From a virtual cloud to a touch-screen interactive console, UM’s College of Engineering has unveiled technological advancements that are keeping it on the cutting-edge.

Virtual lesson: UM President Donna E. Shalala learns about the College of Engineering's new Virtual Academic Computing Platform from engineering student Randall Schwartz.

Scott Widener had never quite gotten used to the early-morning trips to campus. Sometimes, the doctoral student would rise as early as 3 a.m., stumbling out of bed to schlep to the computer labs at the University of Miami’s College of Engineering.

Until recently, those labs were the only place he could go to access the software he needed to solve perplexing problems in industrial engineering.

Now, new technology launched by the college is making it possible for Widener and other engineering students to use the college’s sophisticated software packages and obtain data from any computer, anywhere in the world.

For the college’s faculty and students, the Virtual Academic Computing Platform, or ViAComp, “has allowed for the virtualization of sophisticated software applications while reducing costs,” said Shihab Asfour, associate dean and interim chair of the Department of Industrial Engineering, which led the development of the system.

It was one of three recent College of Engineering developments unveiled for visitors and top UM administrators during recent dedication ceremonies held at the college.

REMOTE MASSIVE COMPUTER POWER

“The next dramatic development in computing” is how James M. Tien, distinguished professor and dean of the college, described the new ViAComp.

Annual computer maintenance savings of $200,000 and yearly energy savings of $20,000 will quickly offset the ViAComp’s $1.3 million price tag. The system also will reduce the number of classrooms required, freeing up space to create labs for new faculty, according to Asfour.

Mechanical engineering student Matthew Ziff demonstrates the new Ziff Interactive Display Console in the main lobby of the McArthur Building.

With passwords provided by the college, many engineering students are already using the system, logging on via PCs, Macs, and in a new point of access just announced, iPhones. Starting next fall, all students in the college will be required to have laptops to access the system.

“We wanted to address the issue of bringing the software to students instead of them coming to us,” Asfour said.

“No more trips to the lab at 3 a.m.,” said doctoral student Widener, ecstatic that he will now be able to work from home on problems that require massive amounts of computing power. He attended the dedication ceremony and demonstrated the new system for visitors.

Moataz Eltoukhy, a doctoral student in industrial engineering, plans to use the system’s software applications to continue his research on human motion, forces, and muscle activity.

Forty-two blade servers—thin, stripped-down server computers with a modular design that minimizes the use of physical space—keep the virtual cloud up and running. Currently, however, those blade servers are operating at only one-tenth their capacity because temperatures inside the small room in which they are being stored cannot be kept low enough to protect the servers from the intense heat that would be generated if they were running at maximum strength, according to Asfour.

He said the servers will be cranked up to full capacity once they are moved to the Ungar computer building, which has special flooring and other design features to minimize the heat the servers produce.

TOUCH-SCREEN TECHNOLOGY

Candido Hernandez, director of facilities at the College of Engineering, explains the new Ziff Interactive Display Console to UM officials, students, and visitors who attended dedication ceremonies at the college last week.

The new Ziff Interactive Display Console is a touch-screen directory that allows users to access all sorts of information on the college and UM from a flat-screen kiosk in the main lobby of the McArthur Engineering Building.

Among the items that can be accessed: office locations of faculty and administrators, the Coral Gables campus map, a calendar of college events, short video clips of engineering initiatives such as the NASA Project, the University of Miami Police Department Web site, and real-time weather.

A gift from Matthew Ziff, a UM freshman mechanical engineering student and the son of philanthropists Laurence and Lorraine Ziff, made the console possible.

THE ANATOMY OF A BUILDING

And not all of the teaching tools for engineering students are found inside a classroom. The new steel sculpture in front of the McArthur Building is a visual representation of the steel connections—beams, columns, and trusses—used in the construction of steel buildings.

David A. Chin, professor of civil, architectural, and environmental engineering, collaborated with Chi Epsilon President Patrick M. Kelly and a group of UM alumni to bring the sculpture to campus, knowing it would be “an invaluable teaching tool” for students. There are 120 other similar sculptures at different colleges and schools of engineering across the country, Chin said. College of Engineering alumnus Lawrence Brill of Miami’s Brill Rodriguez Sales and Associates provided the detailed structural work, waving fees for his services.

BUILDING LEGACY

Later this year, the college will rededicate its longtime home, the J. Neville McArthur Engineering Building, which is now 50 years old. The McArthur legacy of support to the college spans three generations: J. Neville McArthur, who in 1959 built and equipped the main building; Jean McArthur Davis, who in 1989 was honored at the groundbreaking of a 19,000-square-foot addition; and Nancy Jean Davis, granddaughter to J. Neville McArthur and daughter to Jean McArthur Davis, who will complete the McArthur legacy at the building’s rededication.

UM President Donna E. Shalala, who attended the dedication ceremonies, said the college’s recent technological unveilings will improve student learning and are further proof that the University is getting better. “Every contribution—from alums, from parents—strengthens our infrastructure and adds to the things that we can do to make the learning experience for our students more realistic and more creative,” she said.