Tag Archives: undergraduate students

Science Postercasts

I wrote about SciVee, over a year ago, saying I thought they could become a valuable resource. It has been taking longer to really get going than I thought it would but this new feature, Postercasts, is great. I am glad to see SciVee living up to my high expectation. Keep up the great work SciVee. The experience can still use improvement but this is a great start.

They have provided a tutorial on: How to Synchronize my Poster to my Video. I hope some of our readers try this out.

via: Interactive Virtual Posters

Related: Engineering TV – Science Webcasts – Magnetic Movie

Engineering a Better World: Bike Corn-Sheller

photo of bike maize sheller

More appropriate technology from MIT’s D-Lab.

D-Lab-developed device makes corn processing more efficient

Jodie Wu, an MIT senior in mechanical engineering, spent the summer traveling from village to village in Tanzania to introduce a new system for processing the corn: A simple attachment for a bicycle that makes it possible to remove the kernels quickly and efficiently using pedal power. The device makes processing up to 30 times faster and allows one person to complete the job alone in one day.

The basic concept for the maize-sheller was first developed in Guatemala by an NGO called MayaPedal, and then refined by Wu last semester as a class project in D-Lab: Design, a class taught by Department of Mechanical Engineering Senior Lecturer Amy Smith. Now, thanks to Wu’s efforts, the technology is beginning to make its way around the world.
…
Thus, the owner of a bicycle, with a small extra investment, can travel from village to village to carry out a variety of useful tasks. A simple bike thereby becomes an ongoing source of income.

Wu refined the corn-sheller system, which was originally designed as a permanent installation that required a bicycle dedicated solely to that purpose, to make it an add-on, like Kiwia’s tools, that could be easily bolted onto an ordinary bike and removed easily.

Photo shows the prototype of the attachment. Engineering that makes a significant difference in people’s lives (especially those that need it the most) is even cooler than the latest high tech gizmos in my opinion. And those new gizmos are cool.

Related: Design for the Unwealthiest 90 Percent – Appropriate Technology posts – Water Pump Merry-go-Round – Nepalese Entrepreneur Success – Tumaini Cycles blog (by

Loan Forgiveness Program for Engineering Students

Update (2011): sadly politicians decided though they can give billions in welfare to investment banks and billions in tax breaks to those giving politicians lots of cash they didn’t want to help out engineering students. I actually wouldn’t have a big problem with this decision (to not fund this program) if it was symptomatic of frugal actions by those we entrust with leading our government. Given how frivolously they reward those that give them lots of cash for their campaigns (or pay as soon as they and their staff take jobs with organizations they gave huge benefits to) I think not funding this very small cost is foolish. This is the type of program I think smart countries will adopt (the types of policies the SUA adopted in the 1960’s and lately countries like Singapore, Korea, China have been adopting to encourage science and engineering leadership for the next generation).

Engineering students would receive up to $10,000 in student loan forgiveness under legislation just passed by Congress that the president is expected to sign. The Higher Education Reauthorization and College Opportunity Act of 2008 creates a new program to provide financial incentives for professions in areas of national need including engineering.

Engineering students would qualify for up to $10,000 in credit against their outstanding student loan obligation following graduation and entry into the engineering, technology, applied sciences, or mathematics (and other areas too) workforce. The program authorizes up to $2,000 per year of schooling.

The legislation also includes the Robert C. Byrd American Competitiveness program (an adjustment to the existing program):

a Mathematics and Science Honors Scholarship program for students who are earning baccalaureate or advanced degrees in science, mathematics, or engineering and who agree to serve for five consecutive years in a field relevant to such degree; (2) a Mathematics and Science Incentive program under which the Secretary assumes the obligation to pay the interest due on FFELs and DLs by individuals who agree to serve for five consecutive years as highly qualified teachers of science, technology, engineering or mathematics within high need LEAs, or as mathematics, science, or engineering professionals

Malaysian Shrew Survives on Beer

photo of Malaysian tree shrew

Malaysian Shrew Survives on Beer

The shrew lives in the forest of Malaysia and feeds on the flowers of the bertam palm. Produced year-round and constantly fermenting, its nectar is about 3.8 percent alcohol — roughly equivalent to a Sam Adams light.

“Fine,” you say, “except that’s a light beer!” But cut the shrew some slack — it doesn’t eat anything else. Let’s see you subsist on nothing but beer, light or not, and stay sober.

That’s the shrews’ most amazing quality: they don’t get drunk. On any given night, said researchers in a study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, one-third of the shrews have a blood-alcohol level that would leave us under the bar — but there’s no evidence of intoxication.

Science Policy Research Virtual Intern

externs.com is another curiouscat.com web site that lists internship opportunities. I am surprised that virtual internships and externships have not grown much more popular in the last 5 years. Scientists and Engineers for America do have such a virtual internship:

Members of the first Scientists and Engineers for America (SEA) virtual intern class can be located anywhere in the world and will work remotely on specific SEA projects. Intern will research the positions elected officials and candidates for office take on science policy issues.

The internship is for between 10 to 20 hours per week and can be done anywhere, as long as you have a computer, internet connection, and telephone. The dates of the internship are flexible accepted on a rolling basis.

Also see the externs.com science internships and engineering internships. If you have an internship you would like included, please add it (there is not cost for the site, listing or using).

The Technology Job Market is Strong

Technology: It’s Where the Jobs Are by Arik Hesseldahl, Business Week:

Here’s a hint for high school graduates or college students still majoring in indecision: Put down that guitar or book of poetry and pick up a laptop. Study computer science or engineering
…
Seattle added a net 7,800 jobs [in 2006], followed by the New York and Washington (D.C.) metro areas, which added more than 6,000 jobs apiece. The fastest-growing area on a percentage basis was the combined metro area of Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif., which saw its tech-employment figures grow by 12%.
…
The highest concentration of technology workers – 286 for every 1,000 workers – was in, no surprise, Silicon Valley. Boulder, Colo., came in second, with 230, and Huntsville, Ala.; Durham, N.C.; and Washington rounded out the top five in density.

Now for the answer to the question on everyone’s mind: Where are the highest salaries? That would be Silicon Valley, where the average tech worker is paid $144,000 a year. That’s nearly double the $80,000 national average for tech jobs.
…
More than 850,000 IT jobs will be added during the 10-year period ending in 2016, which would be a rise of 24%. Add all the jobs that will replace retiring workers, and the total increase could be a tidy 1.6 million. That means one job in every 19 created over the course of the next decade will be in technology.

And while demand for tech-savvy employees is certainly multiplying, another survey, this one from the Computing Research Assn. and released in March, found a 20% drop in the number of students completing degrees in computer-related fields, and the number of students enrolling in these programs is the lowest it’s been in 10 years, as far back as the data go.

Cost Efficient Solar Dish by Students

Solar Energy Dish

Low-cost system could revolutionize global energy production

A team led by MIT students this week successfully tested a prototype of what may be the most cost-efficient solar power system in the world – one team members believe has the potential to revolutionize global energy production.

The system consists of a 12-foot-wide mirrored dish that team members have spent the last several weeks assembling. The dish, made from a lightweight frame of thin, inexpensive aluminum tubing and strips of mirror, concentrates sunlight by a factor of 1,000 – creating heat so intense it could melt a bar of steel.

To demonstrate the system’s power, Spencer Ahrens, who just received his master’s in mechanical engineering from MIT, stood in a grassy field on the edge of the campus this week holding a long plank. Slowly, he eased it into position in front of the dish. Almost instantly there was a big puff of smoke, and flames erupted from the wood. Success!

Burning sticks is not what this dish is really for, of course. Attached to the end of a 12-foot-long aluminum tube rising from the center of the dish is a black-painted coil of tubing that has water running through it. When the dish is pointing directly at the sun, the water in the coil flashes immediately into steam.

Someday soon, Ahrens hopes, the company he and his teammates have founded, called RawSolar, will produce such dishes by the thousands. They could be set up in huge arrays to provide steam for industrial processing, or for heating or cooling buildings, as well as to hook up to steam turbines and generate electricity. Once in mass production, such arrays should pay for themselves within a couple of years with the energy they produce.

“This is actually the most efficient solar collector in existence, and it was just completed,” says Doug Wood, an inventor based in Washington state who patented key parts of the dish’s design–the rights to which he has signed over to the student team.

Great job students. Good luck with RawSolar. Photo (by David Chandler): Matt Ritter shows steam coming from the return hose after passing through the coil above the solar dish.

Women Choosing Other Fields Over Engineering and Math

graph of science and engineering degrees by gender in the USA 1966-2005

The graph shows college degrees granted in the USA. This topic sets up one for criticism, but I believe it is more important to examine the data and explore the possible ideas than to avoid anything that might be questioned by the politically correct police. An import factor, to me anyway, is that women are now graduating from college in far higher numbers than men. And in many science fields female baccalaureate graduates outnumber male graduates (psychology [67,000 to 19,000], biology[42,000 to 26,000], anthropology, sociology [20,000 to 8,000]) while men outnumber women in others (math [7,000 to 6,000], engineering [53,000 to 13,000], computer science [39,000 to 11,000], physics [3,000 to 900]).

Data on degrees awarded men and women in the USA in 2005, from NSF*:

Field	Bachelors		Master’s		Doctorate
	Women	Men	Women	Men	Women	Men
Biology	42,283	25,699	4,870	3,229	3,105	3,257
Computer Science	11,235	39,329	5,078	12,742	225	909
Economics	8,141	17,023	1,391	2,113	355	827
Engineering	13,197	52,936	7,607	26,492	1,174	5,215
Geosciences	1,660	2,299	712	973	243	470
Physics	903	3,307	427	1,419	200	1,132
Psychology	66,833	19,103	12,632	3,444	2,264	211
Sociology	20,138	8,438	920	485	343	211
All S&E	235,197	230,806	53,051	66,974	10,533	17,405

What does this all mean? It is debatable, but I think it is very good news for the efforts many have made over the last few decades to open up opportunities for women. I still support efforts to provide opportunities for girls to get started in science and engineering but I think we have reached the day when the biggest concern is giving all kids better math and science primary education (and related extracurricular activities). Also continued focus and effort on the doctorate and professional opportunities for women is warranted.
Continue reading →

Engineering Sports at MIT

Making sports an exact science by Shira Springer

“It’s all about finding your passion,” said Vasquez, the group leader and a Material Science and Engineering major. “All the guys on the [project] team love sports. It’s more fun than what you typically think of with an MIT research project.

“There are very few sports companies that put value in good engineering, in terms of projects that make engineering sense rather than just marketing sense. When you get to see how your research can actually be used, it’s pretty cool.”
…
The MIT Sports Innovation program, though, was designed to give undergraduates hands-on research experience away from textbooks and classrooms. Working in a Building 17 laboratory cluttered with experiments, where the hum of the wind tunnel can make conversation difficult, the undergraduates brainstorm and build different components of the test setup.

Inside the laboratory and Aero/Astro hangar, the MIT baseball research project looks like a combination of shop class and horror flick: Power tools, quick-drying cement, PVC pipe, handsaws, and mannequin parts are scattered around.