Before starting a fabulous entry on the recent goings on at Johns Hopkins University an explanation is in store. We here at This Week at Hopkins took a longer than expected summer break ... we hope you did not miss us too much. Now on the top stories of this past summer (click on each of the headlines for further details):
2007 National Lacrosse Champions
Johns Hopkins capped a stunning run to the 2007 NCAA Championship with a thrilling 12-11 win over top-seeded Duke in the National Championship game on May 28 at Baltimore's M&T Bank Stadium. The Blue Jays rallied from a 4-4 record at midseason to claim the program's ninth NCAA Championship and 44th overall national title.
Engineers Build Vehicles
Whiting School undergraduates on the 2007 Hopkins Baja SAE team competed in two off-road terrain events this summer using vehicles they designed and built based on stock, 10 horsepower Briggs & Stratton engines. The Whiting School has highlighted the team's accomplishments at this site, and the students created their own site, full of photos and videos here.
BME Problem-Solvers
The second annual BME Design Day, an all-day event that showcases the medical devices developed by students in the Whiting School's Biomedical Engineering Department was held on Wednesday, May 2, and drew industry 
representatives to review the projects presented. One of the Hopkins groups presented the prototype of a metal detector device that would more accurately locate orthopedic implants in surgery. Nine of the projects were from undergraduates enrolled in BME's Design Team course, in which groups of students at all grade levels work together during the fall and spring semesters to solve a problem. Each team's goal is the creation of a prototype, artifact, system or process that achieves its objectives and performs functions to meet a biomedical need. The design projects, which are funded by the sponsors and the department, culminate in a prototype, a final report and an assessment of commercial application. The team presented with the top prize will receive $2,000 from Boston Scientific . In addition to Metal Detector Device for Removal of Surgical Screws, other projects on display will include Anterior Lumbar Spine Plate, Intuitive Airway Management, Rapid Glaucoma Screening Device and Hands-free Crutch for Ankle, Foot and Toe Injuries. For more information, visit www.bme.jhu.edu/events/bdd/bmedesignday.php.
Homewood’s front yard gets ready for its comeback
The Wyman Park Dell park, directly adjacent to Homewood campus at the 
corner of Art Museum Drive and Charles Street, is getting a makeover. In 2004, the Wyman Park Dell Master Plan Steering Committee was formed through an initiative of the Friends of Wyman Park Dell. They’ve just completed the master plan which includes removing the restroom structure and replacing it with a pavilion that would be part of a new park entrance. The pavilion would serve as a gathering place for getting refreshments and would have restrooms, a storage facility and a park manager's office. The new entrance also would include a more welcoming staircase into the park, a ramp for visitors with disabilities, opened up views into the main lawn, enhanced pathways, lighting, seating and signage.
Two Fair Days
The annual Spring Fair was a literal washout on its last day — closed down because of the northeaster that pounded the region on Sunday — but the sun shone down on university and community fair-goers on Friday and Saturday, providing plenty of nice weather in which to enjoy the festival fare, carnival rides, crafts booths, children's area and beer garden. The two days of festivities were capped on Saturday night with a concert by hip-hop artist Common.
Class of 2007 Commencement
The class of 2007 graduated on May, 17, 2007. The stands of Homewood Field were crowded with friends and family of the latest class of Johns Hopkins University graduates, as the university held its 131st commencement exercises.
Young Engineers head to Rural Guatemala to put their lessons to work
For the villagers of Chicorral, Guatemala, the routine practice of obtaining water will be considerably less cumbersome and time consuming next year, thanks to a team of Johns Hopkins engineering students. “Engineers without Borders” partners with disadvantaged communities worldwide to improve quality of life through implementation of environmentally and economically sustainable engineering projects. To fund its projects, EWB-JHU engages in fund-raising initiatives, supplemented by grants and financial assistance from university departments. Currently, a group of nine Johns Hopkins students is involved in the design phase of the project, and sometime this summer the students, with the assistance of professional partners from the engineering company CH2M HILL, will travel to Chicorral to begin implementation, which will likely involve borehole testing, drilling and tank construction. The Guatemala effort is one of three ongoing Engineers Without Borders projects; the other two are the installation of a ram pump for the irrigation of a communal vegetable garden in an AIDS-stricken area of South Africa, and the design and construction of a community daycare center in Ecuador. For more information about the group, go to www.ewb.jhu.edu.
More than a feeling - Using robots in computer assisted surgery
Allison M. Okamura, an associate professor of mechanical engineering and director of Johns Hopkins' Haptics Exploration Laboratory, has made it her mission to figure out how to infuse robots with a human-like sensitivity to touch in an effort to help robot-assisted surgeons practice safer medicine.
The daVinci machine, a robot designed to assist surgeons who perform delicate procedures on the heart and prostate, allows doctors to move in small spaces and eliminates the need to make a large incision and crack and cut through the sternum to work on the heart. The problem is that though daVinci is outfitted with a camera arm so that surgeons can see what they are doing, they can't feel what's happening inside a patient's body. If it could replicate to some degree what surgeons would feel if they h ad their hands inside a patient, doctors could move more confidently and comfortably and surgeons new to the daVinci could learn to use it more quickly. Okamura built the Haptics lab from scratch, and the lab gradually has built up the grants it receives from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and DARPA (a Pentagon-based research agency) to about $500,000 a year — enough to stay on the leading edge of medical haptics research. Her lab is also working on a prosthetic arm that can replicate the sense of touch. For more information, visit http://www.haptics.me.jhu.edu/
Mosh Pit Streak Continues
A team of four Johns Hopkins undergraduates stormed to victory in the 2007 Mosh Pit, billed as the "world's coolest business plan competition.” The 
winning team, named “Veros”, created a long-term business plan for a modified syringe with a pre-pressurized vein confirmation chamber attached. The syringe would be used during central venous catheterization procedures and can tell the user conclusively if a vein has been punctured correctly, reducing the risks of hitting an artery and streamlining the catheterization process. The Veros team members- Stephen Chen, Jeffrey Choi, Jason Hsu and Stephanie Huang, all sophomore biomedical engineering majors- were awarded a $10,000 first prize and a year of free office space at the Baltimore Development Corp.'s Emerging Technology Center incubator. The competition was established in 2002, and a Johns Hopkins team has won each of the first six years.
Eighteen from JHU to study abroad as Fulbright and DAAD scholars
16 students from the various divisions of Johns Hopkins were awarded Fulbright scholarships, and 2 graduate students will travel to Germany on DAAD scholarships. Johns Hopkins’s 
success in the Fulbright scholar program is nationally recognized and this years numbers are consistent with the University’s best years. Dean Bader reports that, “We are this successful, year after year, because we have great students who are internationally minded, entrepreneurial and independent”. The Fulbright Program aims to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries through the exchange of people, knowledge and skills. The program awards approximately 1,000 grants annually and currently operates in more than 140 countries. DAAD, which stands for Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (in translation, German Academic Exchange Service), is a publicly funded independent organization of higher education institutions in Germany. John Bader said his academic advising team is already looking forward to the next round of scholarship challenges, in the 2007-2008 academic year.
Drum roll please! On September 26 the doors of Mason Hall opened and welcomed its first visitors to the Homewood campus. Earlier in the week, the Admissions staff moved into the new 28,000-square foot admissions and visitor center. Mason Hall is the last part of the new Decker Quad to open to the public, as earlier in the semester the actual quad, 604-space underground parking garage and the new Computational Science and Engineering building welcomed Homewood staff, students, faculty, and visitors. Read the full Gazette article by clicking here. 
Hopkins students enjoyed the beautiful weather of the first few days of the Fall season during the 2007 Fall Fest weekend. The weekend includes a showing of "Evan Almighty" on the Upper Quad, a campus cook-out on the Beach, Young Alumni Weekend events including a Kickball Tournament and Tent Party, and a Comedy Show headlined by Bob Saget. For the complete schedule of Fall Fest 2007, click here. 
Last May was an exciting time for the Johns Hopkins Men's Lacrosse team as they celebrated an unlikely ninth national championship by defeating the Duke Blue Devils in the NCAA Division I finals. To complete the long celebration, the team and Coach Pietramala were welcomed to the White House along with other 2006 and 2007 national championship teams. President Bush congratulated the team and the coaches stating, "I congratulate you on a proud tradition at a fine university." Read the White House press release by clicking here. 
Margaret Deli, a double major in History of Art and English and double minor in Writing Seminars and French literature, has become the first Hopkins student to curate an exhibit at the Evergreen Museum and Library. Her showcase will focus on the Parisian gallery of Alice Warder Garrett and will remain on view through early next year. The full Gazette article can be read by clicking here. 
A Powerful Man: 
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