Category Archives: Engineering

New iRobot Product: Gutter Cleaning Robot

irobot Looj gutter cleaner

iRobot originally offered the Roomba vacuum cleaner. They have added several items to their inventory including a pool cleaner and floor washing. Their latest product is the iRobot Looj, a gutter cleaning robot. Place it in your gutter and it sweeps out debris (up to 60 feet). In October the Looj received the Digital Life award as the best Gift for Adults. It has also received the CES Innovations 2008 Award for best home appliance.

Find more cool products on our Gadgets and Gizmo page. Related: Huge PC monitor – Asimo Robot: Running and Climbing Stairs – Digital Pen – Toaster Design – Wired NextFest 2007 webcasts – Robo-Salamander

New “Cold Cathode” Fluorescents: 4 Times Longer Life, Reduced Mercury

New “Cold Cathode” Fluorescents: 85% Less Mercury

It’s a new fluorescent bulb that could have a bright future — the cold cathode fluorescent lamp (or CCFL). These bulbs contain half the mercury of conventional “hot cathode” fluorescents. They have a thinner tube diameter, which allows them to run cooler, and last up to four times as long (a lifespan of 25,000 hours). This means that the mercury is reduced by 85% over the life of a cold cathode bulb, because a regular CFL would have to be replaced three times during that period. Another big advantage of CCFLs is that they are fully dimmable, and “on/off” cycles do not shorten their life.

Google Offers $10 Million in Awards for Google Phone Development

Android is the new Google Phone platform. The Android Developers Blog has announced Google has offered $10 million in the Android Developer Challenge:

One of our goals in releasing the Android SDK is to unleash the creativity of application developers on the platform. We’d also like to get feedback early enough that we can make changes before the first Android-powered devices are available to the public. We plan to release updates to the SDK regularly which means that there will be additions and changes to the APIs and user experience — subscribe to this blog to stay up to date.

We’re really looking forward to seeing all the amazing applications that developers will create on an open mobile phone platform. In fact, you may even want to enter your application into the Android Developer Challenge — a USD$10 million challenge sponsored by Google to support and recognize developers who build great applications for the Android platform.

The award money will be distributed equally between two Android Developer Challenges:

Android Developer Challenge I: Submissions from January 2 through March 3, 2008
Android Developer Challenge II: This part will launch after the first handsets built on the platform become available in the second half of 2008

In the Android Developer Challenge I, the 50 most promising entries received by March 3 will each receive a $25,000 award to fund further development. Those selected will then be eligible for even greater recognition via ten $275,000 awards and ten $100,000 awards. Once again Google is showing they understand how to manage in the new world.

Sandwich Brick – Reusing Waste Material

A brick-through, Malaysia

at the British Invention Show 2007 held in London recently, waste material bagged Universiti Malaya (UM) researcher Asrul Mahjuddin Ressang Aminuddin a Diamond (Special Award for Earth Science). The lecturer, from UM’s Built Environment faculty, designed a “sandwich brick” that incorporated unwanted plastic, wood particles and other waste material at its core. Helping to save about 26% to 30% on construction costs, the sandwich brick promotes green architecture in the built environment.

“I first came up with the idea when I was assisting the tsunami victims in Thailand and Indonesia,” said Asrul Mahjuddin Ressang. “There was a lot of debris lying around and I wondered how if any could be used for rebuilding purposes.” The brick design has been well received by British construction companies as it is not only environmental friendly but is also entitled to tax incentives across Europe.

It also provides a solution to Britain’s hard-pressed construction industry following the ban on sand mining from riverbeds and waste accumulation that stands at 15 million tonnes in 2007 alone. The innovation impressed judges as it had better heat insulation compared to ordinary bricks and encouraged industries to rethink recycling at minimal costs.
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Meanwhile, engineering faculty senior lecturer Dr Mohd Hamdi Abd Shukor received a Double Gold (Special Award for Industry) – for his work on tough synthetic bio-ceramic for bone implant technology and a minimal cutting fluid application in a pulse jet form.

Engineering Innovation in Manufacturing and the Economy

Editorial: Engineering Innovation, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

They are the invisible heroes in business, the men and women who make innovation possible. They are people like Mary Ann Wright at Johnson Controls in Milwaukee, the former chief engineer for the Ford Escape hybrid who is leading a team bent on establishing world leadership in hybrid battery systems.

Or Werner Zobel, a Modine Manufacturing engineer working in Germany who hatched the idea for a new cooling system that the Racine-based company believes could be revolutionary. The system uses ultra-thin layers of aluminum to dissipate heat, a breakthrough that has potential for car and truck radiators and air conditioning condensers.

Intellectual candlepower will fire the regional economy, the Milwaukee 7 regional economic development group believes. Its strategic plan relies on innovation-driven manufacturers that are heavy with engineers. But across the region, those companies say they can’t recruit enough engineers, and they worry that shortages will worsen as baby boomers retire. Complicating the picture is a shortage of visas for foreign-born engineers and increased competition from rapidly developing economies in China and India for those students even when they complete their studies in the United States.

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Marquette University and the Milwaukee School of Engineering are racing to fill the pipeline. Marquette and UWM are promising expansive new buildings and increased enrollment of both undergraduate and graduate students.

The USA continues to be by far the largest manufacturing in the world. And one important reason is the contributions provided by science and engineering (fed by strong science and engineering schools). In addition to other smart economic policies (The World Bank’s annual report on the easiest countries to do business in ranks the USA 3rd – after Singapore and New Zealand).

Home Use Vertical Axis Wind Turbine

Photo of Winterra Turbine

The Windterra ECO1200 Wind Turbine is a revolutionary Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT).

Omni-directional: The ECO1200 can instantaneously accept wind from any direction as opposed to HAWTs (Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines, which require an on-board motor to rotate the unit relative to wind direction.
Turbulent-wind friendly: The ECO1200 is easily roof mountable and is less affected by turbulent air, making ECO1200 suited for areas where houses and trees may disturb airflow.
All-in-one system: The ECO 1200is a complete power-generation package, including turbine, controller/inverter, and mounting system. This system can typically be installed and ready to use in four to five hours.
Roof-top mounting: The ECO1200 is designed for roof top use, eliminating the need for a pole or tower installation that significantly increase cost and complicate routine maintenance.

Interesting looking. Based on some of the figures on their site it seems like this is still pushing the economic justification but with more and more engineers improving such similar system hopefully wind power can meet more of our energy needs over time.

Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers

The Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers, established in 1996, honors the most promising researchers in the Nation within their fields. Nine federal departments and agencies annually nominate scientists and engineers who are at the start of their independent careers and whose work shows exceptional promise for leadership at the frontiers of scientific knowledge. Participating agencies award these talented scientists and engineers with up to five years of funding to further their research in support of critical government missions.

Awards were announced today – links to some of the awardees:

Jelena Vuckovic, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University
Matthew Rodell, Physical Scientist, NASA
Katerina Akassoglou, Assistant Professor of Pharmacology, University of California, San Diego
Carlos Rinaldi, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering University of Puerto Rico at MayagÃ¼ez
Ahna Skop, Assistant Professor of Genetics, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Krystyn J. Van Vliet, Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, MIT
Odest Chadwicke Jenkins, Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, Brown University

Scrap Computer Chips Reclaimed as Solar Cells

IBM Pioneers Process to Turn Waste into Solar Energy

The new process uses a specialized pattern removal technique to repurpose scrap semiconductor wafers — thin discs of silicon material used to imprint patterns that make finished semiconductor chips for computers, mobile phones, video games, and other consumer electronics — to a form used to manufacture silicon-based solar panels. The new process was recently awarded the “2007 Most Valuable Pollution Prevention Award” from The National Pollution Prevention Roundtable (NPPR).
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The new wafer reclamation process produces monitor wafers from scrap product wafers – generating an overall energy savings of up to 90% because repurposing scrap means that IBM no longer has to procure the usual volume of net new wafers to meet manufacturing needs. When monitors wafers reach end of life they are sold to the solar industry. Depending on how a specific solar cell manufacturer chooses to process a batch of reclaimed wafers – they could save between 30 – 90% of the energy that they would have needed if they’d used a new silicon material source.

PhD Student Speeds up Broadband by 200 times

John Papandriopoulos

Local whiz speeds up broadband by 200 times:

A Melbourne PhD student has developed technology to make broadband internet up to 200 times faster without having to install expensive fibre optic cables.
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Harnessing the potential power of telephone lines and DSL broadband, the technology will deliver internet speeds up to 250 megabits per second, compared with current typical speeds of between one and 20 megabits per second. Dr John Papandriopoulos, who has patent applications for the technology being processed in the US and Australia, won one of Melbourne University’s top academic prizes yesterday, a Chancellor’s Prize for Excellence in the PhD.

It sure seems like many of these breakthroughs never actually make it into my life. It would be nice if this one did. On the research page of his web site he uses the under-utilized blink tag 🙂 He also has a some nice explanations on his site:

Our technology, developed as part of my Ph.D. thesis work with advisor A/Prof. Jamie Evans, aims to manage this crosstalk interference, consequently allowing telecommunication providers to maximize the data-rates of their networks. We can do this dynamically, and adaptively, to try and get the “best compromise” of interference between neighboring lines to maximize performance. In research circles, this is known as “Dynamic Spectrum Management” (DSM).

Practice First, Theory Later

The best engineering school in the United States?

What makes Olin special – and what puts it at the top of my “Engineering Schools I Wished I Had Gone To” list—is its “practice first, theory later” approach. Olin was designed to make students plunge into hands-on engineering projects on day one. “Instead of theory-heavy lectures, segregated disciplines, and individual efforts,” I wrote in that article, “Olin champions design exercises, interdisciplinary studies, and teamwork.”

Experts say a deep reform of engineering education in the United States is long overdue. We need a new type of engineer trained to face today’s challenges, not those of post World War II, when many curricula were created. Could this new engineer be … the Olin engineer? That’s what I set out to find out when my editors assigned me the story on Olin.
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What I found during my reporting, and what I tried to convey in the article, is that Olin is like no other engineering school I’d ever visited. Pretty much everything about it is unique. The installations are brand new, the faculty is young and motivated, the curriculum innovative. Professors don’t have to worry about tenure, students don’t have to worry about tuition. The students I met were bright, ambitious, outspoken, and diverse in their interests and personalities. They all want to lead, succeed, excel. They behave almost like MBA students training to be CEOs except they’re dressed in pajamas programming robots. For outsiders, it can be an overwhelming experience to meet a classroom full of Olin engineers.