The story behind why producers from the home improvement show This Old House came to Washburn Shops in August to film general contractor Tom Silva and WPI student Max Sivert ’26 as they created a topographical map of Massachusetts that is destined to be installed on a U.S. Navy submarine—well, pull up a chair, because it’s a long one.The tale begins with alumnus Dinis Pimentel ’92, chair of the board of directors for the commissioning committee of the USS Massachusetts, a new Virginia-class attack submarine planned to be commissioned in Boston in March 2026. The committee is a nonprofit organization that acts as a sort of booster club for the USS Massachusetts, with volunteers working to bring symbols of the commonwealth into the submarine to capture the spirit of its namesake. In addition to planning the commissioning ceremony, the committee acts as a lifelong support system for USS Massachusetts sailors and their families.Pimentel is a captain in the Navy Reserve who served on active duty in submarines when he entered the U.S. Navy after graduating from WPI. He reached out to producers of This Old House, a show with Massachusetts roots, to see if they wanted to participate in some kind of project related to the submarine. The producers toured a sub in Groton, Conn., and identified an elegant solution to a simple problem: creating a safe location for officers’ coffee mugs that would normally hang from simple pegs in the wardroom.After a consultation with the sub’s captain, Silva, with the help of carpenter Nathan Gilbert from the spinoff show Ask This Old House, constructed a beautiful, wall-mounted, wooden board that will snuggly hold each mug, even in the worst sailing conditions. Above the mugs sits an intricately cut map of Massachusetts, with each of its 14 counties constructed from a different type of wood. The design called for adding a third dimension to the map to show the topography of the state—from the mountains of Western Massachusetts to the flat Atlantic coastline—a task that needed specialized CNC (computer numerical control) machinery. That’s when Pimentel, remembering his time in Washburn Shops as a nuclear and mechanical engineering major at WPI, contacted Robert Daniello, associate teaching professor and manager of Washburn Shops.“I’m often talking to people around the state about the USS Massachusetts, and as we build community, we see the spirit of the state coming to get behind the boat, the crew, and their families,” says Pimentel, who has volunteered on the committee since construction of the sub started in 2019.“I thought it was an interesting project,” says Daniello, who notes that although most of the CNC machines in the shop are for metal work, one of the oldest machines (circa 2001) could be adapted.Enter Sivert, a robotics engineering major with a mechanical engineering minor, who is a lead lab assistant for the intro to manufacturing course and evening lab monitor for the shops. In addition to attending a trade high school focusing on advanced manufacturing, he completed a co-op at a machine shop working with CNC machines.“For the past eight years or so I’ve really only worked with metal,” he says. “Given the chance to not only work with a variety of woods, but for a commemorative art installation, it seemed like an incredibly interesting project.”Sivert worked on the project in his free time—no credit or pay involved—and says writing the CAD (computer-aided design) program to accommodate the size of the board was the most challenging part.“First, I had to split the state into a few different pieces because the board was too large to machine in one go,” he says. The town of Southwick, which oddly juts into the top of central Connecticut, proved to be particularly challenging. “Seeing the first pass of the endmill go over Southwick successfully was a big relief because it proved the remainder of the program would work.”The three-person This Old House crew, which in addition to Silva included producer Sara Ferguson and videographer Dino D’Onofrio, was keen on getting multiple angles of the entire process of setting up and running the machine.“Being filmed while working was kind of bizarre,” says Sivert. “I felt incredibly self-aware about what I was doing throughout the entire milling process. Usually, I interact with the workpiece and the machine console without much thought, but this time around I had to explain everything I was doing, and the reason for it.”Sivert confirms the genuineness of Silva’s down-to-earth, friendly TV persona.“Just chatting with him throughout the day was nice, too. He’s got a lot of stories to share, and just hearing his perspective on the board and shop was really insightful,” says Sivert, adding that his grandmother is a huge fan of the show.It’s unclear when or how the final segment may air, either as part of the Ask This Old House or a web feature. But Pimentel hopes it can premier sometime around the officia...

You asked and they answered 💝 Part 2 of our students' heartfelt messages home.

When a group of WPI students and faculty members first set out in 2022 to interview people connected to the rare earth magnet industry, they wanted to know if an innovative magnet recycling business could succeed. After more than 130 interviews, says Adam Powell, associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering and a member of the team, the group concluded that the answer is a qualified “yes.” “We learned there is demand for recycled materials, and a lot of people want a domestic recycling industry to grow,” Powell says. “Yet the reality is that only a small number of U.S. companies are building recycling capacity. The industry is still maturing as companies develop facilities, awareness of recycling grows, and a steady supply of old magnets builds.” “Rare earth” refers to a group of metallic elements such as neodymium that are abundant in the earth’s crust but difficult and environmentally damaging to mine and process. Magnets made from rare earth minerals are used in everything from hybrid and electric vehicles to wind turbines and fighter jets, and the total market for rare earth elements was valued at more than $3 billion in 2023. China supplies most of the world’s rare earth minerals and has used its hold on the market as a political tool. In early 2025, China threatened to limit rare earth exports, especially to Western defense contractors, as a response to U.S. tariffs. During its review, the WPI group found that challenges for rare earth recycling include incentivizing the recycling of materials and competing with magnets made from virgin materials. The WPI group also found that challenges for rare earth recycling include scrap sourcing and the high cost of building recycling facilities. Those challenges could be overcome, the researchers say, by raising awareness about scrap collection, incentivizing the recycling of materials, and passing recycling-friendly legislation. “Launching a profitable and sustainable recycling startup now could be difficult,” says Chinenye Chinwego, PhD ’23, a member of the team and a former graduate student in Powell’s lab. “We can continue to do research on innovative recycling technologies, but it may take several years before there is sufficient scrap at costs low enough to make recycling profitable.” The WPI group, which undertook its market research into rare earth recycling as part of a National Science Foundation I-Corps project, recently published its findings in the Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. In addition to Powell and Chinwego, authors were PhD student Daniel Mc Arthur Sehar; Evan MacGregor ’23, M.S. ’23; PhD student Steven Tate, M.S. ’21, MBA ’23, M.S. ’25 ; Kenneth Savage ’23, M.S. ’23; MBA student Thaddaeus Zuber ’22, M.S. ’23; Benjamin Sseruwagi ’23, M.S. ’24; Daniel Dietrich ’22, M.S. ’23; Emmanuel Opoku, M.S. ’24; Rosanna Garcia, Paul R. Beswick ’57 Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in The Business School; Brajendra Mishra, the Kenneth G. Merriam Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering; and David Smith of Newagen Group LLC. The WPI team enrolled in the I-Corps program to assess the outlook for rare earth magnet recycling because I-Corps provides a framework for researchers and inventors to rapidly assess an invention’s market potential. “Technical founders often forget to understand the market needs for their inventions,” says Garcia. “It’s important to conduct customer discovery interviews early in the innovation process, and the group took a methodical and detailed approach to this task.” Chinwego says the group was interested in examining whether a magnet recycling company could reduce material costs for magnet production, reduce dependence on foreign rare earth sources, and support corporate efforts to operate in environmentally sustainable ways. Recycling rare earth magnets involves separating magnets from electronics and extracting rare earth elements using gases, solvents, salts, or other processes. Recycled materials are currently a tiny share of the materials used in magnet manufacturing. Working with the WPI Office of Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the group interviewed individuals from rare earth magnet manufacturing companies, rare earth recycling companies, national laboratories, metal alloy companies, and metal recycling companies. Those interviewed included customers, suppliers, outside experts, and government employees. They also interviewed rare earth magnet cutting companies and electronics manufacturers to assess the availability of scrap magnets for recycling. Although the team identified challenges for rare earth recycling, they also found reasons to think that the industry could grow. “The people we interviewed said that recycling rare earth magnets could mitigate supply risks and appeal to companies that want to decrease their impact on the environment,” says Chinwego. “As demand for rare earth elements grows, recycled materials ma...

Meet the next generation of fire protection professionals! These students are hard at work on research projects that could make a real difference in keeping our communities safe. It's inspiring to see young minds tackling such important safety challenges with dedication and innovation. Their work today could help protect families and communities tomorrow. #FireProtection #StudentResearch #CommunitySafety #STEMEducation #SafetyFirst

The future of money isn't minted, it's coded—and every time you deposit a check on your phone or send money via an app, you're actively using financial technology or "fintech." On this episode of The WPI Podcast, Kwamie Dunbar, Interim Dean of The WPI Business School and Professor of Finance, walks us through blockchain, cryptocurrency, and how artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping the future of finance. As the first university in the U.S. to offer fintech degrees at every level of study, we'll also discuss the unique and exciting experiences our students have, including a yearly trip to center of the financial world—the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Wall Street.