Each year, Frank R. Seaver College of Science and Engineering asks our students engaged in summer research to tell us about themselves, their work and the goals of the research they are working with professors on. This year, the questionnaire was completed by intrepid scientists, mathematicians, engineers and tech experts on campus at Loyola Marymount University — and beyond the bluff!
Mackenzie Kawashiri, Mechanical Engineering sophomore, worked with professor Mahsa Ebrahim to test heat resistance of specific materials that comprise everyday electronics. Their goal is to find new ways to keep these technology tools cool, so they can be used optimally for longer periods.
Can you describe your research for those outside your field of study?
This research is about finding better ways to cool down electronic parts when they get hot, such as a computer. Right now, most electronics use fans or special liquids to keep things cool. But as they get more powerful, electronics also produce more heat and so these old cooling methods don’t always work well enough, especially for the tiny parts that lie inside devices. So, this research looks at using microdroplet spray as a new way to cool things down. Microdroplets are super tiny drops of liquid. The idea is to spray these little drops directly onto hot computer parts. When the droplets land, they absorb the heat and then evaporate, which cools the part down.
Earlier parts of this research focused on how to make the microdroplets just the right size, about the width of a human hair, and how to measure how well they work for cooling. This summer, we continued that work by trying to figure out what affects the behavior of a single microdroplet (like how it moves or spreads on specific surfaces at specific surface temperatures) and how to build and test a full system that sprays lots of microdroplets onto a hot surface to cool it the most efficiently.
What do you think readers will find most interesting about your project?
Electronics and technology are everywhere. It would be very rare to meet someone who has not used an electronic device and run into an overheating warning. This issue is something our project is focusing on, so those who might not be in the mechanical engineering field would still find interest in this project through its technological focus.
What have you learned about doing research that other students might benefit from?
Two main categories of lessons students learn while working on research is how to do and participate in research, and any big failures they learn along the way in their specific project. In research, students learn how to fail, how to prepare themselves in an experiment, and how to cooperate and work with others to reach a common goal. In the research students do specifically, they learn to connect the skills they have learned from school with what they need to complete in their project. Another lesson that students learn within research is how to connect and apply what they are doing inside of the research lab with real world issues.
What advice would you give to someone on the fence about doing research?
You are guaranteed to walk away from participating in research with something new that you did not have before. And whether that’s a lot or a little, there are certain things you find that you will only learn from doing research- and that is extremely valuable and worth it.