Category Archives: Engineering

K-12 Engineering Education

Program aims to steer students into engineering (site broke the link so I removed it – poor usability):

Throughout the year, they will use the same tools that engineers use in the field to learn concepts of mechanics and simple machines.
…
Across the country, 27 universities have partnered with Project Lead the Way, a non-profit organization, to train high school and middle school educators planning to teach the program.
…
Helm said one student in the program in Texas designed a thin and flexible life vest to fit more comfortably over foul-weather gear worn by shrimpers on the Gulf Coast.

“The Coast Guard liked it so much they bought the idea from her,” she said.

Learn more about Project Lead The Way and see more posts on other such projects: Middle School Engineers (another post on project lead the way which includes many related links) – Directory of Science Education Sites – Engineering Education Program for k-12 – Inspiring Students to be Engineers

Singapore Engineering Week

Students at Singapore Engineering Week

See Singapore Engineering Week activities at Singapore Polytechnic. If you located in Singapore you can attend but even if not the site offers interesting ideas for others.

Events include: Fun with Small Practical Circuits where “participants will develop a project using basic electrical/electronic devices such as resistors, transistors, basic sensors, etc.”

Solar Toy Car where: participants will learn the principle of photovoltaic technology and build a mini-solar car through the hands-on exercise.

Engineering of Customised Foot Insole:

Currently, the static deformation or foot shape is used in customised insole design. However, such method cannot accurately describe the behaviour of the foot during locomotion as dynamic deformation differs significantly from static deformation. Participants will have the opportunity to determine the differences between static and dynamic deformation of the plantar tissue and how this information can be used to engineer customised foot insoles.

Google India Looking for Engineers

Google not finding right talent in India to suit its needs

Google, which is considered to have a very low attrition rate even in the high-job-hopping Indian IT space, has found it more challenging to hire certain talent in India as compared to other parts of the world, the company’s Founder-Director Kavitark Ram Shriram admitted recently.

The Indian origin founding board member of Google and a well-known venture capitalist said at an ‘investing in India’ conference in San Francisco, “I know first hand that we have had a bit more of a challenge trying to hire engineers for Google in Bangalore compared to the other parts of the world.”

Google even has a we’re hiring link on the Google India home page.

Recent articles also point to other companies having trouble finding Indian engineers to fill all the jobs they hoped to fill.

Inventor for Hire

Inventor for hire, Pioneer Press, Minnesota (update – sigh the newspaper removed the page, argh! poor usability):

Nicholas Powley, an MIT graduate, quit his engineering job at Guidant to work as a consultant and an inventor.
…
“My whole goal is to make my life user-friendly so I can devote all my time to thinking,” he said.

One of Powley’s former professors calls him a “nouveau nerd,” someone with not only the requisite engineering knowledge, but also lots of people skills and business savvy.

Woodie Flowers, an engineering professor at MIT for 40 years, said America needs more Nick Powleys if it is to succeed against overseas competition. Engineers can no longer be the equation-spouting geek loners in the back room, he said.

Good luck Nicholas. The combination of engineering knowledge and business acumen is exactly what drive economic success and why those striving for healthy economies try to create as many Nicolas’ as possible. The article is very good but why do people write such articles without links to relevant web sites site still? Learn more at the Open Design Forum web site.

Update, Jan 2007 (update – sigh the newspaper removed this page too, argh!):

Powley has been inundated with requests from ordinary people who want him to help them make their invention ideas become reality since he was profiled Oct. 15 on the front page of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. But he said one beguiling request came from a group of top executives and sales people in the health care industry who read the story about the MIT graduate: Come work for them as the head of research and development for a new medical products company they want to create in New York City.

“It was an offer I couldn’t refuse,” Powley said last week as he, his mother, his girlfriend and his business partner on a medical catheter cover he helped develop five years ago were driving to New York for a weekend business dinner. Powley said his partners want to remain unnamed for now. He was reluctant to say how much the position would pay him but he did say it was “fabulous.”

China Robot Expo

Teachers view a detective robot during the Robot Teaching and Research Seminar of Chinese Colleges and Universities in Beijing

2006 China Robot Expo

Robot research seminar held in Beijing (photo shown here): Teachers view a detective robot during the Robot Teaching and Research Seminar of Chinese Colleges and Universities in Beijing, China.

2006 China Robot Expo

Please comment if you know of other web resources on this meeting.

NSF $76 million for Science and Technology Centers

NSF Awards $76 million for 2006 Science and Technology Centers to spur interdisciplinary research.

Centers offer the research and engineering community an effective mechanism to undertake long-term scientific and technological research and education activities, to explore better and more effective ways to educate students and to develop mechanisms to ensure the timely transition of research and education advances into service in society.
…
Each center receives roughly $19 million dollars over 5 years, and if approved, receives an additional 5 years of support following a thorough evaluation.

Centers include: Layered Polymeric Systems at Case Western Reserve University and Multi-Scale Modeling of Atmospheric Processes at Colorado State University.

Green Energy

In Ontario, Making ‘Clean Energy’ Pay

Canada’s Ontario province has ordered local utility companies to pay homeowners or businesses for any electricity they generate from small solar, wind, water or other renewable energy projects, beginning next month.

The plan is unique in North America, but it is modeled after similar schemes in Europe that have spawned a boom in small “clean energy” projects.

One more example of green energy projects. Those planning for the future can see that such efforts are needed. And my guess is that those that develop solutions now will be rewarded in the marketplace. Europe and Japan are taking the lead in energy technology and as renewable energy (and energy saving technology) become more and more important those companies that have built up a expertise will benefit.

Autonomous Flying Vehicles

Photo of Flying Robots

MIT’s intelligent aircraft fly, cooperate autonomously

Each UAV is networked with a PC. The setup allows a single operator to command the entire system, flying multiple UAVs simultaneously. Moreover, it requires no piloting skills; software flies the vehicles from takeoff to landing.

The vehicles in MIT’s test platform are inexpensive, off-the-shelf gadgets; they can be easily repaired or replaced with a new vehicle, just as might happen in a real-world scenario involving numerous small UAVs on a long-term mission. The researchers can thus experiment constantly without concern for mishaps with expensive equipment.
…
In addition, the team recently achieved a milestone in autonomous flight: landing on a moving surface. Using “monocular vision,” one of the quadrotors successfully landed on a moving vehicle — a remote-controlled lab cart. A video camera fastened to the UAV uses a visual “target” to determine in real time the vehicle’s distance relative to the landing platform. The ground station then uses this information to compute commands that allow the UAV to land on the moving platform. This technology could enable UAVs to land on ships at sea or on Humvees moving across terrain.

More cool stuff: La Vida Robot – Autonomous Vehicle Technology Competition – Robot Football (Soccer) – More Unmanned Water Vehicles

Gel Stops Bleeding in Seconds

Self-assembling gel stops bleeding in seconds by Robert Adler:

Swab a clear liquid onto a gaping wound and watch the bleeding stop in seconds. An international team of researchers has accomplished just that in animals, using a solution of protein molecules that self-organise on the nanoscale into a biodegradable gel that stops bleeding.
…
Their work exploits the way certain peptide sequences can be made to self-assemble into mesh-like sheets of “nanofibres” when immersed in salt solutions.
…
Still, they caution that extensive clinical trials are needed to make sure the materials work properly and are safe. The MIT researchers hope to see those crucial human trials within three to five years.

Data on Grad Students

Diversity Up for Grad Students provides some interesting stats. Among the most interesting is that Engineering grad students in the USA are 52% USA citizens and permanent residents while overall 84% of grad students are (other fields, for example, health sciences 92%, business 83%, biological sciences 83%).