
The Purdue Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering hosted the SPARK Challenge in December 2025, featuring a student‑developed automated aquarium parameter controller. The competition invites undergraduate teams to conceive, design, and build real‑world engineering solutions. This year’s entry combined sensor arrays, microcontroller logic, and cloud‑based analytics to maintain optimal water conditions without manual intervention. The project underscores Purdue’s emphasis on experiential learning and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Engineering Innovations' podcast explores how AI is reshaping visual data compression. Professor Maggie Zu explains that traditional lossy codecs like JPEG and H.265 rely on fixed transform parameters, limiting adaptability and efficiency as video resolutions and formats proliferate. AI‑driven learned...