Read the Cal Poly Supermileage blog to track the progress of the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo eco-vehicle team. There goal is to achieve the best gas mileage possible using a gas powered, 3 wheeled, fully faired vehicle. At the Eco-Vehicle Student Competition they achieved 1902.7 mpg. The blog also posts on interesting related matters. A great example of students learning about engineering by doing engineering.
Category Archives: Engineering
Robotics Engineering Degree
Robotics Engineering Degree at Worcester Polytechnic Institute:
WPI has established the nation’s first undergraduate Robotics Engineering degree program to teach people like you. This unique, innovative program was built from the ground-up with future Robotics professionals in mind. In this program, you’ll develop a proficiency for mechanical, electrical and computer engineering which will teach you to build the robot’s body. You’ll also become proficient in computer science, which will help you control the robot’s behavior.
In this program, you will be building robots during your first year of study. You will not find this hands-on approach to Robotics anywhere else but WPI.
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Students graduating from the Robotics Engineering program will have many options for future employment across a wide range of industries including national defense and security, elder care, automation of household tasks, customized manufacturing, and interactive entertainment. New England is home to a strong and growing Robotics industry. Massachusetts alone boasts over 150 companies, institutions and research labs in the Robotics sector, employing more than 1,500 people.
Interesting. via: eContent. Related: Toyota Robots – Tour the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Lab – Applied Engineering Education – Best Research University Rankings – 2007
$1 Million Grant for National Engineering Education Initiative
Motorola Supports National Engineering Education Initiative with $1 Million Grant
The Motorola Foundation today announced $1 million in support of the National Academy Foundation’s (NAF) Academy of Engineering initiative, which will help create 110 academies in high schools across the country to inspire young people to study science and engineering. In collaboration with Project Lead the Way and the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, NAF’s Academy of Engineering initiative will ultimately prepare students for careers in engineering to meet a growing market demand.
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According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, jobs requiring science, engineering, or technical training will increase 24 percent to 6.3 million between 2004 and 2014, creating greater demand for critical thinkers fluent in technology. Yet over the past decade, the NAF has seen declining enrollment and graduation rates in post-secondary engineering programs that can be largely attributed to fewer high school students showing an interest in engineering and technology.
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According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, jobs requiring science, engineering, or technical training will increase 24 percent to 6.3 million between 2004 and 2014, creating greater demand for critical thinkers fluent in technology. Yet over the past decade, the NAF has seen declining enrollment and graduation rates in post-secondary engineering programs that can be largely attributed to fewer high school students showing an interest in engineering and technology.
Related: k-12 Engineering Education – Middle School Engineers – $40 Million for Engineering Education in Boston – Lead the Way in Cleveland – posts on science and engineering primary education
Wired NextFest 2007 – Cool Webcasts
Above: The humanoid robot REEM-A walk among people at Wired Nextfest 2007. Cool webcasts from Wired NextFest 2007 in Los Angeles:
Human-Carrying Walking Robot
Multi-Touch Collaboration Screen – There are two very wide (around 16 foot wide) LCD screen. You can drag and move object like the scene in the Minority Report.
Wired NextFest Highlights – Shot by Mark Hefflinger and edited by Graham Kolbeins for Digital Media Wire
Wired Nextfest Executive Director Discusses Tech Future
Hanson Robotics talks Zeno
Highlights of the 2006 Wired NextFest Expo in New York City
Related: Humanoid Robot (HRP-3 Promet Mk-II) – Robo-Salamander – Northwest FIRST Robotics Competition
Generating Electricity from the Ocean
British Wave Hub Gets The Go Ahead
The innovative (and controversial) UK “wave hub“, in essence a giant plug on the ocean floor, has received approval. The UK government has will install this plug to allow wave power companies to feed energy back into the grid. The £28 million ($56.5 million) project has cleared the last major regulatory hurdle and will begin construction soon.
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Wave and tidal power could provide 3 percent of Britain’s electricity by 2020, according to the government-backed Carbon Trust.
The installation is expected to generate up to 20 megawatts of energy, enough to power 7,500 homes and eliminate 300,000 tonnes of CO2 over 25 years. Four companies have already been selected to build projects at the hub.
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Wave and tidal power could provide 3 percent of Britain’s electricity by 2020, according to the government-backed Carbon Trust.
The installation is expected to generate up to 20 megawatts of energy, enough to power 7,500 homes and eliminate 300,000 tonnes of CO2 over 25 years. Four companies have already been selected to build projects at the hub.
Related: Ocean Power Plant – Wave Energy – World’s First Commercial-Scale Subsea Turbine – Wind Power
The Engineer That Made Your Cat a Photographer
This article is the result of the first Curious Cat engineer interview. My favorite post detailed the great engineering project Jürgen Perthold undertook to engineer a camera that his cat could wear and take photos. So I decided to interview him.
The Engineer That Made Your Cat a Photographer by John Hunter:
This time I thought about our cat who is the whole day out, returning sometimes hungry sometimes not, sometimes with traces of fights, sometimes he stay also the night out. When he finally returns, I wonder where he was and what he did during his day. This brought me to the idea to equip the cat with a camera. The plan was to put a little camera around his neck which takes every few minutes a picture. After he is returning, the camera would show his day.
The Amazing CatCam is not only a great product but a wonderful engineering story. See our past post for some background on how an engineer allowed you to help your cat become a photographer. On the development of the CatCam Jürgen Perthold says, “More or less it was just a joke, born with a crazy idea.” Such a great sentiment and with wonderful results.
What path led him to the desire and ability to pursue the crazy idea and become the Curious Cat engineer of the year? He was born in Aalen, Germany. He started playing with electronics as he was 13. At 15 he added computer programming and with a friend they programmed games, applications and hardware control over the years. He studied Optoelectronics at the University of Aalen, Germany extending his knowledge further.
For the last few years he has worked for Bosch, an international manufacturing company, in the automotive hardware section. Last summer, he transfered from Germany to Anderson, South Carolina as a resident engineer for transmission control unit in a production plant for automobile parts. On a side note, the United States is still by far the largest manufacturer in the world.
The demand for the cameras is still higher than his capability to produce the cameras. He has raised the price, to limit the demand. When I first saw the prices I couldn’t believe how inexpensive it was. And, in my opinion, they are still a incredible deal. Order your CatCam now: it is a great gadget for yourself or it makes a great unique, gift. Most orders have been from the UK, Germany and the USA.
Most people don’t have technical background so they buy the full unit. But he reports that some brave souls order a kit because of price or availability although they have not done anything similar before. What a great way to challenge yourself and, if you succeed, end up with a wonderful creation when you finish.
He is in discussion with several different groups to ramp up production. The main problem is that producing the device requires electronics, optics, software, mechanics and logistics expertise. So, for the time being, he continues to modify the cameras by hand because no investments are necessary and the production can be scaled according to the demand. The required soldering, electronics and system knowledge makes it a challenge to outsource. So, for now, CatCam production is adding to the USA manufacturing output total. He is also planning to produce more products.
Jürgen believes that getting the cat camera working was not that challenging. You can take a look at his explanation of how he did so to decide for yourself. He does admit that challenges do arise if you want to produce cameras for others. To do that you must create a product that is foolproof, reliable, and easy to use and manufacture.
“I was surprised how famous one can get with ‘boring’ technical engineering stuff. I like this not only for me but for all other engineers out there who daily work hard on challenges which others don’t even understand. We as engineers make the world moving but usually we are not recognized.” Everyone enjoys the products of the labors of engineers (such as cell phones, MP3 players, cars, planes, bridges, internet connections) but few see the required knowledge, work and the people that bring those products into being.
Jürgen “hopes that I made ‘engineering’ a bit more visible to people who did not think about it before, for example, female cat owners who never had a solder iron in the hand and bought plain SOIC chips because they wanted the cat camera…”
I think he has done a great job illustrating the engineering behind the CatCam and making engineering fun. And in so doing hopefully is making more people aware of the engineers that make so many wonderful modern gadgets. Go buy a CatCam now (and if you are adventurous buy the parts and create your own – you will learn a lot about what makes all your modern gadgets work). And then send in the pictures your cat takes so everyone can see the wonderful things engineers make possible.
The photos here show the results of several new cat photographers (Binky the cat [first 2 photos] and Jacquie the cat [last 2]). Only a small percentage of CatCam owners have shared there pictures so far.
Over the next few years he would like to learn to sail, visit Yellowstone national park, walk the Camino de Santiago again, move on to other international assignment (maybe far east) and continuing raising his two children.
The Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog is written by John Hunter and tracks a wide variety of developments, happenings, interesting under-publicized facts, and cool aspects of science and engineering.
Google Lunar X Prize
seeks to create a global private race to the Moon that excites and involves people around the world and, accelerates space exploration for the benefit of all humanity. The use of space has dramatically enhanced the quality of life and may ultimately lead to solutions to some of the most pressing environmental problems that we face on earth – energy independence and climate change.
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we hope to usher in an era of commercial exploration and development, in which small companies, groups of individuals and universities can build, launch and explore the Moon and beyond.
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we hope to usher in an era of commercial exploration and development, in which small companies, groups of individuals and universities can build, launch and explore the Moon and beyond.
Sergey Brin: “So now, we are here today embarking upon this great adventure of having a nongovernmental, commercial organization return to the Moon and explore. And I’m very excited that Google can play a part in it.”
Related: $10 Million for Science Solutions – Lunar Landers X-Prize – DARPA Grand Challenge
Thousands of Spiders Build Huge Web
Thousands of spiders worked together to build huge web (site broke link so I removed it) by Anna Tinsley:
But Tuesday afternoon, thousands of Texas spiders were back at it, working to rebuild an immense spider web at Lake Tawakoni State Park that at one time stretched about 200 yards, covering bushes and trees to create a creepy canopy.
Researchers say they now believe thousands of spiders from different species worked together to make one huge web — much different from the traditional individual webs that would normally be woven. Together, they’ve built and rebuilt a web that has caught countless bugs and the attention of people nationwide. “These spiders seem to be working together to build it back,” said Zach Lewis, an office clerk at the park. “It’s really something to see.
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“It looked just like a spider would have jumped from tree to tree with a can of silly string.” Researchers say it likely took 1 1/2 to two months to weave such a large web.
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He found spiders from 12 families, with the most prevalent being from the Tetragnathidae family. Identified spiders were funnel web weavers, sac spiders, orb weavers, mesh web weavers, wolf spiders, pirate spiders, jumping spiders and long-jawed orb weavers, according to the researchers’ report.
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“With the amount of rain that has occurred this year and the huge food supply available, it just created the right condition for all of this,” he said. “It’s possible we’ll see it again. But this happened to be a year where the conditions were right.”
Related: 60 Acre (24 hectare) Spider Web – Spider Thread – Giant Wasp Nests
Google 3D Campus Competition
The seven winning teams
Purdue University – Depts of Computer Graphics Technology and Education, Concordia University
Loyola Campus – Dept of Civil Engineering
Stanford University – Dept of Architectural Design
Indiana University Purdue University Fort Wayne – Depts of Engineering and Computer Science
Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering – Dept of Engineering
Dartmouth College – Depts of Computer Science and Digital Art
University of Minnesota – Dept of Architecture
of Google’s Build Your Campus in 3D Competition will get to visit Google’s Mountain View Headquarters. It is nice to see Google continue to provide opportunities for students.
Stanford team puts campus on map; wins Google Earth 3-D modeling contest – view the Standford buildings:
In addition to having their entries displayed on Google Earth, the winners were invited to the Google headquarters for four days, Aug. 6-9. They attended workshops, met with professional 3-D modelers, got a grand tour of the compound and enjoyed the famous free lunch.
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We’d initially planned to do nearly all the buildings on campus,” Lehrburger said. “But we underestimated the time it was going to take. I think we thought the learning curve was going to be a little bit better than it actually was, so we had to readjust our plans.”
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We’d initially planned to do nearly all the buildings on campus,” Lehrburger said. “But we underestimated the time it was going to take. I think we thought the learning curve was going to be a little bit better than it actually was, so we had to readjust our plans.”
Though they were proud of their final outcome and hard work—Lehrburger and Bergen worked late into the night as they got closer to deadline—neither of the team leaders was overly optimistic. They had modeled 94 out of the 300 or so buildings on campus and worried their model of Stanford would be considered incomplete.
Google contest motivates students to ‘rebuild’ WMU (Western Michigan University designs):
A group of seven WMU students answered an invitation by the Internet giant Google to participate in its Build Your Campus in 3-D Competition. The teams’ submission placed among the top 30 out of some 350 entries from across the United States and Canada and will be incorporated on Google Earth, the company’s popular geographic information feature.
Related: posts on Google management practices – Olin Engineering Education Experiment – Google Summer of Code 2007 – Page: Marketing Science – Google Technology Talks
Mission to Mars
This post was submitted by Richard Lachman, via our post suggestion form.
Race to Mars is a huge Discovery Channel Canada project that tries to present the most scientifically accurate vision of a human mission to Mars possible. With input from over 175 Scientists, the 4-hour mini-series uses Hollywood effects to illustrate a scientifically grounded mission-plan. There’s also a 6-hour documentary series on the science, and a major education/outreach project online. The website includes free downloadable 3D games and web-games that blend riveting game play with science-inspired subject material. We’re using Serious Games to educate without being completely didactic, and we include curriculum-based science material to back up our content.
It is indeed a resource worth checking out. Related: Mars Rover – NASA Engineering Challenges – Immense Amount of Ice Found on Mars