South Dakota Mines Fall 2023 STEAM Café features an
exciting range of topics.
STEAM Café, an ongoing series of free, informal
talks by Mines faculty, staff and visiting experts, is a partnership between
the university, South Dakota Public Broadcasting and Hay Camp Brewing Company.
An acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering,
Arts and Mathematics, STEAM Café is held at 6 p.m. on the third Tuesday of each
month at Hay Camp in Rapid City unless otherwise noted.
The 2023 Fall STEAM Café lineup includes:
Sept.
19, 6 p.m.
Crazy
Horse Memorial: The Science Behind 75 Years of Stone Carving
Presented
by Dr. Caleb M. Ziolkowski, chief mountain officer at the Crazy Horse Memorial
Foundation.
Mountain
carving draws on a variety of disciplines, often in surprising ways. Crazy
Horse Memorial, the world's largest carving, has seen a wide variety of methods
and approaches since its inception 75 years ago.
Dr.
Caleb Ziolkowski, who currently heads the project as Chief Mountain Officer,
will offer a high-level account of how the approach to carving has changed over
the years, with emphasis on how current efforts involve technology,
engineering, mathematics and — in the broadest sense — science to produce art
on a grand scale.
Oct.
17, 6 p.m.
National
Security Innovation Network: Addressing the Critical Minerals Supply Chain with
Machine Learning
Presented
by South Dakota Mines students Hunter Paxton and Calvin Tohm; moderated by
Jason Combs, Rocky Mountain Regional Director of the National Security
Innovation Network at Mines.
Any
discussion of the U.S. economy or national security almost always includes
discussion of our critical mineral supply chain and machine learning. Scientists
and engineers across the U.S. are exploring how to apply machine learning to
seemingly simple tasks in novel ways.
As
part of the National Security Innovation Network at South Dakota Mines, Mines
students Hunter Paxton, a senior computer science major, and Calvin Tohm, a
civil and environmental engineering PhD candidate, worked with a scientist from
Washington University in St. Louis and a student from the University of
Virginia to build a proof-of-concept decision support tool to demonstrate how
machine learning could be used to address critical minerals supply chain
challenges.
Nov.
21, 6 p.m.
Adventures
in Mapping: Summer Geologic Research in the Remote Alaskan Wilderness
Presented
by Dr. Trevor Waldien, assistant professor of geology and geological
engineering.
Geologic
research relies on observations of the geology in the field, which often
requires field geologists to spend weeks or months in the field. Although it is
true that the geology in most places has been mapped, remote areas such as the
Alaskan wilderness are understood only at a generalized regional scale.
Dr.
Trevor Waldien, assistant
professor of geology and geological engineering at South Dakota Mines, will
discuss the role of field work in modern geologic research, the importance of
map scale and show many pictures highlighting the good, the bad and the ugly of
remote geologic field work.
Dec.
19, 6 p.m.
Engineering
LBNF/DUNE: A Colossal Underground Undertaking for Neutrino Science
Presented
by Josh Willhite (ME 99), LBNF project manager at SURF.
The
Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF) will house the Deep Underground Neutrino
Experiment (DUNE) nearly a mile underground at the Sanford Underground Research
Facility (SURF) in Lead, SD. Before this world-class science can begin, nearly
800,000 tons of rock must be excavated, and the facility is then provided with
utilities to support the science. Excavation is almost complete, and the
project is currently placing thousands of yards of concrete floors.
Infrastructure installation will begin by the middle of 2024 and detector
installation by the end of 2024.
Josh
Willhite (ME 99), LBNF project manager at SURF, will provide an overview of the
project and discuss some of the significant engineering challenges encountered
while working on a major science project deep underground. Expect plenty of
interesting photos and limited science.