Category Archives: Engineering

Robots Sharing Talents

photo of robots

Robot team-mates tap into each others’ talents by Tom Simonite

Teams of robots that can remotely tap into each other’s sensors and computers in order to perform tricky tasks have been developed by researchers in Sweden. The robots can, for example, negotiate their way past awkward obstacles by relaying different viewpoints to one another.
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“Our system allows robots to start with a task, extract which capabilities are needed and find out where to access them,” Lundh explains. “If you don’t have the capabilities on your own you have to search for them.”

The number of cool research projects underway today is amazing.

Image: Tapping into another robot’s vision system could help a bot move a block around (from Robert Lundh)

What do Science and Engineering Graduates Do?

NSF surveyed Science and Engineering graduates and provide some not too surprising results in: What Do People Do After Earning an S&E.

Most graduates use the science and engineering knowledge (even if they went on to get unrelated post-graduate degrees in say business, law or no post graduate degree). It seems approximately 20% report having managerial positions currently (excepting recent graduates who are less likely to be managers).

About half never earned another degree after their S&E bachelor’s. Although less than a third of these S&E bachelor’s recipients worked in occupations formally defined as science and engineering, S&E knowledge remained important across a much wider set of occupations. Indeed, nearly two-thirds of S&E bachelor’s degree holders in non-S&E occupations reported that their field of degree was related to their job.

About half of S&E bachelor’s degree recipients go on to earn other degrees. However, fewer than one in five of all S&E bachelor’s recipients go on to earn advanced degrees in science and engineering.

Frankly I find this information less interesting than: the continuing high pay of engineering graduates and the fact that the top undergraduate degree for S&P 500 CEOs is Engineering. It would be interesting to see salary rates (with lifetime earnings), unemployment rates and career satisfaction by undergraduate degree (compared to other undergraduate degrees) throughout their careers (NSF’s Science and Engineering Indicators – Workforce does include very interesting information along these lines).

Student Design Competition for Sustainability

The United States Environmental Protection Agency has opened the P3: People, Prosperity and the Planet Student Design Competition for Sustainability. This competition provides grants to teams of college students to research, develop, and design solutions to challenges to sustainability. See the application and more information for details on eligibility and criteria.

Approximately 50 awards for Phase I; Approximately 10 awards for Phase II with approximately $1,250,000 total for all awards.
Up to $10,000 per Phase I grant for one year including direct and indirect costs. Proposals for Phase I grants with budgets exceeding $10,000 will not be considered. Upon the successful completion of Phase I, Phase I grant recipients will have the opportunity to apply for Phase II funding of up to $75,000 for one additional year including direct and indirect costs.

Applications are due by 21 December 2006.

Chinese Engineering Education Shortfalls

Short article on Chinese engineering education – Many engineering majors not qualified to work by Rachel Yan

Experts made the claim at the Symposium of Multi- and Inter-Disciplinary Engineering Education at East China University of Science and Technology yesterday.
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Among the country’s 23 million college students, about 8 million are studying engineering-related majors.
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“In many aspects, China can be proud of its engineering education,” said Tu Shandong, vice president of ECUST.

“But an increasing number of employers began to raise the embarrassing question that engineering majors lack professional knowledge and have poor communication or teamwork skills,” he said.

Only 14 percent of engineering graduates become qualified engineers in the field. Most graduates give up a career as an engineer and pursue work in other industries within nine years, according to the university’s research.

The topic of graduates that are not internationally competitive continues to be discussed in relation to the international engineering education data comparisons (also see: Engineering Education Worldwide). Continue reading →

Google Tech Webcasts

Google provides video webcasts of speakers (engineers, scientists, software programmers, professors…) that present at Google. These videos offer a great way to take part in one aspect of work at Googleplexs.

Recent additions include:

The rate at which they add excellent videos is amazing. You might find yourself wanting to work at Google.

Previous post: Google Tech Talks also see Google related posts on our management improvement blog

20 Scientists Who Have Helped Shape Our World

20 Scientists Who Have Helped Shape Our World (pdf document) from the National Science Resources Center

Norman Borlaug, Plant Scientist”–Father of the Green Revolution”
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The results of Dr. Borlaug’s work are encouraging: India, for example, harvests six times more wheat today than it did only 40 years ago. This increase in wheat production in poor countries has been called the “Green Revolution.” It has been written about Dr. Borlaug that he has saved more lives than anyone else who ever lived.

For his scientific achievements, Dr. Borlaug was awarded the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize. Today, at age 90, Dr. Borlaug remains active in science as a distinguished professor of international agriculture at Texas A&M University

Others include:

  • Tim Berners-Lee, Computer Scientist—Inventor of the World Wide Web
  • George Washington Carver, Inventor/Chemist (1861−1943)—Saving Agriculture in the South
  • Ayanna Howard, Engineer—Robotics Pioneer, and

    • Continue reading →

    Science Opportunities for Students

    Girls in Science camping trip photo

    The Girls In Science blog documents a program for Roosevelt Middle School students in San Diego. It provides a great example of what can been done:

    Wow, what a year it’s been for our Girls In Science (GIS) program! In the span of one short school year, we met with 30 different presenters, covering topics from veterinary pathology to behavioral research to visual communication in primates to cytogenetics… We met sea lions, nearly extinct golden frogs, carnivorous plants, marsh birds, Mei Sheng the giant panda, Mexican gray wolves, and a black tarantula named Vivica. We dabbled in exotic animal nutrition, GPS mapping, and poop sampling. And we spent a glorious day at the La Brea Tar Pits learning about Southern California as it was during the last Ice Age!

    Virtually all of the scientists we met with were women, but we tossed a couple of males into the mix just for variety’s sake. One of them, Michael Puzzo, is a field biologist who tracks mountain lions throughout Southern California.

    Continue reading →

    Engineering at Home

    Home made air conditioner

    Kevin Kelly has started a new blog: Street Use. Street Use highlights home engineered technology solutions. Interesting stuff, and given the Kevin Kelly’s great ideas this blog should be interesting.

    Photo: Fan Hack:

    A guy takes copper tubing wrapped in a spiral around both sides of an electric fan. The tubing is connected (via cable ties) to an aquarium pump which circulates ice water held in a plastic storage bin beneath the fan. The fan then dispenses the cold into the room. A full set of pictures can be seen on the guy’s Flickr set.

    Similar posts:

    The Make blog (and magazine) would be of interest to those that like Street Use.

    Robots Wrestling, Students Learning

    Robots Wrestling, Students Learning by Jessica Marks:

    Building motorized robots and making them sumo wrestle is more than just fun – it’s also a way for high school and college students to get interested in engineering, and David Martinez, engineering department chair at College of the Canyons in Valencia, is dedicated to doing just that.
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    And it has been exciting for many of the students who took Martinez’s class over the summer – a class that was designed to give students an introduction to robotics and engineering.

    These students spent a majority of their 9-week class building a “Boe-bot” – a small “brain with wheels,” which the students modified – putting light sensors on them to detect shadows and “whiskers” to detect hard objects – so they could perform tasks, most of which were pretty complex.

    One group of students filed down part of the aluminum legs and made the Boe-bot creep around like a spider. It was able to climb the steep dirt embankment outside the class.
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    And while the students were having fun, they were actually learning high-end scientific and mathematical concepts.

    College of the Canyons is part of the California Regional Consortium for Engineering Advances in Technological Education (CREATE) project is a joint effort between seven community colleges and over 30 large high tech engineering/technology employers.

    Electrical Engineering Student

    I ran across Christian Montoya’s web site today, he is:

    a 20 year old Electrical Engineering student at Cornell University. I will graduate in May of 2007 with a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering. My main focus is digital circuit design and I am also interested in networks and statistical analysis.
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    I am currently looking for a job, preferably in Europe. I am studying in the U.S. and I am a U.S. citizen so finding overseas employment isn’t easy.

    I like the use of the blog to aid in finding employment. We see many warnings about how internet posting is going to harm students careers – but blogging can help your career. He also has a series of posts on life at Cornell, including: