North Carolina State University - Agromeck Yearbook (Raleigh, NC)

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particular tooK advantage of evening classes to advance their career alternatives. Other developments pointed State into the future in those years. The International Programs consisted of several research projects around the globe and the Alexander International Dorm on campus (both of which are featured in this booH). Students from foreign countries account for an increasing proportion of the student body-over eight hundred 12 Opening

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Graduate student Neal Page inspects the gripping device designed by Jacl Kite and Henry Cone. ntelligent robot sees as it performs its cliores Another example of state ' s leadership in teac i ng and research is being tested in a Department of Eiectricai and Computer Engineering laboratory on campus. $100,000, 5,000-pound robot is performing simulated manufacturing tashs through linl ages between a computer and a laser ' ' seeing eye ' ' system. The powerful Cincinnati Milacron robot, which was donated by the Turbine Components Division of the Westinghouse Corp., can pick up parts weighing up to 250 pounds, has a reach of eight to 10 feet and can move its arm at a speed of 50 inches per second. The assembly will give faculty and students an opportunity to use an industrial robot in a laboratory environment for continued studies in the area in image-processing systems. We use computers, cameras and light sources to help a robot ' see ' as it performs its function on the production line, said Dr. Wesley E. Snyder, professor of computer engineering, he has studied robotics for more than a decade, particularly the development of vision for robots to increase manufacturing productivity. The specific problem is to have the robot pick up turbine blades of varying sizes from a rack, put them through finishing processes and return them to a finished-product point. The goal is to use a broad, thin band of laser light and perception by a small 11 camera to create a seeing eye system to tell the robot what to do. computer will process data the TV camera sees and feed it in milliseconds to the robot control computer The newly-acquired robotic assembly will help further these and other studies in applications such as metalworking, arc welding, spray painting and various pick and place functions in manufacturing. Our ultimate aim is to develop cost-efficient,, reliable robots with vision for the industrial environment, said Snyder. Dr. hino Masnari, head of the department, said: Robot cs has become an extremely important and exciting area of research and development It is having a revolutionary impact on modern manufacturing systems, and we are pleased that companies such as Westinghouse are providing support for our robotics effort. — MaryM. Ylonoulis Opening 11

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Sporting events like football give the band and cheerleaders a chance to strut their stuff. A lot of pressure is put on these students to guarantee that every note is on key and every smile is to form. Professor Ellis B. Cowling inspects one of 125 field monitoring sites used to detect acid rain. Acid rain becomes international concern One of the ess obwiou5 results of mankind ' s industrial resolution of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is the way the earth ' s chemical climate has been changed 5ome of these changes have proven to accelerate the natural weathering of soil minerals and provide nutrients for growth of crops and forests: other changes have caused stress in plants and animals, altered water quality, aggravated nutrient deficiencies in soils and accelerated the natural weathering of buildings and statues. Almost everything man does on a large scale contributes to these chemical changes in the atmosphere: burning fossil fuels for heat, power or transportation, building cities, intensive farming and incinerating wastes. A national network of monitoring stations was set up in 19 76 to determine the damaging effect of these activities. Measurement of the acidity of rain is man ' s most useful statistic of earth ' s changing chemistry — thus the common jargon acid rain. State is the base of this network, called the national Mmospheric Deposition Program. By 1980 MDP was able to produce maps showing geographic gradients in the chemistry of rain and snow across theU.5. By 1 982 twelve federal agencies have collaborated on a total of 45 research areas. Public interest in acid rain research is at an all-time high in many parts of the world. The challenge for us is to satisfy that curiosity . ., explained Or. Ellis B. Cowling, associate dean for research in the School of Forest Resources and chairman oft1f DP h DP scientists found that acid rain problems are following the population shift to the southern states. 5ulfur and nitrogen compounds from utilities, industrial installations and automobiles were causing the most difficulties in the U.5. though adverse health effects are most easily seen rural areas (drop in water quality, fish kills, crop damage), acidic water can leach out lead from old water lines and cause ser ous health problems for city dwellers as well. The ability of the atmosphere to produce acid rain is relatively short lived compared to other forms of pollution: 50 percent falls out within 500 miles of the source and 90 percent within 1000 miles, reas upwind of the heavily industrialized Ohio [ alley receive some of the heaviest doses of acid rain. Lakes in upper hew York and Canada have become void of fish, but horth Carolina lakes grow in acidity more slowly. The effects are cumulative. hot until June 1985 have government and administration officials recognized the need for acid rain regulation. One official admitted cautiously that curbing emissions from Midwest power plants would reduce acid rain in hew England. But Cowling noted that the public will pay for the necessary emission controls -WJAW. Opening 13