Category Archives: Engineering

New Engineering School for England

Plans were announced to create a new kind of school, funded equally by Inventor James Dyson and the English Government. In the words of James Dyson, (Dyson school ‘to boost engineers’):

“Our choice now is either to see Britain’s jobs of tomorrow vanish to Mumbai or Shanghai or to educate the next generation in the skills of invention and business-building.”

The Dyson School of Innovation and Design will open in Bath in 2008.

The 14 to 16-year-olds at the school, due to open in 2008, would attend one day a week while those aged 16 to 18 would attend full-time.

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Cash Awards for Engineering Innovation

This article discusses the recent explosion of cash awards to encourage development of engineering solutions. Want innovation? Offer cash (page deleted by external site – poor usability):

In the early 20th century, prizes in the aviation and automotive worlds were common. Sometimes they were awarded for incremental progress, other times for breakthroughs like the Lindbergh flight.

Wind Power Technology Breakthrough

China Makes Huge Breakthrough in Wind Power Technology by Zijun Li:

Chinese developers unveiled the world’s first full-permanent magnetic levitation (Maglev) wind power generator at the Wind Power Asia Exhibition 2006 held June 28 in Beijing, according to Xinhua News.
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The Maglev generator is expected to boost wind energy generating capacity by as much as 20 percent over traditional wind turbines. This would effectively cut the operational expenses of wind farms by up to half, keeping the overall cost of wind power under 0.4 yuan (5 cents US), according to Guokun Li, the chief scientific developer of the new technology. Further, the Maglev is able to utilize winds with starting speeds as low as 1.5 meters per second (m/s), and cut-in speeds of 3 m/s, the chief of Zhongke Energy was quoted as saying at the exhibition. When compared with the operational hours of existing wind turbines, the new technology will add an additional 1,000 hours of operation annually to wind power plants in areas with an average wind speed of 3 m/s.

Toyota Robots

photo of Toyota partner robot

Toyota Announces Overview of “Toyota Partner Robot”

Toyota wants its partner robots to have human characteristics, such as being agile, warm and kind and also intelligent enough to skillfully operate a variety of devices in the areas of personal assistance, care for the elderly, manufacturing, and mobility. Furthermore, since each area requires a special set of skills, Toyota is promoting the development of three different types of partner robots (walking, rolling, and mountable), each with its own areas of expertise.

Read posts about the Toyota Productions System (TPS) on the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog.

Others are making progress on human like robots including Sony and Honda. See Sony QRIO Robots in action in this flash video below:

And read more about Honda Robots: ASIMO and P3.

The Future is Engineering

Do Great Engineering Schools Beget Entrepreneurism? by Brent Edwards provides two great links.

How to Kick Silicon Valley’s Butt by Guy Kawasaki:

Focus on educating engineers. The most important thing you can do is establish a world-class school of engineering. Engineering schools beget engineers. Engineers beget ideas. And ideas beget companies. End of discussion.

If I had to point to the single biggest reason for Silicon Valley’s existence, it would be Stanford University—specifically, the School of Engineering. Business schools are not of primary importance because MBAs seldom sit around discussing how to change the world with great products.

Why Startups Condense in America:

You need a great university to seed a silicon valley, and so far there are few outside the US. I asked a handful of American computer science professors which universities in Europe were most admired, and they all basically said “Cambridge” followed by a long pause while they tried to think of others. There don’t seem to be many universities elsewhere that compare with the best in America, at least in technology.

Both essays make many excellent points – read them! Continue reading →

Global Share of Engineering Work

Keeping U.S Leadership In Engineering by Pradeep Kholsa

Interesting statistic:

A decade ago, close to 40 percent of total engineering work hours were based in the U.S. Current predictions are that by 2010, only about 10 percent of those work hours will be in the U.S.

I would like to see more supporting evidence for those figures. I am confident the projected direction is correct I just wonder about the supporting evidence for the actual percentages. I do not believe the engineering graduate statistics quoted in the next sentence:
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Reforming Engineering Education by NAE

Reforming Engineering Education – National Academy of Engineering (NAE). The Summer 2006 issue of the The Bridge includes the following articles:

  • The “Value-Added” Approach to Engineering Education: An Industry Perspective by Theodore C. Kennedy
    • When I hire someone today, I look for different skills than I did 10 years ago. Today, it is not unusual for good candidates to have global references and experience on projects and assignments around the world. I think we must prepare our graduates for that type of career, because they aren’t likely to spend their careers working in one company, or even in one country. And they must become advisors, consultants, managers, and conceptual planners much more quickly than they did a few years back.

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Tour the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Lab

Robert Scoble videotaped his visit to the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Lab and posted the video to Microsoft’s channel 9 – which has quite a few interesting videos.

They have some of the coolest people I’ve ever met and the robotics might surprise you (two of the students were building soccer-playing robots on top of Segways, other students were building surgery tools, really great stuff).

More robotics webcasts from Channel 9.

Swimming Robot Aids Researchers

Swimming Robot

Swimming Robot Tests Theories About Locomotion in Existing and Extinct Animals

An underwater robot is helping scientists understand why four-flippered animals such as penguins, sea turtles and seals use only two of their limbs for propulsion, whereas their long-extinct ancestors seemed to have used all four.

Don’t miss the video of the robot swimming and an informative interview with professor, John H. Long, Jr., Ph.D., who is researching with the robot.

More robot posts