Category Archives: Engineering

Biomedical Engineering Opinion

Nevertheless, the strict regulatory procedures that must be adhered to in biomedical engineering can be frustrating and feel like a barrier to innovation, even though engineers in this field are often working at the leading edge of technology. Colin Hunsley says: “Anything new has to be shown to be better than what is currently available. A modern hip replacement, for example, is expected to last for 15 years or more; even with thorough testing via the formal clinical trials process, it can be hard to prove conclusively that a new development is significantly better.

The take-up of new products and techniques also depends to some extent on the way the market operates. In the UK, for instance, the National Health Service (NHS) funds most healthcare, whereas the USA market is driven by private medical insurance. With the budgeting structure of the NHS, it can be difficult to justify the adoption in one department of a more expensive treatment, even if it could lead to significant long-term savings for another department. This illustrates why it is important that biomedical engineers understand the market in which they operate.

Schoofs Prize for Creativity 2007

Single-handed fishing kit reels in first place in invention competition:

Brian “Sunya” Nimityongskul got the idea for a system for one-armed fishing while recovering from shoulder surgery last summer. “I wanted to be fishing and not sitting at home,” he says. “Being an engineer, I decided I’d do something about it.” He worked on it during his free time, doing the design and machining himself

Nice Looking Toaster

See how the toaster works. More design examples

Arctic Seed Vault Design

‘Doomsday’ vault design unveiled

he Svalbard International Seed Vault will be built into a mountainside on a remote island near the North Pole. The vault aims to safeguard the world’s agriculture from future catastrophes, such as nuclear war, asteroid strikes and climate change. Construction begins in March, and the seed bank is scheduled to open in 2008. The Norwegian government is paying the $5m (Â£2.5m) construction costs of the vault, which will have enough space to house three million seed samples.

Dr Fowler said Svalbard, 1,000km (621 miles) north of mainland Norway, was chosen as the location for the vault because it was very remote and it also offered the level of stability required for the long-term project. “We looked very far into the future. We looked at radiation levels inside the mountain, and we looked at the area’s geological structure,” he told BBC News. “We also modelled climate change in a drastic form 200 years into future, which included the melting of ice sheets at the North and South Poles, and Greenland, to make sure that this site was above the resulting water level.”

Engineers – Changing Career Needs

Are US engineers up to the global challenge?

Does our existing pool of engineers have the skills for today’s jobs? “If technological change is moving faster, as most people claim, then the obsolescence cycles are probably getting shorter,” says Hira. Quoting William A. Wulf, president of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), Hira notes that the half-life of an engineer has gotten shorter. This means that continuing education is more critical for engineers than ever before. But the support mechanism of company subsidies has been largely dismantled because employees stay in jobs for shorter durations and companies no longer see benefit in paying tuition. It also means that companies, when they can, likely favor recent graduates over mid-career or older ones.

World’s Largest Dry-Transport Ship

Blue Marlin world’s largest dry-transport vessel:

For widening the beam of the Blue Marlin from 42 to 63 meter, 130 block steel sections were produced, which started on 2 May 2003 and finished at the end of October. The total weight was approx. 8,300 tons. The blocks were pre-assembled to bigger blocks before installation and the total number of blocks ready for installation in drydock was reduced to 58 blocks. The erection of the blocks in the drydocks started on 1 September 2003. The starboard blocks first. The middle blocks of each side were assembled in three units of each approx. 35 meter long. Each unit with a total weight of 800 to 1000 tons.

More sea giant photos – Photo – credit and larger image – Flying Luxury Hotel – 60 Acre (24 hectare) Spider Web – Giant Wasp Nests – Solar Tower Power Generation

Educational Institutions Economic Impact

I believe investing in creating an environment where science and engineering endeavors will flourish will greatly benefit the economy. Some previous posts discussing these ideas include: Great Engineering Schools and Entrepreneurism, Engineering Future Economic Success, Science Research and the Economy and China’s Economic Science Experiment.

Wisconsin’s effort is hardly unique, but I grew up in Madison and my father taught Chemical Engineering, Statistics, and more at the UW so I pay attention to the efforts in Madison. The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation has been one of the most successful attempts to take academic work and create successful business efforts to benefit the university, the professors and the economy overall. Their mission: “Moving inventions arising from the university’s laboratories to the marketplace for the benefit of the university, the inventors and society.”

Building Wisconsin’s Economy illustrates how the University of Wisconsin at Madison attempts to focus on creating economic benefit, which I think is a good idea. Economic benefit is not the only purpose, but it is worthy of focus.

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Zero Ink Printing

Zink – zero ink printing:

Dye crystals are embedded in the ZINK paper and are activated by heat from a ZINK printer. The crystals then colorize, producing high quality, long-lasting, durable, and affordable images.
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The ZINK printing technology will enable a new mobile printing market. Later this year, ZINK Imaging’s partners will launch the first products using ZINK technology. These products are designed to take printing where it has never before been possible – into the pocket of every camera phone and digital camera user.

This is from a company press release but it sounds interesting. A digital son of Polaroid:

The Zink technology also uses heat, but the dyes are embedded into the paper itself — hence the company’s name, which stands for zero ink. Bonded inside the paper are three dye layers, colored yellow, magenta, and cyan, a shade of blue. Properly mixed, these three colors can produce the entire spectrum. Each of the dyes is in crystalline form, and each is formulated to melt into liquid at a certain temperature.

A Zink printer pulls the special paper under a thermal print head. This device has hundreds of heating elements that can each heat a tiny portion of the paper. The Zink software controls the print head, so that its heat pulses activate the correct dye colors and produce the finished photograph. A single photo can be cranked out in about a minute, at a cost of about 25 cents.

Nanotech Engine Research

Tiny engine boosts nanotech hopes:

Scientists at the University of Edinburgh have created a tiny engine powered by light that can be made to sort molecules. The device may one day find a role in nano-scale machines. It emerged from research into similar tiny machines in nature that power well known processes such as photosynthesis.
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“We have a new motor mechanism for a nanomachine,” said Prof Leigh. “It is a machine mechanism that is going to take molecular machines a step forward to the realisation of the future world of nanotechnology,” he said. Because the rotaxane can be made to do useful work in a predictable fashion, ie sort particles, it could become a key component for anyone designing nano-scale device.

LEGO Sumo Robotic Championship

Lego Sumo Robotic Championship photo

DivX LEGO Sumo Robotic Championship – Round 2

DivX is a proprietary video player which can be downloaded for free. The quality of the videos is great which is offset by the annoyance of having to download another plugin to view the videos. The improved quality is quite nice though it does seem a bit buggy still. See more such videos via their No Screwdriver Needed channel.

via: Big Wheel Spikey – Lego Sumo Robotic Championship