Plastics Engineering Technology

News and Publications

Student Receives Scholarship at International Blowmolding Conference

The PSU Plastics Program took 4 instructors and 10 students to the International Blowmolding Conference in Bartlesville, OK which was sponsored by the Society of Plastics Engineers. 

The conference was held Oct. 7-9, 2008, with a display area, papers, and a tour of the Chevron-Phillips Plastics Research Center.  Pittsburg State University had a display highlighting the plastics engineering technology program at PSU. 

An evening banquet was held at the Woolaroc Museum where Nicholas Cruz, a plastics major, received a $4,000 scholarship award and was honored. 

SPE Student Chapter Receives 2008 Outstanding Student Chapter Award

Pittsburg State University's student chapter for the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) was selected as the 2008 Outstanding Student Chapter. PSU will be officially receive the award at the Student Chapter Awards Luncheon on Wednesday, May 7 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

National Plastics Conference Honors PSU Students

Two students in the plastics engineering program at Pittsburg State University were given top placement at this spring's Society of Plastics Engineers' Global Plastics Environmental Conference. Michael Thurman, a senior from Chanute, Kan., and Semonti Sinharoy, a senior from India, attended the March conference in Orlando, Fla., and presented their research in the undergraduate student poster presentations.

Thurman, who is interested in a career in the aerospace industry, designed his 4-foot by 3-foot poster with information about the efforts to bring the plastics industry into a more environmentally friendly environment - specifically by creating trash can liners that are biodegradable to a certain degree.

"These plastics materials are overcrowding landfills. They don't go away for generations," he said of his research that took second place overall. "The industry has a tough reputation for not being greener, so there's a lot of effort in making changes."

Sinharoy, a dual plastics and chemistry major who hopes to go to work for a petro chemicals company, designed her first-place poster around her work with PSU's Kansas Polymer Research Center. The KPRC uses polymers and polyols from soybean oil to create everyday products such as foams and plastics. As a student worker there, she assists in research that focuses on making polyols recyclable so that the end products are biodegradable.

With competition from schools including Clemson University, Georgia Tech and Penn State, the two say they were surprised when they were called forward at the next morning's breakfast to receive their cash prizes.

"When they announced Michael had placed second, I didn't think I would place at all," admits Sinharoy. "They told us PSU is doing a good job in research, but I didn't think two of us from the same school would both win."

Thurman agrees the university was warmly welcomed. "This is the first time anyone from PSU has attended that conference, so a lot of people there were unfamiliar with us until now. They told us they were really impressed with our program."

Their adviser, Rebeca Book, says the students have made their department proud.

"So many times you hear of other universities receiving awards," she said. "So when our students go to conferences and win, our buttons are bursting with pride."

Project Gives Students a Real-World Experience - April 2007

Paul Herring, an assistant professor in Pittsburg State University's Plastics Engineering Program believes it's not enough that students know their subject matter. He wants to see them put what they've learned to work in real-world situations.

This year, the students in Herring's Senior Class Project class had an additional opportunity to use their skills in what Herring describes as a team design project. The opportunity arose when a PSU alumna who is teaching special needs students in an Olathe elementary school called Herring for help.

Kerstin Womble, a life skills teacher at Clearwater Creek Elementary School, asked Herring whether his students would be interested in helping her acquire a tool, sometimes called a slant board, that is used to help special needs students improve their writing skills.

"The project fit our needs perfectly," Herring said. "It was simple enough to accomplish in the time we had. It also had the element of public service that we liked."

Herring said he had four goals for his students with this project.

"I wanted to introduce design tools and procedures, to complete the project in a timely fashion, to promote teamwork and to provide community service," Herring said.

The students accepted the challenge and each volunteered to complete one task.

The project began with a telephone interview with the teacher in which she described how the slant board would be used and aspects of the design that were important. The process that followed included competitive product analysis, definition of product requirements, search and selection of hardware, selection of the materials and the processes to be used, computer design, tool fabrication and, finally, the actual manufacture of the product.

The students actually created four prototypes using different materials that they delivered to Clearwater Creek Elementary School in March. From those four, the teachers who would be using the slant boards selected one design from which Herring's class will manufacture four to six units to donate to the class.

"It was a perfect project for the class," Herring said. "The students were able to take the product from concept to production in a very short time. It is a condensed version of what takes place in the plastics industry on a daily basis."

The students in Herring's class said they were challenged by constraints of time and cost - factors that every business must consider, according to Herring. They said that as they worked as a team, not everyone agreed, but they learned to compromise and depend on each other.

The result was a hit. Womble said other special education teachers were impressed with the Pitt State students' project.

"Pitt State is well known in the Kansas City area," Womble said, "but not everyone up here knows about all the great programs we have at PSU. It was good to show off just a little."

Students involved in the project were Phillip Bowden, Louisburg, Kan.; Cole Bowman, Fort Scott, Kan.; Jennifer Muoghalu, Pittsburg, Kan.; Joseph Oplotnik, Columbus, Kan.; Shyam Sampathkumar, India; Adam Tilman, Humboldt, Kan.; Zachary Tyler, Eudora, Kan.; Jacob VanBecelaere, Pittsburg, Kan.; and Chris Wagner, Stark, Kan.