.

Rigsby spent seven years as a television news reporter. But after marrying and having children, his priorities changed.

“My children were small. I never saw them. Holidays meant work, so when you are in television or print (journalism), Mother’s Day was covering a ballgame or Christmas was just another day.”

So he became a college professor and worked in academia for two decades, most of those years at Texas A&M University, where he was character coach and chaplain for the Aggies football team.

He also wrote the book “Lessons From a Third-Grade Dropout,” about his biggest hero, his dad.

Besides his father, Rigsby said the second greatest source of wisdom for him was his wife, Trina Williams, a nursing student. He said he knew he didn’t have a chance with her but, dressed in his purple leisure suit, approached her and asked if she wanted to dance. She said yes.

“Trina was the first woman in college that gave me her actual, real telephone number,” he said with a laugh.

After four years in college – when she was a senior and he was still a freshman (“I was working things out”), he joked – she said yes when he proposed.

They had a fairytale life, but then “in the midst of that fairytale, Trina found a lump in her left breast.”

He remembers the words that have stuck with him: “Two days before Trina died, no hair because of chemo, her tummy pooched because of her liver not working … she looked at me and said these words: ‘It doesn’t matter to me any longer how long I live. What matters to me is how I live.’”

At her funeral, Rigsby said his father told him, in the toughest days of his life: “Son, just stand.” And he might not have stood without his faith in God and his children.

“Listen to me, GCU, you can stand it. No matter what, you can stand it.”

And look what happened to Rigsby: He told the audience that shortly after Trina passed away, he met another amazing woman, Janet. She adopted his two sons, fulfilling Trina’s dying wish to have a mother for her children, and she and Rick have had two more sons.

Rigsby said he wanted to shake everyone’s hand after commencement, and although he didn’t quite meet everyone, he greeted a lot of those in the audience. They, in turn, told him how his talk brought them to tears, how he moved them, how they laughed.

In closing his talk, Rigsby said, “Graduating class of Grand Canyon University, 2017, I want to ask you one question: How are you living? Here’s how I hope and pray you’re living. That you’re not judging folks, that you show up early, that you’re kind to people, that your servant’s towel is always on display, that whatever you do, you do to the very best of your ability, and friends, when you live like that … everyone that you encounter will say, ‘Surely I am in the presence of almighty God.’ Go for it with everything you’ve got.”

You can reach GCU senior writer Lana Sweeten-Shults at (602) 639-7901 or at lana.sweeten-shults@gcu.edu. Follow her on Twitter @LanaSweetenShul.

The post Commencement talk: common-sense excellence appeared first on GCU Today.

About 100 employees in the Curriculum Design and Development and Academic Web Services departments on the fourth floor of Building 71 went all out for a Christmas decorating contest that included themes such as “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “A Christmas Story.”

By Lana Sweeten-Shults
GCU News Bureau

If Clark Griswold’s Aunt Bethany were on the fourth floor of Building 71, she would ask, “Is your house on fire?”

Building 71 would answer, “No, Aunt Bethany, those are the Christmas lights.”

To view this Santa’s Workshop-themed aisle in Building 71, the team provided snowflake 3D glasses, which turns the Christmas lights into snowflakes when you put them on.

In short, it’s all Clark Griswold up in Building 71, where it’s a full-blown, four-alarm holiday, thanks to Grand Canyon University’s Curriculum Design and Development and Academic Web Services departments, who have aimed to have the hap, hap happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny Kaye.

It was right before Thanksgiving when B.J. Reyes, Curriculum Design and Development department manager, thought it might be right as rain – or spirited as snow – to raise the holiday cheer levels with a Christmas decorating contest.

So he and other departmental elves came up with a list of Christmas movies and other holiday themes – “Elf,” “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and the like. After drawing numbers and choosing themes, employees took to the task: to come up with the best holiday decorations ever and convert their cookie-cutter aisle of cubicles into something winter dazzling.

This gothic Tim Burton-esque “The Nightmare Before Christmas” theme occupies one aisle of cubicles.

Eight aisles of employees, about 100 of them between the two departments, spent oodles of time – lunchtime, break time, weekends and other free time – to come up with their decorations, a veritable feast for the eyes (and a vision that’s far from being caused by an undigested bit of beef, as Ebeneezer Scrooge might contend).

“We just wanted to see what they would come up with. We had no idea they’d go all in,” said Reyes, who arranged for judges to come in from different departments Monday to pick a winner, which will be announced Thursday.

Take the Tim Burton Christmas gothic-style of “The Nightmare Before Christmas” aisle, with its gargoyles atop the entryway – gargoyles with curiously familiar faces of GCU employees – along with zombie-style portraits of employees atop black-and-white striped cubicle walls covered with snowflake spiders. Then there’s the ghost silhouette in the background and wonky, crooked Halloween houses.

Contrast that with the Winter Wonderland-themed aisle pretty enough for a winter wedding with white fluted paper trees, silver snowflakes, blue and white-snowflake cubicle wallpaper and rows of white flowers.

If you take a jaunt through the Santa’s Workshop aisle, you’ll see everything from a wrapping station to a whole cubicle turned into an elf uniform closet (complete with door), to a Christmas train cubicle.

Oh, and for a little something extra, grab a pair of snowflake viewing glasses before you enter the aisle. Put them on and you’ll see the Christmas lights turn into snowflakes.

Yep, Flick’s tongue stuck to the ice pole in “A Christmas Story” and in Building 71.

The employees in the Santa’s Workshop aisle happen to be associated with the College of Science, Engineering and Technology and wanted to engineer that bit of technology into their decorations.

Kimberley Foster, CDD lead curriculum developer, said the Santa’s Workshop team didn’t just throw together a design.

“We had a special meeting to decide what we wanted to do,” she said. “People started going home and looking at the internet. We decided everyone should have their own themed, unique room in the workshop.”

Everyone brought in workshop supplies and stuck it in a bin “for the taking” for anyone who needed to add to their cubicle’s décor.

“I think we did pretty good,” she said of the end result. “I’m surprised how well everyone participated.”

Reyes said one of the neat things about the contest is how appreciative everyone is of everyone else’s efforts and how the event has strengthened the team’s connection.

“It’s one part of the GCU culture,” he said, “people having the opportunity to do fun stuff, which improves the morale.”

Melissa Jankowski, editor in the CDD department, was part of the Twelve Days of Christmas team and said it took it took about a week for her and her fellow employees to get their aisle ready. They turned their Twelve Days of Christmas theme into a cinema with 12 days of different holiday films, from “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” to “Home Alone” and “Die Hard,” complete with an image of Bruce Willis crawling through an air duct above curriculum developer Dennis Reiber’s desk.

“We made it a team thing,” Jankowski said of the effort.

Snowflakes and bouquets of white flowers transform this row of cubicles into a winter wonderland.

It quickly became apparent that the team had to raise their game after glancing at the “Peanuts” team and their big plans.

The “A Charlie Brown Christmas” aisle includes not only a specially made wooden entryway; it also has the sad Charlie Brown Christmas tree and a portrait of the employees turned into “Peanuts” character avatars.

But, of course, the big question is this: Is “Die Hard” really a Christmas movie?

“The jury’s still out on that,” Reiber said with a laugh, though he added of the contest, “I enjoyed it. I had a ball. Everyone pitched in. Everyone came up with ideas on how to make things work. It was nice to see the creativity of it.”

As it turns out, Building 71’s decor isn’t limited to the fourth floor. Holiday decorating contests on other floors feature, perhaps not entire aisles decorated in one holiday theme, but individual cubicles all decked out, such as a spaghetti and maple syrup-spiked desk a la “Elf,” a “Frozen”-themed cubicle and “Polar Express”-inspired area, complete with a monitor turned into a brick fireplace.

But Building 71 isn’t the only place at GCU where Christmas is in full swing.

The Clinical Practice group in the College of Education showed their spirit with an ugly Christmas sweater contest recently.

The Clinical Practice Group in the College of Education decided to have fun with an ugly sweater contest recently. Thirteen participated, breaking out everything from reindeer sweaters to gingerbread-festooned hoodies.

And the CSET faculty launched its first Christmas hallway decorating contest, inviting students, faculty and staff to cast their vote for the most festive group of the CSET faculty.

Voters were bribed with cocoa, cookies and other treats as they walked through the faculty office areas on the third and fourth floors, where they might have spied red holiday garland on the walls made to look like the heartbeat on an EKG monitor or a Christmas tree (in GCU purple, of course) made out of surgical gloves as a nod to the college’s science-and health bent.

One hallway on the fourth floor went with a “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” theme, complete with a mannequin dressed as Cousin Eddie in his white robe and deer hat.

The College of Science, Engineering and Technology organized its first faculty hallway decorating contest. The science theme is carried through in this tree, made of surgical gloves, and the EKG design on the wall in the background.

Outside of one office was this: “The Grinch says, ‘Start studying for finals now because roses may be red, students may be clever, but college is short and GPA is forever.’”

“We definitely have the spirit,” said Dr. Binaben Vanmali, science program director.

Organizer Melissa Beddow, forensic science professor, said she wanted to do something “just to build camaraderie with everyone and bring everyone together.”

Rosanne Magarelli, CSET program coordinator/prehealth advisor, dressed up a skeleton in a reindeer sweater for the event, timed during finals.

“Community of care is a big part of this,” she said. “We want to make sure they (students) feel they’re valued and that we’re here for them. We wanted to make them feel upbeat. It’s a contest, but it’s for them … and to remind them they’re blessed. We want to make sure they take a pause because this is truly why we’re here. … It’s that sense of service and sense of care.”

You can reach GCU senior writer Lana Sweeten-Shults at (602) 639-7901 or at lana.sweeten-shults@gcu.edu. Follow her on Twitter @LanaSweetenShul.

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GCU biofuel researcher Dr. Galyna Kufryk (left) browses recent scientific publications with Erika Betti, who is part of her research group.

By Lana Sweeten-Shults
GCU News Bureau

You don’t have to sell biofuel researcher Dr. Galyna Kufryk on the finer qualities of cyanobacteria.

In her eyes, these microscopic, photosynthetic organisms, which can be used to produce a renewable, clean biofuel called molecular hydrogen, are the rock stars of the bacteria world.

It’s an opinion these days shared by some of the Grand Canyon University professor’s students, who are part of her research group in the College of Science, Engineering and Technology’s undergraduate Research and Design Program. The program gives undergrads research opportunities to make them more competitive in the workforce.

According to Kufryk, these cyanobacteria just might be the key to booting out dirty energy sources. You know the culprits: oil, coal, gas and the like. Sure, they produce energy, but they also spew out carbons and greenhouse gases, leading to the greenhouse effect, pollution and climate change – all bad things, particularly for oxygen-breathing humans.

“Unlike the traditional way (of making energy) that uses nonrenewable resources, like oil, for instance … these guys (cyanobacteria) are going to grow for as long as there’s sunlight and a little bit of mineral salts in play. They take care of everything else. They’re AMAZING,” the biological sciences professor said with a smile, showing appreciation for the microorganisms that have become the focus of her life’s work.

The first GCU advanced genetics class (taught by Dr. Kufryk)

In the last couple of years she has expanded her work, looking beyond the commonly used species of cyanobacteria that scientists have been focusing on when doing biofuel research.

Kufryk ultimately wants to manipulate cyanobacteria to produce enough molecular hydrogen to fuel the world’s cars, buses and the like.

Her work has not gone unnoticed, considering the big interest in hydrogen as an alternative transportation fuel – it powers fuel cells in zero-emission electric vehicles. She often is sought out as a conference speaker internationally.

Over the summer, Kufryk presented her work at two conferences – the Federation of European Microbiological Societies in Valencia, Spain, and the “New Approaches and Concepts in Microbiology” symposium, organized by the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, a premier genomics research institution in Heidelberg, Germany. She also was invited to give a seminar on “Recent Advances in the Utilization of Cyanobacteria for Biological Production of Hydrogen” at the Institute for Plant Physiology and Genetics in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Hydrogen can be made by thermochemical processes using heat and chemical reactions or by splitting water using electrolysis or solar energy. It also can be generated through biological processes by using microorganisms, such as bacteria and algae, which is where Kufryk’s interest lies.

“Cyanobacteria live off the energy of sunlight, and so if you want to use them to produce any valuable commercial product, they’re among the most inexpensive producers,” she said. “Traditionally, let’s say you grow microorganisms to get antibiotics, right? Well, they require sugars. Sugars are not cheap. So if you want to grow such organisms, that requires fixed carbon – a carbon that is found in sugars, amino acids, all organic compounds. Usually those systems that produce commercially valuable products that way, they are quite expensive, just because to grow that organism, you need expensive ingredients in the growth medium.

“Anything photosynthetic, like the cyanobacteria that I work with, does not require any fixed carbon. They use CO₂ – carbon dioxide – from the atmosphere, and they use the energy of sunlight, which is pretty cool. So they are the most advantageous in terms of the cost of production.”

Kufryk said molecular hydrogen holds a lot of promise as a biofuel because of its extremely high energy density.

“So if you take a pound of gasoline, compare how much energy it has and compare that to a pound of compressed hydrogen. You have more energy in hydrogen.”

Also, using hydrogen as a biofuel means combining hydrogen with oxygen, which produces water rather than harmful emission gases.

“You don’t produce any dangerous compounds in the environment, and that’s a great advantage, especially in metropolitan areas,” she said. “So for cities like Phoenix, San Francisco, New York … if we look forward and we don’t want to have smog over our cities in the long run, we want as little as possible of anything gasoline-powered. We want to go electrical. We want to go hydrogen.”

The problem with using hydrogen as a fuel is the cost. Most of the hydrogen available for commercial use is produced by chemical means.

“It’s not really sustainable in the long run to rely on that as the only source of hydrogen,” Kufryk said. “Bioproduction, anything that you can get living creatures to produce is usually cheaper in the long run, especially in a system like this where you use the energy of sunlight. You don’t need to use expensive sources of energy to grow these things.”

Kufryk travels internationally to speak at conferences and do research. She is pictured at the Institut Pasteur in Paris with Rosmarie Rippka.

Kufryk already has pictured a future of molecular hydrogen plants, where bioengineered cyanobacteria are grown.

“We can put them (the bioreactors) in the desert,” she said. “We can put them on wasteland. We can put them in places where it’s not arable land. We don’t really use that land so much, right? So from a practical perspective, this is a great advantage.”

Corn bioethanol, which was a big deal two decades ago, ended up falling out of favor as an energy source since doing so drove up the price of corn, which also is a food source.

Kufryk and fellow researchers are looking to genetically modify cyanobacteria to the point where it produces enough hydrogen.

“Hydrogen is not their main product,” she said. “They produce many other things. And so you can genetically modify them to curtail that production – you know, redirect more resources of the cell to produce hydrogen.”

Kufryk’s love of science started when she was just 9 years old. She accidentally walked into a chemistry lab and was amazed when she saw two colorless liquids turn into a colored one in a chemical reaction.

The Ukraine native said no one in her family is a scientist.

“I am the one bitten by the science bug,” she said.

She would go on to earn her master’s degree in microbiology and Ph.D. in biology from the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences before heading to Arizona State University to do her post-doctoral work and to teach. She focused her doctoral and post-doctoral research on the biochemistry of photosynthesis.

Kufryk joined GCU in 2011.

“I was looking for something where I could teach but in a smaller class,” she said. “You don’t feel as if you have that personal connection with the students in bigger classes. Just the sheer number makes it very hard for you to know your students and for them to know you. I think it’s what is unique about this school is that we still maintain that connection.”

At GCU, she was awarded with the Distinguished Faculty Scholar Award from CSET in 2014 and the Faculty Scholarship Recognition Award in 2017. Since 2013, Kufryk has been an organizer of the student research poster presentations on Health Sciences, Engineering and Technology Day. This year students presented more than 50 posters detailing their research – the largest number of students to do so since the event was started.

She has been able to do some of her research on the GCU campus of late since the addition of the undergraduate Research and Design Program. Kufryk wanted her undergraduate research students to look at the diversity of enzymes involved in hydrogen production since many types of cyanobacteria, from filamentous to unicellular, exist.

“We are trying to identify the most promising candidates for hydrogen production based on what enzymes they have available,” Kufryk said.

“There are about a dozen or so species of cyanobacteria that are heavily used. If you work in this field, you pretty much select one of those. … I’d like to look outside that because our analysis shows that there are a lot of species that have a good potential for hydrogen production. And that’s where I’m going.”

She also wants to take genes from other groups of organisms that produce hydrogen and transfer them into cyanobacteria.

“Genetically, cyanobacteria are very good as an object of manipulation. To a great extent, it’s a matter of transferring the genes necessary for hydrogen production into cyanobacteria, and making it work.”

Kufryk also doesn’t want to limit her research to single species of cyanobacteria and is investigating communities of these microorganisms.

 “These species, they live in natural environments, a natural habitat, and are grouped with other species. Quite often, that relationship is quite important, and so we can look at the communities of organisms as possible producers instead of a single species as a producer.”

It doesn’t look as if Kufryk is anywhere near stopping when it comes to her work with cyanobacteria, these “amazing” organisms that might be the big answer to the energy problem.

As she talked excitedly about cyanobacteria and the student research, she said, “I’m really looking forward to expanding this research even further.”

You can reach GCU senior writer Lana Sweeten-Shults at (602) 639-7901 or at lana.sweeten-shults@gcu.edu. Follow her on Twitter @LanaSweetenShul.

The post Rock star bacteria, R&D Program fuel research appeared first on GCU Today.

Dr. Michael Berger, Dean of the College of Doctoral Studies (right), hands over the signed title page of GCU forensic science professor Melissa Beddow’s dissertation. Hers is the 500th doctoral dissertation to be approved by the college.

By Lana Sweeten-Shults
GCU News Bureau

Cindy Seminoff remembers the day she and fellow College of Science, Engineering and Technology faculty member Melissa Beddow decided they were all in.

“We were co-workers at the time. I told her, ‘I’m getting ready to sign up.’”

Beddow was thinking the same thing.

“She basically wrangled me in,” said Seminoff with a laugh of her and Beddow, who entered Grand Canyon University’s doctoral program together, along with a third GCU faculty member, Veronica Perez in the College of Nursing and Health Care Professions.

“We did it initially just to be a support system,” Seminoff said.

Beddow’s dissertation focuses on the portrayal of DNA testing on the crime show “Bones.” As a symbolic gesture of the completion of the doctoral process, the dean of the Doctoral College signs the dissertation’s title page.

“I convinced them to join me because I thought it would be fun to go through this process with some good friends,” said Beddow, who started her first doctoral class in January 2012 . “We were able to talk about the classes we were taking and help each other with assignments, as well as navigating the dissertation process.”

That support system hasn’t wavered. Perez is in the midst of the dissertation process. Seminoff – now Dr. Seminoff — an exercise science professor, completed her doctoral degree in 2016. And this December, it was Beddow’s turn.

Beddow – now forensic science professor Dr. Melissa Beddow – became the 500^th doctoral learner whose dissertation received the University’s stamp of approval, complete with a gesture that symbolizes the long-fought process is won: a signature by Dr. Michael Berger, Dean of the College of Doctoral Studies, on her dissertation title page.

“We knew this was coming two or three months ago,” said Berger after signing Beddow’s dissertation page in a room full of her colleagues, many of them doctors themselves who know the soul- and mind-battering wherewithal it takes to reach this pinnacle in academia. “There has been this ongoing conversation about who it was going to be. … We had (dissertation) 498 and 499, then No. 500 came in for my review. It was Melissa’s.”

The University’s 500^th dissertation is quite a milestone for the program, which saw its first doctor in education cohort get its start in 2008, graduated its first doctor of business administration in late 2010, and awarded its first doctor of philosophy degree in spring 2011.

“We’re probably going to end up at 180 total (doctoral graduates) in 2017, give or take a few,” Berger said. “… That’s by far the biggest year for doctoral graduates.”

Before her higher education career, Beddow worked as a DNA analyst in private laboratories. As such, she has testified in numerous criminal cases.

“I love a lot about forensic science,” said Beddow, who is the Director of the Bachelor of Science in Forensic Science program. “It brings together so many different scientific concepts. Anyone who pursues a degree in forensic science is a master of many different scientific areas. We utilize chemistry, biology, physics and math in many different disciplines. We’re kind of a jack-of-all-trades, so to speak.

“It’s amazing to be part of a community that utilizes science in order to identify a perpetrator or link one to a criminal event.”

Beddow was a DNA analyst at private labs before entering higher education at GCU.

The doctoral process has been a long one for her.

“I took two breaks when I had two children, so that added to it,” she said.

Between researching and writing her dissertation, she gave birth to two sons and took an eight-month break in between each.

“I would spend weekends writing papers and doing my work. When my first son came, I remember sitting at the table one weekend trying to write a paper while my husband and son were playing. I knew this wasn’t going to work, and I had to change when I would get my schoolwork done,” Beddow said. “Even with setting aside dedicated time for school, things would come up that I would have to physically or emotionally work around – illness, injury, the loss of our beloved cat.”

The hardest part of the process for her, she said, was managing her time. She also hit a road bump academically during the doctoral process – enough for her to drop from the program for a short time, while pregnant with her second child. She was stuck in the proposal phase for several months, but after being assigned a new doctoral chair and promising she “would be her hardest working student,” she got her second wind.

“Her support, along with the rest of my committee, kept me going when times were tough.”

Her dissertation is on “The Portrayal of DNA Testing in the Forensic Crime Show ‘Bones,’” not that analyzing television crime shows was an easy pick for a dissertation.

Beddow (left) and Teresa Bohman take time out in the DNA lab in this file photograph.

“I bounced back and forth,” she said, before finally settling on the topic that would occupy the next five years of her life. “I had a lot of ideas. There were lots of studies I wanted to do.”

When she started looking at fictional forensic science shows on TV, she realized “no studies had been done outside of the ‘CSI’ franchise and not a lot of research had been done on those shows themselves. I was surprised there was not enough research on the shows’ actual content,” Beddow said.

She decided to focus on the CSI Effect, a belief, mainly among law enforcement personnel and prosecutors, that such television crime dramas influence American jurors to expect more and more forensic evidence to help them convict defendants of crimes.

She says viewers “see what’s going on in shows, and they think that it’s real.”

Dr. Daisy Savarirajan (right), GCU microbiology instructor, congratulates Dr. Melissa Beddow on the approval of her dissertation.

Beddow said she watched about 20 hours of “Bones,” analyzing how DNA testing and analyses were portrayed.

“It was either completely fabricated or just unrealistic,” she said

Beddow was asked to meet Berger in an adjunct faculty area in the CSET building recently to answer a few questions about her dissertation.

When she looked up, she saw the CSET faculty and other friends and family gathered behind her, clapping and congratulating her on her latest accomplishment.

“I knew there was a meeting (of the CSET faculty). I thought they were just changing rooms,” said Beddow, tears in her eyes after Berger signed her dissertation and after seeing such support from her fellow faculty members.

One faculty member in particular, Seminoff, is finding that her and Beddow’s academic lives are paralleling each other once again, post dissertation. This time they’re both teaching the same class, SCI 150, which is critical analyses in science.

That support system, once again, is in place.

“I’m so proud of her – so happy for her,” said Seminoff.

You can reach GCU senior writer Lana Sweeten-Shults at (602) 639-7901 or at lana.sweeten-shults@gcu.edu. Follow her on Twitter @LanaSweetenShul.

The post No ‘Bones’ about it, 500th dissertation one for books appeared first on GCU Today.

GCU News Bureau

More than 100 students readied their resumes for the first Engineering Internship Fair on Wednesday in the pavilion by the engineering building. Representatives were on hand from 15 companies to talk to students about internship opportunities. The companies that attended were Cognizant, Sundt, MiClimate, Microchip, Dibble Engineering, ON Semiconductor, iDTtech, VIVINT, Phoenix Heat Treating, LSW Engineers, Maxwell Technologies, Civiltec Engineering, AGAS/Rapid, Quest Global and North Star Home. Alexa Carr of VIVINT said of the fair, “Our first time on campus at GCU was a big success! We were very impressed with the quality of your students and will certainly be back.”

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Felicia Vandermolen (center) of the Nitro Live Icecreamery doesn’t only make ice cream using liquid nitrogen, it also conducts science experiments in school classrooms. Nitro Live Icecreamery was one of the exhibitors at Wednesday’s STEM Innovation Spotlight at GCU Arena.

By Lana Sweeten-Shults
GCU News Bureau

Science.

Ice cream.

And the twain did meet Wednesday at Grand Canyon University‘s STEM Innovation Spotlight, where Nitro Live Icecreamery owner Felicia Vandermolen was busy pouring cream, stirring in berries, then dousing the whole confection with a shower of liquid nitrogen.

Some vigorous stirring and a minute or two later — and with a nitro fog cascading from the bowl — ice cream was up and ready for tasting at the Strategic Educational Alliances event at GCU Arena. It was where about 200 educators and educator-friendly organizations gathered to share ideas, network and advance science, technology, engineering and math as more than just a much buzzed about academic term but as the way to meet the needs of a more STEM-focused world.

Engineer Nestor Llanos speaks to educators about bringing 3D printing into their schools. The Dream Factory creates 3D printing kits for schoolchildren.

Vandermolen didn’t just make ice cream. She also made science — something the ice cream place brings into the classroom.

“We’ve been working with educators on their time off who have been helping us create experiments,” she said.

They’ve developed a curriculum based around seeing liquid nitrogen in action. The experiments are based on Arizona science standards and include such subjects as learning about the different states of matter.

“They (teachers) can choose what they want. We have 10 different modules. … In doing so, they are able to create different ways to have science fun,” Vandermolen said. And perhaps the best part — everyone gets to eat ice cream afterward. It flies in the face of the business’ modus operandi, “Fun+Science = Ice Cream, or (F+S = I).”

This is the third year for the STEM Innovation Spotlight, a science-on-parade event that kicked off with talks by GCU President Brian Mueller and keynote speaker Princess Young, program lead with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Cybersecurity Communications. The event also included about 30 conference exhibitors, a GCU engineering labs tour, STEM presentations by various educators and a procession of exhibitors who had 90 seconds to summarize what they do.

“It (the conference) is just to provide a STEM network between STEM organizations and educators – to be able to share resources for teachers to use in their classrooms that are predominantly free and relevant and hands-on,” SEA Executive Director Kathryn Scott said.

Besides the Nitro Live Icecreamery, STEM Innovation Spotlight attendees could visit with the Dream Factory, which teaches 3D printing and modeling.

Engineer Nestor “Yan” Llanos, who worked on the first 3D-printed car, the Strati, with Phoenix-based Local Motors, said when he tried to explain what a 3D-printed car was to his children, “They didn’t understand what I was saying, so I made this,” he said of the 3D printing book he wrote for children called “The Little Designer.”

The Dream Factory offers a 3D printing kit teachers can use in the classroom. Students assemble the printer themselves — or they can be ordered already assembled — and then can use the printer to build other projects. The 3D printers are manufactured locally and use open source codes, which means they are shareable. 

Avondale Innovates’ Mobile Steam Lab, a Spotlight Award winner.

“It’s distilling it (3D printing) down to a kindergarten level,” said Dream Factory teacher and community liaison Chris Dastan, who emphasized that the organization wants to help children own their educational process by teaching them to build. 

Debbie Kovesdy was at the conference to tell fellow educators about Generation Tech Support, a tech support business at Seventh Street and Thunderbird whose specialists range in age from 13 to 22.

“We’re taking shy kids with technological skills and we’re giving them the soft skills for the industry,” said Kovesdy, Generation Tech Support’s CEO.

The business got its start with Shadow Mountain High School GenYES students and Kovesdy, their teacher. She recognized the strong technological talents in the students she was teaching.

“They know a lot about technology but also know how to problem-solve and troubleshoot, and that’s a skill set,” she said of the business, which at just 14 months old already is self-sustaining.

Scott said one of the new features at the conference was the Spotlight Awards. Winners were given time on the stage to tout their STEM and STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) efforts.

“We wanted to shine a light on or put a spotlight on exemplary STEM programs and STEM schools,” Scott said.

Mark Gresko, Director of Technology with the Avondale Elementary School District, talks about the Mobile STEAM Lab at the STEM Innovation Spotlight @gcu. Story soon @GCU_Today pic.twitter.com/XlOYHZhPCb

— Lana Sweeten-Shults (@LanaSweetenShul) January 18, 2018

One of the Spotlight Award winners was Avondale Innovates and its Mobile STEAM Lab.

The laboratory on wheels, a vision in blue with computer coding peppering its exterior, is a product of the Avondale Elementary School District.

The Welding Program at Skyline High School in Mesa won a Spotlight Award for its go-kart.

“We couldn’t afford to build nine or 10 STEAM labs simultaneously at all of our schools,” said Mark Gresko, the district’s technology director, so a mobile lab seemed like the solution. “It was just an innovative solution to that problem.”

The science-y greatness that takes place on the bus are projects that are “as simple as making paper airplanes to advanced coding and robotics … from block-level coding to a Raspberry Pi or Java scripting,” said Gresko. “It depends on who’s on the bus.”

Another Spotlight Award winner, the Welding Program at Skyline High School in Mesa, Ariz., brought along “our outlook on a go-kart,” said Austin Wilson, one of about 13 students who worked on the vehicle. The driver of the souped-up go-kart lays on his stomach to guide it.

“The horizontal design is for speed and safety,” student Aidan Killeen said. “It’s lower to the ground with a larger wheel base.”

The go-kart on steroids was created for the Welding Thunder Arizona welding competition.

“It was never clocked, but the estimated top speed is 33 miles per hour,” Skyline High welding teacher Mike Drobitsky said. “But we have a sprocket that will make it do over 100 mph.”

In the competition, teams have 20 hours to build their project. Then on the day of the event, team members have four hours to add secret components to customize the build before the time trials.

Young, who grew up in a household of educators, used her keynote speech to talk about how she got into cybersecurity. Her degree is in business management with an emphasis in human resources. When she got an offer to go into a cybersecurity program for her master’s degree, she decided to try it out. That led to an internship with the Department of Homeland Security and her current position.

“There are very unconventional ways to get where you want to go,” she said. “Find those hidden paths.”

Keynote speaker Princess Young, program lead with the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Cybersecurity Communications, talked about how she got into cybersecurity.

And she gave some sobering statistics about the need for cybersecurity professionals: 1.8 million cybersecurity jobs will need to be filled by 2022, and only 11 percent of all cyberprofessionals are women.

The STEM Innovation Spotlight and similar events are joining educators in trying to change that outlook.

Mueller shared GCU’s dedication to the STEM fields, mentioning that 300,000 square feet of engineering, computer science and information technology space on the campus has been added in just the past two years. He said the University is in the planning stages of another 70,000 square feet at GCU’s Innovation Center.

“We need to look for the students who love science, who love technology, who love engineering, who have an entrepreneurial spirit and want to study in a classroom with that kind of access to a laboratory 24 hours a day so they can graduate within three years and they can become the next generation of inventors,” he said. “We need more Bill Gateses. We need more Steve Jobs. … That’s where we need to have a partnership with you, to inspire kids and give them space. … We are open to whatever we can do to work with you in a way that we can inspire a greater percentage of kids to pursue careers in this area.”

You can reach GCU senior writer Lana Sweeten-Shults at lana.sweeten-shults@gcu.edu. Follow her on Twitter @LanaSweetenShul.

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GCU is now an Exercise is Medicine campus. In addition to the usual prescriptions from a doctor, students, staff and faculty also might get a prescription for exercise.

By Lana Sweeten-Shults
GCU News Bureau

“Take two pills, do 30 minutes of high-intensity interval training three times a week and call me in the morning.”

It’s not the typical prescription, but it very well might be the kind that soon will be given to Grand Canyon University students, faculty and employees who visit the Canyon Health and Wellness Clinic, thanks to a new program spearheaded by the Student Wellness and Health Association.

The association succeeded in landing the University a designation as an Exercise is Medicine campus. The global health initiative is managed by the American College of Sports Medicine.

 “That whole initiative is to try to get the medical personnel to work better with the fitness industry. So they’re trying to push and educate the clinical population to prescribe, just like you go to the doctor and get a drug that they prescribe to you specifically, well, now it’s given to prescribe exercise, whether that’s resistance training or aerobic training or something like that,” said exercise physiologist and College of Science, Engineering and Technology faculty Dr. Zachary Zeigler, GCU’s Exercise is Medicine on Campus faculty adviser.

Zeigler said college students don’t always have the healthiest habits: “We know that college students are notoriously very unhealthy. We know about the freshman 15. They gain weight. They’re away from home and mom and dad, so they’re eating garbage and not exercising. They’re studying too much. So they wanted to push this initiative on campuses.”

Students at the Health Intelligence and Programming Clinic will assess such measurements as blood pressure in your aorta and how stiff your arteries might be.

GCU was able to receive the Exercise is Medicine on Campus gold-level recognition – the highest level — which required the applicant school to set up a referral system with the campus clinics.

What this program means for the GCU community is that when a student, staff or faculty member visits the health clinic and health personnel are gathering initial new patient information – name, date of birth, health history and the like – they also are going to ask about exercise.

The initiative encourages colleges and universities not just to prescribe exercise but to promote physical activity for better health by making movement a part of the daily campus culture, assessing physical activity at every student health visit, and providing tools to strengthen healthy physical-activity habits.

“Anybody that goes into the student health clinic, whether it’s a student or faculty, as part of their normal health history, now we’re going to ask them questions about exercise,” Zeigler said. “So say you go in there to the normal doctors and they say, ‘Hey, do you exercise?’ You say, ‘No.’ ‘OK, you should go to the HIP Clinic.’”

The Health Intelligence and Programming Clinic was started by the Student Wellness and Health Association and is run by the group.

Students at the HIP Clinic – they’re part of the GCU’s exercise science program  — will oversee a series of exercise tests, which aren’t the standard how-many-pushups-can-you-do kind of test, Zeigler said, adding, “You come in – it’s all free – and we assess a lot of these measurements you wouldn’t get routinely. So we do basic blood pressure. We get your body fat for you. We get that kind of stuff. But then we measure the pressure of your aorta — that’s not something that we normally get. We know that the blood pressure in your aorta is way more important than the blood pressure in your arm. So we measure that, but we also measure how stiff your arteries are through a procedure that we do in the clinic – again, that’s something you don’t routinely get.”

Zeigler said another test the HIP team will conduct is a VO2 max test, or maximal oxygen consumption test. It refers to the maximum amount of oxygen a patient can use during intense exercise. It is considered the best indicator of cardiovascular fitness and aerobic endurance.

“We get you on an exercise bike, and we push you as hard as we can get you to go,” he said. “There’s a lot of numbers we can get from that test that will help us give you an exercise program but also can give you an understanding of your overall health.”

Patients typically have access to only some of these tests at a cardiologist’s office; now they’ll be able to tap into that kind of high-level fitness knowledge right here on campus.

Besides the fitness assessment, the HIP Clinic also follows the FITT Principle, which stands for frequency of exercise, intensity, time and type in prescribing an exercise program. A FITT program recommendation might be to include medium-intensity endurance exercises three days a week for 30 minutes at a time.

If a student receives a referral to the HIP Clinic, one of the tests they may receive to assess their cardiovascular fitness and aerobic endurance is a VO2 max test.

To keep the Exercise is Medicine on Campus gold-standard designation in place, Zeigler said that more than a referral process must be set up. A certain number of faculty also have to be program advisers, a certain number of students must be designated student representatives of the program, and the campus must offer a number of free general nutrition and exercise advice classes.

“As long as it’s advice that we can give to a group of, say, incoming freshmen about basic things, like here’s how you can eat healthy as a college student or maybe even the benefit of exercising even during finals for stress relief, cognitive performance and things like that,” he said.

One thing he wanted to emphasize is that, for this program, “it’s 100 percent students doing everything – that’s the big thing. It’s a referral system from the health clinic that goes to a student who is in charge of it, a student schedules them … they do these assessments.”

Zeigler said the Exercise is Medicine on Campus designation is so new, it hasn’t been incorporated into the clinics yet. There’s still some training to be done, but he hopes to push out the program in February.

Contact senior writer Lana Sweeten-Shults at lana.sweeten-shults@gcu.edu. Follow her on Twitter @LanaSweetenShul.

The post GCU flexing a new health initiative appeared first on GCU Today.

Students Grant Senechal, Graham Guskey and Jared Wiley (from left) in Li Tan’s MEE 352 class — a mechanical engineering class in solid mechanics — built suspension bridges out of K’Nex. The bridges had to hold at least 200 pounds. This one supported more than 800 pounds. (Photo courtesy of Graham Guskey)

By Lana Sweeten-Shults
GCU News Bureau

They weren’t exactly bridges over troubled water.

But here’s the trouble: They had to be engineered well enough to hold 200 pounds – lovingly cradle every ounce – but without the bough breaking and, unlike the famous children’s rhyme about the one in London, without falling down.

Teams of mechanical engineering whizzes, with that spark of well-studied know-how and construction savvy in their eyes, had this challenge: Build a suspension bridge from kid-friendly K’Nex sets, keep the cost within a slim-and-trim $200 materials budget (each K’Nex piece was assigned a price), and — oh yeah — make sure your awesome K’Nex set bridge is able to hold 200 pounds of weight.

Challenge on.

Haydon Hinson, Hunter Hoyt and Tobin Morse (from left) and their fellow mechanical engineering classmates had to conceptualize their bridges on a computer before the build and had to keep the price of the bridge at $200 or less (each piece of K’Nex was assigned a price).

The assignment – lovingly dubbed the Suspension Bridge Project — was a gauntlet thrown down by College of Science, Engineering and Technology professor Li Tan and one accepted by the students in his MEE 352 class. The students presented their bridges, suspended with the help of fishing lines, paracord and the like, as their lab project while, across the hallway, fellow engineering students raced battery-operated cars.

“This class is all about static and solid mechanics,” Tan said. “The goal here is to try to assess students’ understanding of the topic.”

The project spurred them on to understanding concepts such as force, stress and weight distribution – the big players in a bridge-building project – and how they interact together in a structure.

Students built 3D, virtual models of their bridges on a computer, where the structures underwent redesigns if they needed it. Once their conceptual bridge looked as if they met the challenge, they then broke out their GCU-supplied K’Nex sets and started the toy-sized, real-life builds.

Tan said the project also included Christian worldview concepts, such as the ethical questions surrounding the project: Is it ethical to stretch a job out longer than it needs to last just to make more money, or should you always aim to get the job done under time and under budget? What about the environmental impact of your construction project? Or cost vs. safety?

Haydon Hinson, Hunter Hoyt and Tobin Morse dressed in dapper fashion for their presentation, complete with solid-colored shirts, bow ties and suspenders.

Their bridge, dappled with yellow, dark blue, orange and white K’Nex pieces, didn’t come without some issues. The team saw connector pieces start to bend during the pre-presentation testing phase, so it reduced the bending by including additional spacers.

The bridge was able to support 74 pounds before breaking.

This team used paracords in their bridge design rather than fishing line.

The time involved?

18 hours.

The cost?

$61 for materials, “so we’re the value bridge,” Hoyt said with a smile, assuring the class that the structure would not collapse because of the wind and that the team “provides quality assurance and quality products.”

But, with labor included – that’s 4.25 hours multiplied by $50 an hour for four engineers – customers were looking at some definite labor costs.

Things the team members learned: Next time, they would use paracord instead of fishing line, would include more metal, would employ a trapezoidal tower design and would consider using better cable attachments.

“The kryptonite was the way we assembled the bridge. There were too many breaking points,” Hoyt said after the presentation. “So it’s a matter of putting the right material in the right position” to avoid bridge failure at specific points.

He added that communication is, by far, the most important thing when working on a team. Team members all had ideas they wanted to include in the design and had to decide which ideas to use.

Junior engineering student Cooper Davis said his team spent two to three weeks designing and four days building its suspension bridge, which was book-ended by trapezoidal cable towers incorporating line upon line of paracord diving down from the tops of those towers to the deck below.

Davis said what he learned from the project is to “know your materials before you start. … We didn’t know the angles that could be made.”

Tan said the suspension bridge project teaches mechanical engineering students about force, stress and weight distribution. The MEE 352 class focuses on static and solid mechanics.

The team members, he added, quickly realized that fishing line was only going to get the bridge to hold 100 or so pounds, so they switched to paracord. They also learned to be mindful of how weight is distributed through the ropes.

Taylor Shurley, Marcel Hardy and Michael Teberg (from left) and their classmates in the MEE 352 Suspension Bridge Project presentation also had to consider the Christian worldview as they wrangled with ethical questions in their bridge build. (Photo courtesy of Graham Guskey)

The team’s bridge held 216 pounds, though that total didn’t come close to Graham Guskey’s team.

“Ours was one tower, but we had the strongest deck built,” he said of the bridge – a completely suspended bridge whose deck swayed when carried. It was able to hold 866 pounds of weight. He credited the strength of the deck to the team weaving paracord through the base to make it “more compressive.” The force goes into the cords themselves, he said.

Hoyt said he played with K’Nex as a kid, building roller-coasters, but never had used them to engineer something as complex as a suspension bridge able to support 200 pounds.

What Guskey most enjoyed most about the project was seeing the team’s bridge stand up to heavier and heavier weights.

“It’s still not failing,” he said with some wonder in his voice.

But when it was over he added, “It was just fun to build, mostly.”

You can reach GCU senior writer Lana Sweeten-Shults at (602) 639-7901 or at lana.sweeten-shults@gcu.edu. Follow her on Twitter @LanaSweetenShul.

The post Student project bridges engineering concepts appeared first on GCU Today.

Levi Conlow had an important question to ask his girlfriend, Rachel O’Brien, Thursday on the Promenade.

By Lana Sweeten-Shults
GCU News Bureau

Like everyone else, Rachel O’Brien heard the chatter on campus Thursday – that a Grand Canyon University student was going to propose to his girlfriend at 4:35 p.m. on the Promenade in front of the Student Union.

Better yet, the campus was invited to see the knee-drop in real-time, live as it was happening.

@Lectricboards Levi Conlow proposes on @GCU campus to Rachel O’Brien. pic.twitter.com/jVUiVzJo8x

— Lana Sweeten-Shults (@LanaSweetenShul) January 26, 2018

The crowd was at least 12 deep in places.

She hadn’t seen the sign that invited the campus to the big event – a 7-foot tall white sign in black letters that declared, “LIVE MARRIAGE PROPOSAL, Thursday, January 25^th, At 4:35 p.m. You and I, forever. HERE.”

But if she could have read the signs she might have guessed what was going to happen next.

At precisely 4:35 p.m., Lectric Longboards co-creator Levi Conlow, dapper in a blue-and-white checkered shirt and dark tie, dashed to the center of a crowd of several hundred GCU students who started to cheer and clap. They had gathered, like O’Brien, to watch the romantic declaration.

That’s when O’Brien’s heart started to race and when Conlow, who had to scrap his plan to use a microphone after he accidentally pulled the mic wire out of the speaker, yelled for O’Brien to join him in the center of the crowd just as Ed Sheeran‘s “Perfect” played in the background.

Conlow and O’Brien met in first grade.

“There’s no one I love more than you. It’s been four years. Let’s make it forever,” he said as he held her hands and then dropped to his knee and presented her with a ring.

O’Brien, her hands cupping her mouth in disbelief, nodded, then said, “Yes, yes.”

“My friends were, like, ‘Oh, there’s a sign.’ I was really excited to watch a proposal. I had NO idea,” O’Brien said a few minutes after the big moment. “I was shaking.”

Conlow’s friends kept his secret. Only a few were in on his plan, including Gemma Garcia, who managed to keep the secret for a week.

“Every time I saw her, I was super excited,” said Garcia, who has been O’Brien’s roommate for three years.

She had a big job in this life-changing scenario – not only to help make the sign and keep quiet, but to make sure O’Brien got to the promenade on time.

Nathan Cooper, who started the Lectric Longboards skateboard business with fellow Minnesotan Conlow, used some of the entrepreneurial acumen he honed as a GCU marketing major in putting together the proposal logistics.

“He initially told me the idea a couple of months ago,” Cooper said. “About two weeks ago, Levi said, ‘We’ve got to get this done.’ I said, ‘Let’s do it.’ We kind of refined the plan. We built the sign in our office and put it up last night (Wednesday night) at 8 o’clock. We were worried it was going to get taken down.”

Conlow, the co-creator of Lectric Longboards, has been dating O’Brien for four years.

And, of course, a marriage proposal wouldn’t be complete without a little technology and social media, so Cooper said, in addition to the sign, “We also made a Snapchat filter.” (It said, “Live Proposal” and was paired with a photo of the newly engaged couple.)

Cooper said, with a smile, that his GCU business training helped in all this prewedding planning: “There’s a lot of parts that had to come together. We need this person to get her, and then there’s the sign, and get them in place at this time …”

Even O’Brien’s sister, Abbie, a GCU freshman, didn’t know.

“They’re perfect for each other for so many reasons,” she said. She almost started to cry as she took a moment to think of those reasons. “They just get along.”

Charlie MacCallum added, “They have different personalities, but they kind of blend together well.”

“But they never fight,” Abbie said.

Conlow said he and O’Brien have known each other since first grade but didn’t start dating until their senior year in high school.

Conlow said he has been planning his proposal to O’Brien for about a year. He invited the GCU campus to watch the moment live on the Promenade.

He said he has been concocting the proposal for about a year.

“I knew how I wanted to propose. We put up the wall (the sign) last night and went for it,” he said. “I thought it would be really cool if she walked past it and if she thought it might be her.”

Conlow, who is working on his master’s degree, said he wanted to share perhaps the biggest moment in his life with everyone at GCU because, “I love the community here. I thought a lot of my friends would show up. I didn’t think this many would.”

Nursing student Paige Ramsland gathered at the promenade with a group of other nursing students dressed in their purple scrubs. She heard about the proposal through the grapevine and wanted to be there.

“I thought it was cute,” she said of the idea, and she wanted to see it play out.

Conlow’s dad, Brent, who also helped make the sign, said of being among the crowd of GCU students, faculty and staff gathered around his son and his son’s new fiancée, “It was neat to see the school rally around other students.”

O’Brien said she had no idea she was the one who was going to get engaged Thursday.

Conlow’s mom, Judy, thought her husband brought her to campus to watch their son give a lecture in front of the engineering group – lecturing and giving tours is something he does often as a young entrepreneur with a burgeoning business that got its start on the GCU campus.

Cooper and Conlow started building electric skateboards in the shed of Conlow’s grandfather’s home in Sun City West, and, under the guidance of their Colangelo College of Business professors, the business has continued to grow. (Read the Lectric Longboards story here.)

Judy didn’t catch on that she was on campus not to see Levi give a lecture but for another reason — to see him get engaged — until a few minutes before it happened.

“I finally figured it out,” she said, beaming, and calling her son “one of a kind.” She added, “He knew she (O’Brien) was the one.”

Conlow echoed those same words. When asked how he knew he wanted to spend his life with O’Brien, he just said: “You just know when she’s the one.”

You can reach GCU Today senior writer Lana Sweeten-Shults at lana.sweeten-shults@gcu.edu. Follow her on Twitter @LanaSweetenShul.

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Arizona Cyber Warfare Range volunteer David Hernandez (standing) teaches GCU admissions counselors how to crack passwords during Cyberfest on Tuesday.

By Lana Sweeten-Shults
GCU News Bureau

Most days, you’ll find Benton Trerise honing his biblical wisdom, diving into the history of Christianity and perhaps polishing his knowledge of the Gospels as a Grand Canyon University master’s student in the College of Theology.

And most days, you’ll find him extolling the virtues of GCU to students who are thinking of becoming a future Lope.

But not Tuesday.

Instead, the University admissions counselor was cracking passwords and virtually chasing down bank robbers at the Arizona Cyber Warfare Range-Metro Phoenix during its Cyberfest open house.

The range, a free, open-to-the-public cybersecurity training facility in Building 66 near Camelback Road and 27th Avenue, invited GCU employees to stop by, meet the volunteers who run the range, see exactly what goes on there and maybe try their hand at a few cybersecurity activities.

Range volunteer David Hernandez told employees in attendance that to learn how to defend, you have to learn how to attack – something the range teaches using the same activities cybercriminals engage in, such as breaking into networks, cloning keycards and cracking passwords.

The Arizona Cyber Warfare Range-Metro Phoenix opened at GCU in November.

“I got all three passwords,” Trerise said with a smile during Cyberfest’s morning password cracking session.

Trerise, who decided to stop by the range with a team of a half-dozen admission counselors, said that while he uses computers, he isn’t necessarily a computer whiz.

“I do lighter stuff, but not like this,” he said.

He moved on from password cracking to analyzing network traffic, such as email and the like, to try to apprehend some wayward bank robbers. If he didn’t know it before, he learned he had a bit of a hacker in him after all.

“It (Cyberfest) did get me a little bit interested in cybersecurity,” he said.

Admissions counselor Jordan Cuda attended the open house to learn more about the range so he can talk knowledgeably about it with potential students.

“Today was my first time here,” Cuda said, adding of the password-cracking activity, “I was not very successful at it.”

Fellow East Valley admissions counselor Zachary Schwab said he also didn’t do so well at getting past some of the passwords during Tuesday’s cyber activity. But doing a little bit of hacking was “like something you see in the movies.”

Trerise said he would be telling future students that this is one of the learning resources available to them if they do become a Lope: “It’s easy to learn (the cybersecurity tasks) even if you have minimal computer knowledge.”

“The event was organized just to get GCU staff and faculty familiar with the range,” said Savy Clark, the College of Science, Engineering and Technology’s Technology Program Coordinator.

CSET Assistant Dean Heather Monthie noted that “this was a world so many weren’t even aware existed.”

The volunteer-run, 4,500-square-foot range opened officially in November in GCU’s Innovation Center as a partnership between the Arizona Cyber Warfare Range, the Arizona Cyber Threat Response Alliance and the University. The range is part of the University’s efforts to become a leader in STEM education – that’s science, technology, engineering and math.

Part of that vision includes a big push in cybersecurity education, and the end game is to strengthen the country’s cybersecurity workforce. According to Cyberseek, the industry currently has nearly 300,000 openings in the United States.

Admissions counselor Benton Trerise (seated, second from left) made it past a few passwords.

Not only does the University tout the new cyber warfare range; CSET recently launched a master’s degree program in Cybersecurity, and the Colangelo College of Business in the next few months plans to begin offering a master’s degree in Business Administration with an Emphasis in Cybersecurity.

Mitchell Neiling, a core volunteer with the Arizona Cyber Warfare Range, said the facility is a boon to anyone seeking a well-rounded cybersecurity education. While learning theory from a book has its place, getting that hands-on, practical experience is important, too. Even if GCU faculty and staff aren’t planning to go into cybersecurity as a career, he added, they still can learn valuable skills at the range.

“It’s a good skillset to know, like the ability to make a strong password,” Neiling said.

A good password might take a hacker months, even years, to crack, he said. As staff and faculty learned at the range during Cyberfest, hackers can crack a weak password in a matter of minutes.

Ultimately, though, the facility’s goal is to get people more interested in cybersecurity and into the industry.

“We have a guy coming in here two or three months now. … Originally he worked at a tea shop. Now he’s doing industry stuff. He’s pivoting,” Neiling said, adding how the range is looking for people with a special skillset that you can’t teach — just someone with a raw analytic ability and problem-solving skills, someone who wants to put in the time to do it.” He added, “We definitely provide the opportunity to explore their interest” and touts how the range gives people, not just the ability, but the confidence to solve big problems and push “the world forward in a meaningful way.”

Network forensics is just one of the activities taught at the range.

Perhaps it’s someone like Trerise, admissions counselor and theology student by day who seems to have a knack for the cybersecurity activities at the range. While his co-workers had gone back to the office, he was still at the range tackling the next activity.

“Still here?” someone asked.

“Still here,” he said.

You can reach GCU Today senior writer Lana Sweeten-Shults at lana.sweeten-shults@gcu.edu. Follow her on Twitter @LanaSweetenShul.

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The College of Science, Engineering and Technology’s faculty lead in biochemistry, Dr. Tiffany Mealman, is being remembered for her dedication to her students, her positive attitude and her strong faith.

By Lana Sweeten-Shults
GCU News Bureau

If anyone radiated joy, it was Dr. Tiffany Mealman.

She was happy and always positive, even though she came to work some days in pain, even though the medicine she was taking drained her, even though she could have been anything but happy.

Mealman, the lead faculty in biochemistry in the College of Science, Engineering and Technology, never faltered in her positive attitude or her unwavering faith in God, and she never failed her students even though she spent her entire teaching career at Grand Canyon University fighting cancer.

Mealman, who was just 33 years old, lost that cancer battle Sunday night.

A viewing will run from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday at Messinger Indian School Mortuary, 7601 E. Indian School Road. Funeral services will follow at 9:30 a.m. Saturday at Scottsdale Bible Church Grace Chapel, 7601 E. Shea Blvd. The CSET faculty also is organizing a Celebration of Life gathering for 11:15 a.m. Feb. 7 in the courtyard outside of the College of Theology chapel, and a campus-wide Celebration of Life service to remember the students and staff lost during the school year is being planned for April 17.

“She dealt with this for five or six years now,” CSET Dean Dr. Mark Wooden said of Mealman’s cancer. “But it was just the way she kept her attitude up.”

Biology, genetics, and human anatomy and physiology professor Dr. Darien Hall, who attended the same high school as Mealman, said of her colleague and friend, “She worked through being sick. She wore a portable chemo bag. But she was always happy. She was such an amazing person.”

CSET instructor Rebecca Socia remembers Mealman teaching classes during her chemotherapy sessions: “She never let it get her down. Even at the very end, she saw an end to the suffering and was happy to go home and be with the Lord.”

Mealman, who was born on Sept. 16, 1984, graduated from Chaparral High School in Scottsdale before heading to Seattle Pacific University, where she earned her bachelor of science degree in Chemistry in 2007. She did her graduate work at the University of Arizona, receiving her Ph.D. in Biochemistry at age 28.

Despite being diagnosed with cancer in the summer of 2012, she continued her academic pursuits. It was just a year later that she started her career at GCU.

CSET professor Dr. Darien Hall said of Mealman (above), “She had a very, very deep faith and drew her strength from that to keep fighting — and she loved her students.”

“When I first met Tiffany, she was in my office applying for an adjunct faculty position,” CSET assistant professor Dr. Mark Wireman said. “Based on her interview, it was clear that she was a perfect fit for GCU – caring, academically sound, clear (in her) communication (skills) and willing to work hard. 

“She was able to connect with many of our students, not only on an academic level but on a mentorship level as well. Tiffany did share with me later that her dream was to work at GCU, and she was floored when we offered her the full-time faculty opportunity. She shared with me that it was God’s plan.”

Instructional assistant Daniel Ruiz also knew of Mealman’s love for GCU: “Dr. Mealman shared her story with me and how she ended up working at GCU as a God-given blessing. She felt called to serve, and that’s exactly what she did.”

She also didn’t shy away from speaking about her condition, sharing her journey with her students.

“I think it was her relationship with the students (that was important to her),” said Wooden.

Mealman revised the biochemistry course so it was more beneficial for the students, and she was the lead for Chemistry 101, taken mostly by nursing students.

“I watched Dr. Mealman inspire dozens of students in the three years I knew her, but her inspiration and legacy went beyond the classroom,” instructional assistant Jordyn Allen said. “She strived to help everyone grow, not only academically but professionally and spiritually.”

Forensic science professor Dr. Melissa Beddow remembers Mealman celebrating her five-year mark of living with cancer, an important milestone for her.

“She loved to travel and took a big trip last summer to celebrate that,” Beddow said.

Sadly, it was just a few weeks afterward that she started to feel worse than she had in some time.

Mealman hadn’t been with her students or friends and co-workers in CSET for some months before her passing, though she stopped by the office a couple of times to visit. Those visits helped to give her GCU family some closure, Beddow said.

Beyond her positive attitude and her dedication to her students, Mealman will be remembered for her strong faith.

“She was such a strong child of the Lord,” Wooden said.

Ruiz said Mealman taught him “to live your life to the fullest and to trust and love God above all things.”

Beddow said Mealman always would take the time to stop and talk, even if she was busy or wasn’t feeling well. She always spared a moment, “and she would always come back with, ‘God is good.’”

The CSET faculty is working to establish a scholarship in Mealman’s name. Anyone who wants to help can reach out to Becky Socia, Melissa Beddow or Darien Hall.

GCU Today senior writer Lana Sweeten-Shults may be reached at lana.sweeten-shults@gcu.edu. Follow her on Twitter @LanaSweetenShul.

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