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Five Things to Know about George Mason’s Mobile CoffeeBots

Colleen Rich — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 16:36:06 +0000

Five Things to Know about George Mason’s Mobile CoffeeBots Colleen Rich Mon, 09/30/2024 - 12:36

Sometimes the most elegant solutions are the simplest, like using one waste product to eliminate another, such as used coffee grounds, called CoffeeBots, engineered in a ��AV laboratory.

From left to right: Jeff Moran, Amit Kumar Singh, and Tarini Basireddy pose with CoffeeBot samples.
Photo by Teresa Donnellan.

CoffeeBots can remove pollutants from seawater. By combining spent coffee grounds with iron oxide (rust), George Mason engineers have created CoffeeBots in the laboratory of College of Engineering and Computing professor Jeff Moran using the remains of Moran’s morning brew. Moran’s lab focuses on developing self-propelled microparticles for medical and environmental applications.
A CoffeeBot can move through water by using a magnet. Coffee grounds have an irregular, porous surface to which pollutants can bind, even with the much smaller iron oxide nanoparticles attached. Since iron oxide is magnetic, a simple handheld magnet can drive CoffeeBots through polluted water and remove them.
CoffeeBots are reusable. While using coffee grounds to clean up oil spills is not entirely new, this team is the first to show that mobile CoffeeBots outperform stationary ones since moving particles encounter more pollutant molecules. Making the coffee grounds magnetic has another benefit: Once the CoffeeBots are recovered, they can be reused several times before losing their efficacy.
Students discovered the use of coffee grounds. Postdoctoral research fellow Amit Kumar Singh in Moran’s lab originally proposed the project as a way for then-Thomas Jefferson High School student Tarini Basireddy to gain hands-on experience in the laboratory without having to interact with dangerous chemicals.
CoffeeBots can be used against three types of seawater pollutants: methylene blue, oil, and microplastics. The team found that the particles can be an effective solution for cleaning methylene blue, a carcinogenic dye commonly used in textile production, especially when they are first loaded with ascorbic acid, which helps break down the dye and render it nontoxic. And microplastics, like oil, cling to coffee grounds because they are hydrophobic.

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Retro Mason: Hussam wins Grainger Challenge Prize 2007

Colleen Rich — Wed, 03 Aug 2022 17:10:05 +0000

Retro Mason: Hussam wins Grainger Challenge Prize 2007 Colleen Rich Wed, 08/03/2022 - 13:10

��AV chemistry professor Abul Hussam won the $1 million Grainger Challenge Prize for Sustainability Gold Award from the National Academy of Engineering for his inexpensive water filtration system designed to remove arsenic from drinking water in his native Bangladesh.

In some developing areas, village water wells often contain the poisonous element arsenic. In Bangladesh alone, more than 18 million people daily drink arsenic-contaminated water. For Hussam, this threat hit close to home. After years of research and testing, Hussam and his brothers developed the Sono filter, which costs only $35 and lasts at least five years. More than 250,000 of these filters can be found in homes, schools, and businesses in Bangladesh, Nepal, and India.

His invention also garnered him the Bangladesh American Society for Humanity Award and led Time magazine to name Hussam one of the 2007 Global Heroes of the Environment.

Hussam, pictured here (left) in 2007 with graduate student Kirubel Assegid and the Sono filter, is director of the Center for Clean Water and Sustainable Technologies in the College of Science.

Photo credit: Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

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Mason professor Mahesh P. Joshi aims to license his business strategy game

Colleen Rich — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 10:00:34 +0000

Mason professor Mahesh P. Joshi aims to license his business strategy game Colleen Rich Tue, 03/03/2020 - 05:00

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Maheshkumar P. (Mahesh) Joshi

School of Business professor Mahesh P. Joshi created BiggieBills after searching for years for an interactive strategy game to use in his classes. Photo by Lathan Goumas/Office of Communications and Marketing.

The idea came to him in the middle of the night during a cruise with family and friends. He spent the next day in the cabin, writing out the rules for a novel business strategy board game.

Despite being on vacation, Mahesh P. Joshi, associate professor of global strategy and entrepreneurship at ��AV’s School of Business, recruited his family and friends to test out the card game. In the middle of playing, Raj S. Davé, a family friend and patent lawyer, suddenly said, “We need everyone to sign confidentiality agreements before we continue playing.”

And that’s how Joshi knew he had invented something different. In December 2019, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office agreed and granted a patent for BiggieBills, a complex interactive strategy game designed for executive training, company retreats and business classes. BiggieBills will be available for licensing agreements in May, once the game is digitalized.

“The idea that I should create a game to help people better understand complex business strategy had been festering in my brain for a while,” said Joshi. “But the details of what that game would be came together at once, and I had to rush to get it down.”

BiggieBills is a business strategy game that is played in teams. Photo by Lathan Goumas/Office of Communications and Marketing.

Joshi was the founding director of Mason’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and recently served as its director of research and practice. In addition to teaching Mason students and research, Joshi advises and provides consulting to the public-sector, private-sector and not-for-profit organizations about corporate entrepreneurship and strategic and cross-cultural business management.

Joshi is introducing BiggieBills in the classes he teaches, including executive training sessions for companies and government agencies. In addition, he’s marketing the game to other business schools and executive training programs.

BiggieBills is a “team game that is fast paced, has an explicit goal and evolves in a dynamic competitive context,” said Roy W. Hinton, former associate dean of executive education at the School of Business who encouraged Joshi to develop BiggieBills. “It generates great team discussions about appropriate moves, and players quickly see the impact of their decisions.”

BiggieBills is played in teams, and can be adapted to include as many as 50 players. Each team takes on the role of an established business trying to gain the top position in a chosen industry. The standard game lasts about three hours, and a crucial point in the learning process occurs when the game facilitator debriefs at the end.

The game is focused on business strategy, but can be modified to include other topics, such as entrepreneurship, new product development and sales management. The two main ways to win are to be the first team to earn a billion dollars or to be the last remaining team standing after all others have declared bankruptcy.

Davé, president of the Davé Law Group in Alexandria, Virginia, said that the game is a teaching tool that is fun to play.

“Why is it fun? It’s influenced by luck and strategy, just like life. You can win or lose, just like in life,” said Davé, who helped Joshi obtain the patent on his game.

Joshi said he created BiggieBills after searching for years for an interactive strategy game to use in his class, but not liking what he found.

“There’s no game like this around,” said Joshi. “If there had been, I would have used it in my classes, and wouldn’t have had to invent it.”

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Five Things to Know about George Mason’s Mobile CoffeeBots

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Retro Mason: Hussam wins Grainger Challenge Prize 2007

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Mason professor Mahesh P. Joshi aims to license his business strategy game

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