Susan, Giulia C., Sara, Lucrezia, Federica, Chiara, Susanna, Francesca S., Anna, Beatrice, Ludovica, Raffaella, Giulia D., Virginia and Francesca P. are this year's winners of the 15 scholarships awarded as part of Girls@Polimi, a project within the Politecnico di Milano to support female students who, after high school, decide to undertake studies in the field of STEM disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).
The students were honoured at an event held on Thursday 29th September in the presence of Professor Donatella Sciuto, pro-rector of the Politecnico di Milano, and the donors.
The girls, enrolled in engineering programmes with a low number of female students, receive scholarships, each worth €8,000 per year, with the chance to renew them for their next two years of study. On this edition, the scholarships have been funded by 9 companies (Gruppo Autostrade per l’Italia, Bain & Company Italy, Banco BPM, Eurofins Foundation, Fastweb, Intesa Sanpaolo, Leonardo, Gruppo Nestlé in Italia, NHOA), by theUniversity itself and by private donors, alumni of Politecnico di Milano.
Girls@Polimi is an initiative of Gender POP, one of the lines of action specified in the Polytechnic Equal Opportunities strategic programme with which the University is committed to guaranteeing an inclusive and respectful study and work environment.
You too can support the Girls @ Polimi scholarships with a donation starting from 10 euros. Click here .
Along night time, September 26-27 the NASA DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft intentionally impacted, at almost 25000 km/h, the asteroid Dimorphos, the smaller body in the Didymos. binary asteroid system.DART represents the first attempt to experimentally verify the humanity capability to deflect potentially Earth-threatening asteroid by driving a space probe to crash into the celestial body at maximum relative speed to shift the natural body orbit.
A crucial role in the mission is played by LICIACube (Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids), the small spacecraft entirely Italian-made, which will go down in history as the first European CubeSat to fly in deep space, far from our protected terrestrial environment.
LICIACube, infatti, dopo essersi staccato lo scorso 12 settembre dalla sonda madre DART, è transitato a poche decine di chilometri di distanza dall’asteroide colpito a una velocità di 6-7 km/s, affrontando la nuvola di frammenti per poterne acquisire immagini e riprendere, con le sue camere di bordo, il cratere formatosi, al meglio della risoluzione possibile, consentendo di raccogliere dati fondamentali per lo studio del piccolo corpo celeste e unico testimone della dinamica dell’urto con Dimorphos.
The ASTRA research group researchers, led by professor Michèle Lavagna, Giovanni Zanotti, Michele Ceresoli and Andrea Capannolo from the Department of Aerospace Science and Technology gave a key contribution to this futuristic mission success.
During the past months, they hard worked in defining the LICIACube trajectory from the deployment until the asteroid flyby, while during the last weeks, after LICIA release from DART, they redesigned the crucial orbital manoeuvres to correct the CubeSat trajectory, exploiting the data sent on Earth by the small probe. Throughout the whole project, they worked in synergy with the Italian Space Agency, University of Bologna, Argotec S.r.l. and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory personell.
The maneouvers they constantly worked on and performed by the small on-board engine, where aimed to avoid the debris generated by the impact while optimally pointing the on-board cameras to take the highest number of useful images, which will be later downloaded to Earth, to let the National Institute of Astrophysics scientists, coordinated by Dr Elisabetta Dotto, leader of the mission, work on their postprocessing.
LICIA represents a technological pathfinder and a primacy in the CubeSat arena, as it paves the way for such class of satellites to gaina role even on highly challenging space missions; moreover, LICIA witnesses a successful and profitable collaboration between Academy, Research Center and small enterprise, under the coordination of the Italian Space Agency, confirming the excellence of the technical-scientific competences of our Country and the professionality of our young researchers in an extremely high-profile international arena,
Giorgia Lupi, Alumna PhD in Design at Politecnico di Milano, is the winner of the National Design Award 2022 for Communication Design. The award, presented by Cooper Hewitt and the Smithsonian Design Museum, recognises professionals who have distinguished themselves through their innovative impact in design.
Lupi, over the years, has become a prominent voice in the field of data design: her work follows the philosophy of “data humanism”, or the idea that data design can be used to tell the stories behind numbers and statistics, which transform from impersonal and intimidating to so "human".
“With data we can write rich and meaningful stories. We can teach the reader's eye to become familiar with visual languages that convey the true depth of complex stories."
Her work stands out for the innovative way in which it synthesizes data, it tells a story capable of making the concepts conveyed by the data more accessible and easy to understand. Over the years, Lupi has worked for big brands such as Google, IBM and Deloitte, and has been published - among others - by the New York Times, Corriere della Sera and Wired. Her work is also exhibited in the permanent collection of the MoMa.
“Sono incredibilmente onorata di annunciare che sono stata selezionata per ricevere il 2022 National Design Award for Communication Design (!!!). Presentati dal Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, e annunciati oggi, i National Design Awards celebrano i risultati eccezionali e l’innovazione nel design. …Per un designer non c’è niente di più grande. In qualità di professionista della data visualization nominata nella categoria del design della comunicazione per questo premio, vedo questo come un riconoscimento dell’importante ruolo che i dati svolgono sempre più spesso nelle nostre vite e del potere del design di usarli come risorsa per raccontare storie.”
Polimi Motorcycle Factory is a sports team at the Politecnico di Milano created in 2015 in order to take part in the international MotoStudentcompetition, which is held every two years at the international MotorLand Aragón circuit in Spain. The teams are tasked with designing, building, managing and racing an endothermic or electric motorbike.
The competition is split into various stages: the first assesses the industrial design and the business plan while the second evaluates the performance of the prototype in static and dynamic tests, which culminate in a weekend of racing. Azul Amadeo is a last-year student of a Laurea Magistrale (equivalent to Master of Science) in Design & Engineering. She is the head of the fairings department in the Polimi Motorcycle Factory (PMF to its friends). “I thought about finishing my bachelor's degree at the Poli before going elsewhere to do a master’s. But then found PMF and my life changed course. I found the consistency that I was missing, a family and also lots of headaches... and an environment in which industrial design can express itself, where cut things that work are beautiful and beautiful things can work cut .And so I stayed for a master’s.”
Azul joined the team in January 2018: “There’s an old rivalry between designers and engineers but it is outdated. Working on PMF is like a simulation of the world of work, where the teams are much more multidisciplinary than during our studies, where your work has an effect on that of others and vice versa: and rivalries are overcome, you have to learn to trust others. Those who join PMF also do so becausethey want to add meaning to their university careers, contribute to something and go away with a unique experienceIt has been like that for me. You really become part of something, you are not just a number.”
“We gave ourselves a pyramid structure from an organisational point of view, in order to avoid sending parts into production that do not work, but everyone contributes. The glue that holds the team together is the motorcycleit’s a product of such complexity... and we created it. In the two years of preparation for the competition, working on the prototype, what was just a group of students becomes almost a family. The biggest change happens at the point where the largest components are manufactured, the motorbike is assembled and the work moves from CAD to the workshop.”
Credits: foto di Azul Amadeo, studentessa di Design & Engineering, responsabile del reparto carene nel team PMF
Champions of the world
PMF took its first motorbike to competition in 2016, just 8 months after the beginning of the project. They affectionately called it “la Cinghiala” (“the Sow”), because of its weight. The aim was to finish the race (which, as we will see later on, is not always a given). Given their early successes, the team worked with great ambition on a new prototype over the following two years: the Scighera (meaning fog in Milanese dialect), which was driven in the 2018 competition by Luca Campaci, a young rider and student of Mechanical Engineering, became the champion of the world in the Petrol category with a top speed of 197.1km/h.
“The Scighera did some amazing things, it was a magical moment. It wasn’t 100% reliable, but on the day of the competition everything was perfect and, what’s more, that year we also won the fairing removal competition with such speed that students from the other universities were stunned. We returned victorious from Spain, with two cups and a list of accoladesincluding, in addition to first place overall, Best Design, Best Innovation, Business Plan, Best Acceleration (6,966”/150m) and 2nd Best Mechanical Test.” With this pedigree, PMF began working towards the 2020 edition (which became 2021 due to the pandemic) and decided to take two prototypes this time, one in the Petrol Category (with the Sciura - Milanese dialect for Signora - a fine-tuned version of the Scighera) and also in the Electric category for the first time in the team’s history, with the prototype Nyx (named after the Greek goddess of the night).
Credits: foto di Azul Amadeo, studentessa di Design & Engineering, responsabile del reparto carene nel team PMF
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.The unexpected lies in wait
Each team receives a motor (a Ktm 250cc 4t), a set of slicks and a brake system (calipers and brake pumps) from the MotoStudent organisation for each prototype. The rest of the motorcycle is the team’s responsibility, which can choose whether to buy the parts or produce them in house, within the limits of the event’s official regulations. PMF prefers to produce them in house. "It’s difficult to design a motorbike from scratch because its performance depends greatly on the interaction between the various partsfinding the right balance so that everything works as it should is black magic,” explained Azul. “The pandemic hit us like an avalanche. In December 2020 we had to deliver certain parts of the bike for the 2021 competition, but there couldn’t be more than 3 people in the garage at a time. Until the last, we didn't know whether we would make it in time, but we managed it and by working 6 days a week with shifts of longer than 12 hours, we were able to develop very sound motorbikes.”
Credits: foto di Azul Amadeo, studentessa di Design & Engineering, responsabile del reparto carene nel team PMF
But the spirit of MotoStudent is about craftmanship, motorbikes are unpredictable and things don't always go to plan. “Nyx, in the Electric category, had performed really well in the tests. Luca (our loyal rider) had managed to pull off rocket-fast times. However, , during the last lap of the race, the motor cut out several hundred metres from the finish line. Time was about to run out and the referees were approaching in order to help the rider move the motorbike off the circuit, but he brushed them off and heroically pushed the bike to the finish line for the sake of qualifying. It was 40 degrees, in July, in Aragón, and he was dressed to the nines in his racing suit. That’s what it means to belong to PMF. Thanks to him, we could compete, although Nyx unfortunately continued to cause reliability problems and we finished near the bottom. We still celebrated a lot in any case: not only because we had managed to finish the competition (for our first time in the electric category, it wasn't a bad result at all), but also because the atmosphere in those moments is so exciting and tense that when you finish, your emotions explode”.
The team were counting on the Sciura in the Petrol category, remembering the victory with the Scighera. “We had a superbike rider for the Sciura. As a professional, he expected a certain pace and we struggled to keep up with him.” Almost all of the parts for the Sciura had been built by the team and the bike was performing brilliantly. “We had become really quick, we felt like drones with a hive mind. Ready for anything. But we had_lots of problems, beginning with the motor which broke on the eve of the competition (we had pushed too hard and, let’s be honest, the Ktm isn’t a great motor). We bent over backwards to replace it, because in Europe they aren’t easy to find. We reinstalled it overnight, working until 6 in the morning. It isn't easy: you have to remove the bike from the motor, not the other way around, because the motor is the heaviest part. And, once it is installed, you have a motor that you don't know, which has to be run in. At that point we decided to be thorough and change the fuel pump, replacing the one we had made with a professionally manufactured pump that we bought, in order to ensure greater reliability. It was a terrible mistake: when it comes to motorbikes, you shouldn’t fix what isn’t broken. Anyway, during qualification the pump let us down, the motor cut out and wouldn’t start again. For this, we were disqualified. It was a real shame, all we needed was to change the pump, but rules are rules.” Upon their return from Aragón, the students of PMF rolled up their sleeves ahead of the 2023 competition. It will be Azul’s last year, who in the meantime will graduate. “I’ll stay until the competition, for sure. PMF means to give everythingto build a team that becomes a family and lead it to do amazing things.”
Credits: foto di Azul Amadeo, studentessa di Design & Engineering, responsabile del reparto carene nel team PMF
Another victory brought home by the Politecnico: Enactus Polimi the no-profit University association that develops sustainable business projects, has won the sixth Italian edition of Enactus and is preparing to fly to Puerto Rico to participate in the world cup at the end October.
The Politecnico team –made up of engineering and design students, but also Alumni –entered the competition with two sustainability-related projects with the aim of improving the world through entrepreneurial action.
THE ENACTUS POLIMI PROJECTS: SHEA MATTERS E OYSTER2LIFE
Shea-Matters is a project that supports the import of shea butter produced by a cooperative in Ghana run by women only. In fact, the European shea butter market generates much higher profits than the local market on which it relies: hence the idea of a new sustainable and fair trade route that connects Kumbungu to Milan. The goal is to guarantee the employees of the cooperative fair compensation that will enable them to make profits to be reinvested in other projects in Ghana: drinking water wells, bio fertilizer for the fields, a photovoltaic micro grid, a reforestation plan.
“We believe very strongly in this project ,” explains Claudia Ogliastro, biomedical engineering student and marketing team leader of Shea Matters, to the Corriere della Sera " Our butter can't be ordered yet but you can find it in some Equomercato-associated stores. We are looking for stores, herbalists and e-commerce businesses interested in selling it, but also people who wish to support our project and spread the word, even on social networks, to create a community that will then buy the butter because they support the philosophy behind it".
The second project is called Oyster2life and seeks to combat climate change in an innovative way by reusing oyster shells to rebuild the marine ecosystem and raise awareness of the importance of preserving our seas. Once collected (from restaurants, fishermen, etc.), the oyster shells are returned to the sea after eliminating all bacteria and organic residue from their surface.
In the sea, oyster shells help in this way the growth of molluscs that facilitate water purification and reconstruction of the seabed, providing new sources of nourishment for the repopulation of the lagoons and the sea, with high environmental and economic benefits.
THE NEXT STEPS
Enactus Polimi will represent Italy at theEnactus World Cup 2022 from 30 October to 2 November 2022 in Puerto Rico. The competition will feature innovators, creators, global citizens and business leaders, students and academics who want to act now to change the world forever. Stay tuned!
Professor Maria Prandini of the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering of the Politecnico di Milano has been elected President of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) for the three-year period 2026-2029.
This is a prestigious recognition from the international systems and control engineering community for Professor Prandini, currently Coordinator of the Degree Program in Automation Engineering. In the final round of elections, the professor from the Politecnico beat candidates from the United States, the Netherlands and China, becoming the second Italian president since the IFAC was founded in 1957 and the first woman to hold the position.
The IFAC is a worldwide organization with more than 2,500 volunteers, which has the goal of promoting the science and technology of automatic controls for the well-being of humanity through the organization of conferences, the publication of prominent journals, the coordination of technical committees, the establishment of awards and recognitions and the support of initiatives to promote automatic control, especially in developing countries.
Maria Prandini is Alumna in Electronic Engineering 1994. From 2002 to 2011, she was Researcher in the Department of Electronics and Computer Science at the Politecnico di Milano and, in 2011, she became Associate Professor–later Full Professor–in the same department. Her recent and current projects include UnCoVerCPS (Unifying Control and Verification of Cyber-Physical Systems) for the European Commission, MoVeS (Modelling, verification and control of complex systems: from foundations to power network applications) and iFly (Safety, Complexity and Responsibility based design and validation of highly automated Air Traffic Management).
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