Category Archives: Engineering

10 Lessons of an MIT Education

Very good, definitely worth reading – 10 Lessons of an MIT Education by Gian-Carlo Rota:

In science and engineering, you can fool very little of the time. Most of the sweeping generalizations one hears about MIT undergraduates are too outrageous to be taken seriously. The claim that MIT students are naive, however, has struck me as being true, at least in a statistical sense.

Last year, for example, one of our mathematics majors, who had accepted a lucrative offer of employment from a Wall Street firm, telephoned to complain that the politics in his office was “like a soap opera.” More than a few MIT graduates are shocked by their first contact with the professional world after graduation. There is a wide gap between the realities of business, medicine, law, or applied enginering, for example, and the universe of scientific objectivity and theoretical constructs that is MIT.

An education in engineering and science is an education in intellectual honesty. Students cannot avoid learning to acknowledge whether or not they have really learned. Once they have taken their first quiz, all MIT undergraduates know dearly they will pay if they fool themselves into believing they know more than is the case.

On campus, they have been accustomed to people being blunt to a fault about their own limitations-or skills-and those of others. Unfortunately, this intellectual honesty is sometimes interpreted as naivete.

Toy and Entertainment Engineering Camp

via our post suggestion page, this Toy and Entertainment Engineering camp looks interesting (for students or a teacher) to me.

My name is Rebecca and I work for a Branded Camp Services. We design and operate residential academic summer camps for high school students.

This year, at Union College in Schenectady, we will be offering a course in Toy and Entertainment Engineering. I’m looking to hire an
energetic teacher for both two-week sessions in July. Most of our teachers are currently in graduate school or recent graduates. This
class is brand new and we’re having a harder time recruiting because of its specialized nature.

Thanks! You can apply by writing me at Rebecca at brandedcampservices.com

$600 Million for Basic Biomedical Research

Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) will hold a national competition for investigators that will result in an investment of at least $600 million in basic biomedical research. Up to 50 new researchers will be selected by spring 2008. HHMI Announces New Open Competition:

HHMI seeks applications from outstanding scientists studying biomedical problems in a broad array of disciplines, including not only biology and medicine, but related areas of chemistry, physics, engineering and computational biology. This competition is open to early career stage scientists at approximately 200 eligible institutions.
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HHMI values innovation and encourages its investigators to extend the boundaries of science. By appointing scientists as Hughes investigators — rather than awarding research grants — HHMI is guided by the principle of “people, not projects.” HHMI investigators have the freedom to explore and, if necessary, to change direction in their research. Moreover, they have support to follow their ideas through to fruition — even if that process takes many years.
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This new competition represents the first time that HHMI has opened up a general competition to the direct application process. In the past, faculty members had to be nominated by their institutions for HHMI investigator positions.

More details and apply via: 2008 HHMI Investigator Competition.

Innovative Alarm Clocks

I heard about clocky last year on NPR and again last week. Gauri Nanda, designed clocky while a student at MIT – an alarm clock that runs and hides so you have to get out of bed to turn it off. She has since manufactured them and now you can buy your very own mobile clock.

There is also the April Fools joke, SnÅ«zNLÅ«z – Wifi Donation Alarm Clock, but I think people would really buy it. “Connects via WiFi to your online bank account, and donates YOUR real money to an organization you HATE when you decide to snooze!”

Two Screens Are Better Than One

3072x769 monitor

Two Screens Are Better Than One:

Microsoft researchers haven’t perfected the genie, but they’ve found a tool that can increase your productivity by 9 to 50 percent and make your work day easier. And you can begin using it right away. The researchers conducted user studies that proved the effectiveness of adding a second or even third monitor to your workstation, creating a wide-screen effect. In addition, they found out how the operating system needs to change to accommodate a larger screen area.

I must say when moving to two screens I was surprised how much of a difference it made. I look forward to my huge screen.

In the photo (from Photo from: Women Go With the (Optical) Flow – pdf) three projectors, show screens on a curved Plexiglas panel, resulting in a 3072 x768 resolution display. The display was curved to avoid distortion at the farthest fields of vision. Gary Starkweather, who also invented the laser printer, is the designer behind this effort.

What do Engineers Need To Know?

What do Engineers Need To Know? by Pradeep K. Khosla, dean of the College of Engineering, Carnegie Mellon:

In 1995, close to 40% of the world’s engineering work hours were based in the United States. By 2010, only 10% will be.
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The change has been accelerated by other nations’ massive investments in engineering and science education, first in Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea, and now in India and China. They all understand what America already knows: Knowledge creation drives future economic growth, and an educated labor force is essential for participation in the global economy.

So true, the economic benefit of science investment is a big theme in our economic posts.

We also are revamping the engineering curriculum. We still will emphasize depth in engineering knowledge, of course, but our graduates also must understand innovation, entrepreneurship, product development, and systems integration. Those skills will enable our graduates to lead organizations and manage effective teams. Graduates also will require greater knowledge of the world outside the United States and have experiences in working effectively with individuals from other cultures.

A good plan and one repeating what has been discussed here before: Benefits of Engineering and Innovation Education – MIT Undergraduate Changes – Harvard Elevates Engineering Profile – Improving Engineering Education. Also remember more S&P 500 CEOs majored in Engineering than anything else. Tour the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Lab.

Eco-Vehicle Student Competition

photo of Los Altos High School's Academy of Engineering vehicle

Most miles, least fuel wins

Los Altos High School‘s Academy of Engineering was one of more than 20 high schools and colleges from across the U.S. and Canada whose engineering students came together Saturday to compete in the Shell Eco-Marathon Americas. The race is designed not to see which vehicle could go the fastest, but which one could travel the farthest on the least amount of fuel. The grand prize: $10,000 to the winning school.

Participating schools included Purdue University, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Grand Rapids Technical School, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Rose- Hulman Institute of Technology and Mater Dei High School.
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By the end of the day, it was Cal Poly San Luis Obispo that took the grand prize for combustion-engine vehicles. The team’s vehicle traveled 1,902.2 miles to the gallon. Rose-Hulman took second place with 1,637.2 miles to the gallon, and Mater Dei High School in Evansville, Ind., came in third at 1,596 miles per gallon. Los Altos High School took first place for the hydrogen-engine group. The group’s vehicle traveled 1,038 miles to the gallon.

Photo from Shell Eco-Marathon Americas site (see more photos, results, webcasts…).

Report on Faculty Salaries

Report on Faculty Salaries:

Law professor’s top the pay charts, full professors averaging $121,301. Engineering full professors come in second averaging $102,954 (Business, management… was third at $98,384). More full professor averages: Computer Science $91,181; Math and Statistics $77,963. See report for more details. If I read the report right Engineering has the 3rd highest rate of full professors (full professors/all professors) at 45% – I find that surprising.

The figures are shown for what the report calls “un-weighted” average. Essentially this is an average by institution. Which are lower than the average for professors (as the big institution who have more professors also pay more on average). For Engineering he “weighted” average is $112,530. Others: Computer Science $102,427; Math and Statistics $87,281; Business $106,828.

Stanford Center for Professional Development Seminars

Free, Stanford Center for Professional Development seminar webcasts

During the autumn, winter and spring quarters, the Stanford Center for Professional Development makes it possible for the public to view a series of thought-provoking seminars on a broad range of topics. The weekly seminars feature presentations by distinguished Stanford faculty, senior researchers and industry experts. They are available for viewing online via streaming video.
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Bioengineering and Biodesign Forum
Statistics for Research
Human-Computer Interaction
Entrepreneurship in Asian High-Tech Industries
Design and Manufacturing Forum
Lessons in Decision Making
Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Seminar
Broadening the Appeal of Engineering to Women

Via: Stanford Engineering Research Seminars

Lego Autopilot Project Update

An update to, The sub-$1,000 UAV Project from Chris Anderson – Lego Autopilot is Working!:

Our summer project is to create a sub-$1,000 UAV as a proof-of-concept for a drone competition for kids. This weekend we passed a major milestone with a successful ground test of the key elements. The video below shows the prototype working.

We’d initially intended to do all the autopilot functions in Lego, but the gyro programming turned out to be beyond our abilities. So we switched to a commercial stabilization unit to keep the plane level and just use the Lego Mindstorms for waypoint navigation.

Very cool.