Category Archives: Engineering

Companies Not Countries

Companies, Not Countries, Hold The Key to Innovation Leadership by Lester Craft:

But given the overall trend, I would argue that we are quickly heading toward an era where corporations view innovation almost strictly in terms of their own global self-interest rather than in terms of one nation or another. If this is true, then we need to adjust our thinking about America’s role as an innovation leader. When it comes to innovation and intellectual property, it may be that companies are replacing countries as the entities that make the rules.

I agree the impact of countries is declining and companies increasing. Still governments hold a great deal of power to create environments that are supportive or hostile to innovation and thereby influence where it is done.

One, of many reasons, the Untied States succeed in the last half of the 20th century was wise government support of innovation. Now other countries such as India, Singapore, China, Korea… are taking smart action also.

There is still plenty of room for government policy to influence where innovation will take place. As mentioned in my previous posts (see below) being the country that trains doctoral candidates has many benefits. If any country trains 50% of the science and engineering doctoral candidates in 2050 they will have a huge advantage in innovation. Tax policy also has an impact. Intellectual property rights also have an impact. Many factors that governments largely define (and therefore differences exist between countries in how well these factors support innovation and where investors will choose to invest) will play a role in what countries innovation flourishes in going forward: infrastructure, legal system, primary education system, health care system, financial system, funding and encouraging basis research…

I happen to side with those like Lawernce Lessig that believe we are harming the United States economy by having a government policy that too restrictive about intellectual property. I believe countries that have sufficient clout to stand up to the United States, and who have a more sensible IP policy will gain a great advantage if the United States were not to adjust policies based on the ideas of Lessig and others.

The change that I think should be made is to see the role of government as a influencer of what the future will hold rather than a dictator. The actions the United States government takes will be one factor that determines where innovation takes place (and what geographic location gains the largest economic benefit) but other countries, companies and individuals will also make decisions. It will be a much more interdependent system than in the past. And no one player will be able to dictate the action.

Google’s success is not solely due to the fact it was formed in the United States. But there are many reasons why Google, ebay, Amazon, Yahoo… are based in the United States and have lead the way in internet innovation. The challenge for the United States is to keep those comparative advantages as high as possible even though the advantages are declining and will continue to do so, in my opinion.

Article: Is the US Patent System Endangering American Innovation?

Schoofs Prize for Creativity

Photo of interlocking bowl baby tray

Photo: “Tara Jo Schiltz designed the interlocking bowl and tray system for use with a baby’s high chair. The system locks the bowl in the tray preventing the child from throwing the bowl to the floor.”

The Schoofs Prize for Creativity is open to undergraduate students at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

Other winners included:

First place and $10,000 — Nick OBrien, Chandler Nault and Mitch Nick for “The FireSite:” A transmitter/receiver system designed to guide firefighters out of smoke-filled buildings.
Second place and $7,000 — Ben Jaeger, Natalie Meagher, Mark Webb, Lynn Daul, Dominic Kasten for the “Baseboard Booster:” A collapsing stool that fits in the space behind the baseboard of a cabinet
Third place and $4,000 — Sean McHone for “RoboMouse:” A fishing lure that replicates the appearance and movements of a live animal in the water.

More details on the 2005 competition.

July 2005 Wall Street Journal article on the 1996 award winner: For This Inventor, The Perfect Beer Is All About the Tap:

He was not the first college student to dream of ways to get to his alcohol more quickly. What set Mr. Younkle apart is that he chose, soberly, to follow through.

Ten years later, Mr. Younkle, 31 years old, is president and chief technology officer of TurboTap, a company marketing a finger-sized nozzle that attaches to standard beer faucets and pours draft beer at least twice as fast as traditional systems do, and with less spillage. The company, based here, has installed about 1,000 TurboTaps at bars, restaurants and ballparks—including Chicago’s two major-league baseball stadiums and Cleveland’s Gund Arena.

Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology

Photo of the South’s Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology (BEST) Middle and High School Regional Robotics Championship. The event was hosted by the Ginn College of Engineering at Auburn University.

Teams of middle and high school students from across the eastern U.S. headed to Auburn University this month to showcase their prize winning robots and engage in spirited head-to-head competition centered on the theme “Mission to Hubble.” They also had a chance to visit with NASA astronaut Story Musgrave
…
The competition began in September when sponsor-provided kits of standardized parts were distributed, the game challenge was revealed and teams began to design and build their remote-controlled robots. A portion of these teams also chose to compete for the BEST award, which challenges students to market and display their creations.

In October the teams competed at 26 BEST hub sites in 10 states. One month later, the winners of these hub competitions packed up their robots, displays, pep bands, cheerleaders and mascots and headed to Auburn.

We posted a few days ago about less than exciting outreach efforts. This seems like a much more captivating idea to interest students in engineering.

This year’s BEST award went to Wheeler High School, in Marietta, Georgia. Davison High School from Davison, Michigan placed first in the robotics competition.

Two more regional events are scheduled in the next few weeks. Learn more including how your school can participate next year see.

BEST is a non-profit, volunteer-based organization whose mission is to inspire students to pursue careers in engineering, science, and technology through participation in a sports-like, science and engineering-based robotics competition.

Scientific American 50 Award

Scientific American 50 Award:

first annual celebration of visionaries from the worlds of research, industry and politics whose recent accomplishments point toward a brighter technological future for everyone.

Awardees include:

Alice H. Amsden, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Identified strategies for economic development that could be of singular value to non-Western countries on the rise.
Ken Deering, Wind Turbine Company, designed new wind turbines that are more efficient and produce more power.
Lawrence Lessig, Stanford University Law School, argued against interpretations of copyright that could stifle innovation and discourse online.

Colored Bubbles

The 11-Year Quest to Create Disappearing Colored Bubbles by Mike Haney, Popular Science.

Colored soap bubbles! Of course! Everyone loves blowing bubbles. It seemed such a simple and perfect idea, the kind that would leave other inventors slapping their foreheads and saying Why didn’t I think of that? Kehoe says, “I remember walking down to the store thinking, ‘This is so easy. I’m going to be rich!’ “

Well, rich maybe, but not so easy.

The long years of desk jobs and desperate late-night experiments were finally over. He had done what the toy companies had told him to, and now it didn’t matter what they thought. He had his own well-financed company and a washable bubble. It was time to tell the world.

Photo gallery and movie of the colored bubbles.

Relative Engineering Economic Positions

Insight 2005: A Survey of U.S. Technology Innovators.

Some details from a survey of approximately 4,000 electronics engineers in the United States:

90 percent of respondents believe the U.S. will not maintain its leadership
position in technical innovation.

64 percent worry about the future of the engineering profession in the U.S. because of the
impact of outsourcing.

A staggering 84 percent of engineers believe their job is at risk.

Certainly not very comforting data.

The attitudinal survey results come in the wake of two national trends hampering U.S.
leadership in technical innovation: reduced federal research and development (R&D) spending
and fewer U.S. citizens studying engineering.

There certainly seems to be agreement that the declining research and development expenditures and engineers receiving degrees are setting the stage for problems in the future.

I am not sure why so few seem to point to another factor that I see as the most important factor. The United States was in a position after World War II that allowed the country to gain a much larger role than otherwise would have been reasonable (the United States also took many actions that lead to the success such as a huge effort in math ans science education, large investments by the federal government in engineering innovation, a economic system that encouraged scientific and engineering innovation…).

Others countries have seen the great benefits the United States realized from advanced science and engineering capabilities. Asia and Europe have invested heavily in gaining such advantages for themselves. Those investments are bearing fruit and this trend will only increase going forward.

The United States is going to lose ground on a relative basis. Still it makes sense to try and retain as much advantage as is possible. But the idea that the United States can retain a 1970 relative position is unrealistic; in fact retaining the current relative position is unrealistic.

The hope some retained that the United States would retain the highest end work and others would work on the less complex work is not what the future holds. The future will prove to be an international marketplace where the United States is a significant but not dominant player. That future can still be bright but it requires a different vision than one in which American dominance is taken as a given.

The future is also dangerous as changes will continue to be dramatic and quick. If the Untied States fails to take effective action the risks to the economy are significant.

Worldwide Science and Engineering Doctoral Degree Data

graph showing doctoral degrees awarded by region The graph shows doctoral degrees awarded by region in science and engineering (graph from the United States National Science Foundation Science and Engineering Indicators 2004 report). The data used to make the chart is included in this spreadsheet on the NSF site.

It seems to me the claims of the NY Times article discussed in our previous post are wrong. I would trust this NSF data to be fairly accurate. The full report includes a great deal of related data and is worth looking at.

The data from the NSF 2004 report (the data is from 2000 and 2001 [the most recent data they have access to]) show a total of 24,409 science and engineering doctoral degrees granted in all of Asia. How many in the USA? 25,509.

International Mobility of Doctoral Recipients from U.S. Universities by Jean M. Johnson, NSF, 2000, provides some good discussion of related issues. For example, the paper explores country of origin of the students as well as where the students go to work once they receive the degrees.

The percentage of foreign doctoral recipients planning to stay in the United States may
return to the lower 50 percent level that existed until 1992. The 60-70 percent stay rates of the 1993-99 period may have been driven by the expanding U.S. economy and employment opportunities.

In any discussion of the impact of the United States failing behind in science and engineering graduation, and the resulting economic decline, it is critical to understand where the graduates go to work. There are real changes going on:

For example, in the last 5 years, Chinese and Korean students earned more doctoral S&E degrees in their respective countries than in U.S. universities. And in 1999, Taiwanese students, for the first time, earned more doctoral S&E degrees within Taiwanese universities than from U.S. universities.

This is important information. It is also important to see that it was just 1998 when more doctoral degrees were granted in the US than in Taiwan to Taiwanese students.

It seems there are at least two critical issues that people are considering when quoting figures (or related statements about the decline of US science and engineering status). One is getting scientific and engineering workers working in the economy. Another is the actual education of students, which relates directly to the first issue and has many “spin-off” benefits.

One measure used to look at creating future science and engineering workers is the number of those earning degrees (undergraduate and graduate degrees). That is a sensible thing to look at, though it should be noted that such a measure provides a limited view (it is an input measure and not an outcome measure, which would be preferable).

I believe the graduate measure is used as a way to project into the future by many of the future health of the science and engineering success of countries. It seems a sensible measure to pay attention to: we cannot measure today the number of high wages scientists and engineers employed in specific countries 20 years from now (or the jobs those scientists and engineers create for others in the economy or the useful patents written, scientific discoveries made, engineering breakthroughs achieved…).

The number of graduates has some value in trying to predict that outcome years from now but it is only a proxy measure and not at all definitive. The United States has been remarkably effective at getting those who graduate with advanced science and engineering degrees in the United States to say (and even in getting those granted degrees elsewhere to move here during their careers and gaining tremendous benefits to the United States economy). Where students receive degrees (and where they grew up), I believe is correlated to where a person ends up working during their career, but that correlation is not perfect. And that correlation may change in the future – in fact I believe it will do so significantly.

I believe the correlation will decrease – movement will increase and much of this may not even make sense as work flows without much regard for national boundaries (while physical location is one factor if essentially workers in Singapore, India, Mexico and Germany all our working on the same project for a company based in Japan and owned 40% by Canadians… how all this is analyzed gets very confusing).

Looking at where they work immediately after graduation is a sensible thing to do, however we should also look at where they work 10 or 20 years in the later if we are interested in long term impact.

The actual education of the students is also seen as critical to many, and I agree. One reason this is important is you have many good jobs educating the students. But there are many other benefits. The students often do research which if they are in you country is much more likely to benefit your economy than if they are earning there degree elsewhere and supporting research elsewhere.

Also the leading educational hubs create a climate for technological innovation (proximity to the leading experts in the world often provides benefits in tapping that knowledge for purposes that often have economic advantages). If the students are educated elsewhere it is likely those hubs of technological innovation will move also (or at least the lure of the local hub will loose some to another hub that grows in importance). So measuring the number of graduate, post graduate and doctoral degrees granted in your country makes sense (again it is not a perfect measure but a valuable one).

While there is a great deal of worry about the importance of improving science and engineering education to capture economic benefit I think the understanding of the actual situation is lacking. I think we need to have a clearer idea of what the data actual shows. Then I think we can start looking at where we would like to improve. I am to explore related issues with this blog.

Engineering Education and Innovation

Are U.S. Innovators Losing Their Competitive Edge? by Timothy L. O’Brien, New York Times:

He fears that corporate and public nurturing of inventors and scientific research is faltering and that America will pay a serious economic and intellectual penalty for this lapse.

See previous post, Leverage Universities to Transform State Economy.

The Industrial Research Institute, an organization in Arlington, Va., that represents some of the nation’s largest corporations, is also concerned that the academic and financial support for scientific innovation is lagging in the United States. The group’s most recent data indicate that from 1986 to 2001, China, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan all awarded more doctoral degrees in science and engineering than did the United States. Between 1991 and 2003, research and development spending in America trailed that of China, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan – in China’s case by billions of dollars.

In a previous post, Science and Engineering Doctoral Degrees Worldwide, I mentioned that I thought the United States was not in fact leading (and if they still were it would not last for more than a few years) in doctoral degrees in science and engineering though I could not find supporting data. I still can’t, but the NY Times claims IRI does have the data (though I can’t find any such data on their web site).

And I find the claim questionable without the data. Do they mean on a percentage of population basis, that seems unlikely with China? On an absolute basis it seems unlikely for South Korea and Taiwan (at least, if not all countries) especially from 1986-2001. On an absolute basis crediting the degree earned to the nationality of the student (so Taiwanese students in American graduate schools count for Taiwan not the US)? The last version seems the most likely basis of the data to me, though even then I find it questionable. And it is not what I think most readers would believe the statement in the article means (instead believing that doctoral degrees granted by American schools were lower than those granted by schools in Taiwan… from 1986-2001).

I find it hard to believe that the United States trailed Singapore on R&D spending on an absolute basis so I would guess the data the NY Times is quoting on a percentage basis (at least for R&D) though that seems unlikely for China, so I am a bit confused about the claims in the article. They really should state what the data says specifically not just that the United States trails on some undefined measure. And they also really should provide the data that backs up their claim.

About Our Science and Engineering Blog

The title of the blog gives you an idea of the topics we explore. Here we will provide some additional insight into what we aim to do:

Primary education (k-12) in science, math and engineering – we will post about the state of such education (research etc.), news and items of interest to teachers and students. We aim to be a resource that helps teachers and students learn about science and engineering. The K-12 category will be targeted at teachers and students. We are also trying a students category for items we think might be of particular interest to students (and we believe teachers might find useful as items to interest students in science and engineering).
Higher education (college, university, graduate school and other sources of advanced learning) – we will post about news about science and engineering higher education and items of interest to professor, students and those interested in higher education. The higher education category will be targeted at professors, students and those interested in higher education.
Economic impact of science and engineering – we will post about the macro economic and societal impacts of science and engineering: higher education, research funding, investments and political decisions and discussions. We believe science, engineering and technology can serve to improve living conditions around the world. We believe investments in science and engineering, research and higher education, will impact the economic success of countries and the world overall. The economics category contains posts on developments in this are and our thoughts on this topic.
Highlight interesting science and engineering information – we will post about interesting science and engineering news and blog posts as we see it

Robot Surgeons

Three-inch Life Savers

Each camera-carrying robot — the width of a lipstick case — would illuminate the patients’ abdomen, beam back video images and carry different tools to help surgeons stop internal bleeding by clamping, clotting or cauterising wounds.