Great Moonbuggy Race – Huntsville Center for Technology High School and Pittsburg State University win their divisions.
More from the NASA education site
Previous posts about science fairs, engineering challenges, science competitions, etc.
MIT is not the first school to come to mind when discussing athletics. However, the MIT Center for Sports Innovation (CSI) is making news. The CSI mission is to expand the students’ learning experience by involving them in the development of sports technology and products.
One project at the Center is a wind tunnel used for bicycle testing:
It is great to see student projects with such success.
Not bad, considering that Cote, 21, is still an undergraduate.
Increase in work has companies hunting for engineers by Molly McMillin:
But if he can’t find enough high-quality, experienced engineers in Wichita, Greer said he will contract with engineering companies outside Kansas.
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Cessna Aircraft hired 150 engineers last year and plans to hire 100 to 120 more in 2006.
Raytheon Aircraft expects to add more than 100 engineers in the next year.
Right now, both say they are finding the engineers they need.
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WSU, which has 155 to 160 engineering graduates in a year, is not graduating all the engineers Wichita needs, Toro-Ramos said.
Those who are graduating are getting multiple offers of employment, she said.
NASA has been increasing the use of challenges to encourage innovation along the lines they could use for their future missions. The NASA challenges now 9 open challenges including the: beam power challenge and the astronaut glove challenge.
These centennial challenges provide a small monetary award to encourage solutions to challenges.
Previous post: NASA Telerobotic Competition
Like to Tinker? NASA’s Looking for You by Noah Shachtman
Straight Out of Science Fiction: Organs Engineered in a Lab:
It marks the first long-term success of total-organ tissue regeneration, an area of medicine that until now was more the stuff of science fiction than clinical reality.
New membrane technology offers cheap drinking water from seawater
State-of-the-art desalination technology – more information on the memstill web site.
Related Posts:
Video podcast of amazing robot:
All sorts of robot news via the Robot Dreams blog, including RAYERD-X – The Magical Robot:
RAYERD-X web site (Japanese).
2006 FIRST Robotics Competition Regional Events in Philadelphia, Denver, Houston and more 30 March – 1 April.
Boston FIRST Robotics Event by Computer Science Teacher
One of the things I noticed this year was that the number of girls involved in FIRST continues to climb. At the Boston event three of the 44 teams were all girls. All of the teams seemed to have significant numbers of girls. People at FIRST say that there are upwards of 30% girls in the program. That could be better of course but it is growing.
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I highly recommend you drop in on one. FIRST has to be seen to really be understood.
See previous post: For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST)
The History Channel and Invent Now, announced the 25 semi-finalists of the Modern Marvels Invent
Now Challenge, a national competition that provides an opportunity for independent inventors to be recognized and to influence the ever-changing face of invention.
The semi-finalists, who hail from 17 states across the U.S. and range in age from 19 to 80, were chosen from nearly 4,300 submissions entered, a number that confirms that the inventive spirit in America is alive
and well. This spring, the Challenge will ultimately name the invention of one of these 25 semi-finalists as the 2006 Modern Marvel of the Year during Modern Marvels: Great Inventions Week on The History Channel May 24-27th.
Innvetions include:
Matthew C. Grossman, Student, Austin, TX – Shift Bicycle (shown in photo): This bicycle is intended to help small children learn to balance on their own without the crutch of training wheels and the worry of skinned knees. The bicycle features two rear wheels that are spread apart at slow speeds to provide critical stability, and as the rider gains speed, the two rear wheels merge together to act as one wheel until the rider reduces speed and consequently returns the bicycle to the two wheel configuration. More information on the bike: new bike design for toddlers wins international competition
Russell D. Keller, Truck Driver, Oklahoma, OK – Drag Vent: An air diversion device captures a flow of air from above a roadway vehicle and forcibly diverts the captured air to the center of the low pressure area at the rear of the vehicle, thus reducing the amount of drag force applied to the vehicle and increasing the vehicles efficiency of operation.
Randal J. Kwapis, Computer Engineer, New Boston, MI – Typhoon: The Typhoon is an everyday manual wheelchair that utilizes shock-absorbing technology to make the chair easier to propel over rough terrain like grass and gravel.
Find more information on the semi-finalists and the Modern Marvels Invent Now Challenge
GE global research’s Edison Desk blog provides interesting posts on the scientific and engineering research at GE. They provide interesting reading and, as I am sure is part of GE’s plan, let GE present their company in a positive light (so far the text is a bit too heavy on public relations spin, in my opinion, but it is still interesting). For example, Reaching for A High Penetration of Renewable Energy in The Grid:
and Your Movie Collection on a Single Disk: