Safety Top of Mind for Baranowski

CMU students Joanna Baranowski and Ian Suzuki discuss their work on goalie helmets during internships at Covestro. Joanna Baranowski's head is in the game. As an integral member of the "Rethink the Rink" team, led by the Pittsburgh Penguins, Covestro and CMU's College of Engineering, she is working to make hockey safer. "It not every day you get to work with the Penguins or a big materials company to do something that nobody else has really done before," said Baranowski, who is finishing her undergraduate degree in chemical engineering this spring, and her master's degree this winter. "Rethink the Rink" focuses on a new project each year. Last year's project considered safer designs for goalie helmets. In March 2019, CMU hosted a Make-a-thon where students designed and developed prototypes. Baranowski and Ian Suzuki, a senior in mechanical engineering, earned internships to work at Covestro's Pittsburgh location for the summer. Their work built on ideas generated from the Make-a-Thon. "We worked with the Penguins and a helmet manufacturer to kind of come up with some ideas and concepts on how to make it safer for the goalie when they get hit," Baranowski said. "We had to consider a lot of constraints, and there was collaboration around the clock." Because the hockey players preferred the look of older helmets, Baranowski's team worked to minimize the change in the helmet's appearance while improving safety. They decided that one of the best ways to reduce the impact force on the goalie's head is to adjust the fastening between the cage and the shell. After modeling the helmet, they simulated collisions, took data and ran tests on the helmet to develop the best design solution. What is Rethink the Rink?