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Continue shoppingFrom Lab to Industry: How Coolpo PANA Connects POSM Students to the Engineering World
The Photonics and Optical Sciences Club (POSM) at the University of Minnesota is a student-led organization focused on experimental photonics hardware and scientific instrumentation.
POSM students work across optics, electronics, mechanical design, software, and experimental physics. Their projects also bring them into regular collaboration with engineers, companies, manufacturers, sponsors, collaborators, and other partners outside the university.
These conversations often involve presenting designs, discussing hardware, reviewing experiments, and coordinating project support. However, traditional laptop-based video calls were not always ideal when several students needed to participate from around the same table.
"When we're talking with a company, we don't want the meeting to feel like a ton of students crowded around somebody's tiny laptop. We want the engineer on the other side to be able to talk directly with the students who designed the board, built the mount, or ran the experiment."
Shripad Patil
Photonics Lead, POSM
With the Coolpo AI Huddle PANA positioned at the center of the table, students can stay focused on the discussion while remote participants can see and hear the group more naturally. The 360-degree camera, microphones, and speaker tracking help bring everyone into the same conversation.
Bringing Students and Industry Together
For POSM, the Coolpo AI Huddle PANA helps create a more natural environment for technical conversations. Students can explain their work directly while remaining engaged with the rest of their team around the same table. These conversations also give students an opportunity to practice communicating technical requirements, explaining design decisions, presenting project progress, and responding to engineering questions.
“"We want the focus on students as they speak about their work, not the struggle to move around within a small camera frame. The PANA really makes the room feel like one conversation instead of one webcam."
Supporting Hybrid Engineering Work
The PANA also supports POSM's internal collaboration, including:
- Subsystem and design reviews
- Project planning meetings
- PCB, optical, and mechanical discussions
- Student presentations
- Remote participation when members cannot be physically present
- Sponsor and collaborator updates
- Demonstrations involving multiple students
The Coolpo AI Huddle PANA allows POSM to maintain a more natural setup for both in-person and remote participants.
Looking Ahead
As POSM's engineering projects and professional relationships continue to grow, the Coolpo AI Huddle PANA will continue supporting its technical meetings, design reviews, and hybrid collaboration.
For a student organization built around hands-on engineering, Coolpo AI Huddle PANA helps extend collaboration beyond the lab and gives students a more natural way to participate in professional technical conversations.
