Category Archives: Engineering

Building Nanotechnological Structures

New Nanotechnological Structures Reported for the First Time by Alex Lyda, Columbia News:

“You can think of nanocrystals as building blocks like the toy Lego, in which a larger structure can be assembled by locking in the pieces according to their shape and the way they prefer to join to each other,” O’Brien says. “Except all of this is on an incredibly small lengthscale — billionths of a meter.”

The Columbia/IBM team has borrowed ideas from the natural world, in which the right conditions can stimulate the slow growth of highly uniform structures out of miniature building blocks. Opals are an example of this phenomenon: opals consist of tiny spherical building blocks of silica packed into an ordered structure. In this new research, the materials used as building blocks are a variety of man-made nanocrystals with known useful magnetic or electronic properties.

“This work may lead to the development of an entirely new class of multifunctional materials in which there are cooperative interactions between the nanocrystal components,” says MRSEC director Irving P. Herman, also a professor of applied physics. “Moreover, the properties of these nanocrystals can be tailored during synthesis, and they can be deposited to form the desired ordered array by controlling particle charge and other properties. O’Brien’s study also demonstrates the value of vibrant collaborations between universities and industry.”

Video: Magnetic and Semiconducting Nanocrystals Can Self-Assemble, Says Stephen O’Brien, Columbia University

Filling the Engineering Gap

Filling the Engineering Gap by Vivek Wadhwa, an update on the previous post: USA Under-counting Engineering Graduates. In this article Vivek Wadhwa writes:

So what should be done? Further research is needed on a subject of such critical national importance. The Duke study was a small step toward establishing certain baseline facts and reliable statistics. As Professor Ausubel notes, if a team of engineering students can accomplish so much within a semester, why not the experts and analysts?

This is exactly right. We need better information. The Duke study was an excellent step in the right direction but more is needed.

Dynamic engineers develop renewable energy sources, solutions for purifying water, sustaining the environment, providing low-cost health care, and vaccines for infectious diseases. They also manage projects and lead innovation. Talk to any CEO, CIO, or engineering manager, and they’ll likely tell you that they’re always looking for such people.

With all the problems that need solving in the world, we probably need many more dynamic engineers. India and China need them as badly as the U.S. does. But by simply focusing on the numbers and racing to graduate more, we’re going to end up with more transactional engineers — and their jobs will likely get outsourced.

I am not convinced that this dynamic versus transactional engineering distinction is the key. I am willing to listen to more evidence. But I am not at all sure this “dynamic engineering” is the answer. I think it might be too simplistic an explanation. Still at least it is an attempt to look at the matter more deeply. I think much more effort would be helpful. And I am hoping those working on this at Duke, and others, provide us with some additional data, research, theories and proposals.

Oregon and Arizona Technology Economies

Ore. growing into tech rival, Jane Larson, The Arizona Republic:

The “Silicon Forest,” with barely two-thirds the population of the “Silicon Desert,” surpassed Arizona in 2003 as the nation’s third-largest state for semiconductor manufacturing jobs. The world’s biggest chip manufacturer, California-based Intel Corp., has grown from a few hundred employees at its Oregon outpost in the mid-1970s to become Oregon’s largest private employer.
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In Oregon, Intel has three chip-making plants and 15,500 employees. Its Ronler Acres campus in Hillsboro, started in 1994, has become the company’s largest and most complex site, with research into technologies still generations away; an experimental factory dedicated to developing the company’s new manufacturing processes; and a more traditional high-volume manufacturing plant.

The site is so cutting edge that, of the 14 Intel manufacturing plants worldwide, Oregon is where new manufacturing technologies are developed and rolled out to Arizona, New Mexico and other locations…

Mixing researchers, developers and manufacturing technicians in one location has proved powerful. Skywalks connect Ronler Acres’ research lab to its development factory and high-volume plant. That enables the various groups and Intel vendors to work side by side, screening new ideas, ramping them to the point where Intel knows it can produce good yields and then transferring the process to the high-volume factories.

“It’s one of the most amazing facilities anywhere in the world, and the leading research, development and manufacturing site of any semiconductor company,” Bob Baker, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s Technology and Manufacturing Group, told the summit. “It brings together the unique aspects of our path-finding, our research and development and our volume manufacturing capacity.”
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Both states still worry about shoring up their kindergarten-through-12th-grade education systems. Arizona, though, has the edge when it comes to engineering schools, the graduates of which feed the industry in both states.

Indian Institute of Technology Madras Engineering Festival

Shaastra 2005 – the spirit of engineering – ITT Madras, India. The main sponsor of the event was SAP, co-sponsors Google and GE, the media sponsor was the Hindu Express. One more indication of how international the world has become.

Spread over a period of five days in the month of October, Shaastra is a veritable engineer’s paradise where fervent enthusiasts participate in intense contests, witness spectacular demonstrations, assimilate world-class lectures, avail of informative workshops and do much more.

Chennai online article on Shaastra:

Competitions are the mainstay of Shaastra, but most competitions here are hands-on, requiring participants to actually create something using their engineering skill to meet particular objectives. This time, participants can try their hand at making missiles to hit a particular target or make programs to hack into a secure system. For the first time, a competition especially for inventors – students will have to create hardware design to solve any real life problem…this could be anything, from the mundane (automatic back scratchers) to the sophisticated (jet propelled race cars!).

The ethos of IIT has always been to engineer for society. Shaastra takes up the cudgels for the less favoured by encouraging engineering design solutions to real life problems posed by the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) which encourages invention in the rural areas to target local difficulties. Winners of the ‘Engenious’ competition will even be funded by NIF to get their product in a marketable form!

2006 Draper Prize for Engineering

Draper Prize for Engineering Medal

2006 Charles Stark Draper Prize Won by Inventors of Charge-coupled Devices

The 2006 Charles Stark Draper Prize will be presented by the National Academy of Engineering to the inventors of charge-coupled devices (CCDs), Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith, on Feb. 21 in Washington , D.C. Boyle and Smith will share the $500,000 prize for inventing CCDs, which are imaging sensors or optical elements that convert light to digital data. CCDs are widely used in consumer products, such as camcorders and cell phone cameras, as well as in advanced electronic imaging tools, such as telescopes and imaging satellites.

CCDs are the first practical solid-state imaging devices. They were invented in 1969 by Boyle and Smith while working at Bell Laboratories. Because CCDs are silicon-based devices, they are fairly inexpensive to produce, compact, and fairly rugged, making them suitable for commercial product use. Their high sensitivity, excellent stability, and lack of distortion make CCDs attractive for use in scientific research imaging systems. CCDs are capable of imaging a variety of sources, including optical, x-ray, ultraviolet, and infrared emissions.

Administered by the National Academy of Engineering, the Draper Prize is endowed by The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc., and was established in 1988. The Prize is awarded for outstanding achievement, particularly innovation and reduction to practice, in engineering and technology contributing to the advancement of the welfare and freedom of humanity. The Prize honors the memory of Draper Laboratory’s founder, Dr. Charles Stark Draper, who pioneered inertial navigation. It is intended to increase public understanding of the contributions of engineering and technology. Originally biennial, the Prize is now awarded annually.

Previous years awards include:
2002: Dr. Robert S. Langer for extraordinary contributions to the bioengineering of revolutionary medical drug delivery systems
2001: Drs. Vinton Cerf, Robert Kahn, Leonard Kleinrock, and Lawrence Roberts for the invention of the Internet

China’s Economic Science Experiment

The Great Chinese Experiment, Horace Freeland Judson, MIT Technology Review. China is betting its economic health on becoming a world leader in the sciences. But will it succeed? This long detailed article provides insight into the challenges, practices and potential for China’s economy and scientific innovation going forward.

“The major scientific program running right now in China is this one, called 97-3 Program,” Professor Cao said. “A major huge program to catch up with the scientific development of the whole world. Started in 1997, March. This program is for basic research. According to the needs of the nation.” Technological applications? Or basic science? “Both,” she said with a sharp nod. The goal is split in two? “Yes,” she said. “I think that the major scientific program is the whole-world program. Not just for China. The second is the urgent requirement for our country’s social and economic development.”

The 97-3 Program concentrates research in six areas, agricultural biotechnology, energy, informatics, natural resources and the environment, population and health, and materials science. Cao’s own concern is with population and health. In this area the research is divided into 20 fields. She took me through them with the aid of a 33-page position paper she had put together in anticipation of my visit. The list is diverse, the projects ambitious. Yet even the most basic research — in stem cells, for example — has been defined in terms of immediate applications.

Information on the China 973 basic research program from the Chinese government’s web site:

Stipulation and implementation of the 973 Program is an important decision of our country to carry out the two development strategies of ” Rejuvenating the country through science and technology ” and ” sustainable development”, as well as to further reinforce basic research and science and technology work. It is an important measure of our country to achieve the great objectives of China’s economic, scientific & technology, and social development by 2010-2050 , to upgrade the sustainable S & T innovative capabilities and to meet the challenges of the new century.

While the engineering credentials of China’s leadership is noted often, it is still interesting to note that China’s 9 senior government officials are all engineers. A Technocrat Riding a Wild Tiger:

When China’s leaders meet with Hu each week in Beijing’s government district, Zhongnanhai, they could spend hours discussing cables, switches, tool-making machines and control devices. That’s because every one of them has a degree in engineering. The president himself, the son of a tea merchant from Jiangsu Province, trained to build hydroelectric power stations, while the others hold degrees in electrical engineering, metallurgy and geology.

Indian Institute of Technology – Female Students

Women at IIT an endangered species, Anjali Joseph, Times of India:

Women students in IIT Mumbai are a tiny percentage. “There are 34 girls and over 500 boys in our year,” says first year civil engineering student Vidushi Jain.

‘Women engineers are on increase’, Express India:

There is a ‘spectacular’ increase in the number of girls entering engineering courses in the country for the last three and a half decades but the northern India has still to catch up, Prof S P Sukhatme, former chairman, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, said.
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From a mere one girl student, who was admitted at the University Department of Chemical Technology, Mumbai, in early 1970s, the number of girls joining engineering colleges has steadily increased and in 2005 it stands at 15 per cent of the total admission, Sukhatme said.

The women engineers were mostly specialised in electrical civil, computer and information technology, it added.

The revolution in women joining engineering courses was witnessed mostly in the southern states starting with Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, ‘the northern India with an exception of Delhi, has to improve its position’.

Indian Institute of Technology – Bombay

Self-Assembling Cubes Could Deliver Medicine

Nanocubes photos

Tiny Self-Assembling Cubes Could Carry Medicine, Cell Therapy – News Release from Johns Hopkins (pdf format)

Details of photos: “Scanning electron microscopy images of image of (A) a hollow, open surfaced, biocontainer, and (B) a device loaded with glass microbeads. (C) Fluorescence microscopy images of a biocontainer loaded with cell-ECM-agarose with the cell viability stain, Calcein-AM. (D) Release of viable cells from the biocontainer.”

Johns Hopkins researchers have devised a self- assembling cube-shaped perforated container, no larger than a dust speck, that could serve as a delivery system for medications and cell therapy.

When the process is completed, they form a perforated cube. When the solution is cooled, the solder hardens again, and the containers remain in their box-like shape.

“To make sure it folds itself exactly into a cube, we have to engineer the hinges very precisely,” Gracias said. “The self-assembly technique allows us to make a large number of these microcontainers at the same time and at a relatively low cost.”

Gracias and his colleagues used micropipettes to insert into the cubes a suspension containing microbeads that are commonly used in cell therapy. The lab team showed that these beads could be released from the cubes through agitation. The researchers also inserted human cells, similar to the type used in medical therapy, into the cubes. A positive stain test showed that these cells remained alive in the microcontainers and could easily be released.

And they are “always on the lookout for exceptional and highly creative undergraduate, graduate students and post-doctoral candidates” – maybe you.

National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship

The deadline for applying for the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship is January 6, 2006. Some details:

The US Department of Defense will pay the fellow’s full tuition and required fees (not to include room and board). In addition, fellows receive (if in school 12 months):

Period	First Year	Second Year	Third Year
Amount	$30,500	$31,000	$31,500

The above amounts are based on a 12-month academic year. If the fellow is not enrolled in an institutionally approved academic study and/or research activity during the summer months, financial support will be paid only while enrolled.

From 2003 to 2005, 466 awards were granted out of 8,679 applications – see more details.

“You are required to enroll in a full-time graduate program at a U.S. institution offering doctoral degrees in your discipline of study. Fellowships are awarded to applicants who intend to pursue a doctoral degree. You do not have to be accepted into a program at the time your application is submitted. However, should you be selected, the award is contingent upon your admission to a suitable program.”

“NDSEG Fellowships are intended for students at or near the beginning of their graduate studies in science or engineering. Applicants must have received or be on track to receive their bachelor’s degrees by Fall 2006. Fellows selected in Spring 2006 must begin their fellowship tenure in Fall 2006.”

To apply and for more details see the NDSEG web site.

Awards provided to applicants who will pursue a doctoral degree in, or closely related to, an area of DoD interest within one of the following disciplines:

* Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering
* Biosciences
* Chemical Engineering
* Chemistry
* Civil Engineering
* Cognitive, Neural, and Behavioral Sciences
* Computer and Computational Sciences
* Electrical Engineering
* Geosciences
* Materials Science and Engineering
* Mathematics
* Mechanical Engineering
* Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
* Oceanography
* Physics

Most IT Jobs Ever in USA Today

Blue Skies Ahead for IT Jobs by Maria Klawe (dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science and a professor of computer science at Princeton University) in CIO magazine:

Contrary to popular belief, career opportunities in computer science [in the USA] are at an all-time high.
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The latest figures from the U.S. Department of Labor show that the number of computing-related jobs has surpassed the previous peak in 2000. What is more, computing-related jobs are no longer an isolated component of American industries; IT underpins every function of the business community—market research, product design, finance, strategic planning, environmental issues—every aspect of doing and leading.

Looking at the actual data, is becoming a theme through many of our posts recently. Many believe IT opportunities are decreasing, but the labor department data shows this is not the case.

The preparation we need starts in grades K-12, when many students turn away from math and science. A key problem is that children receive very little exposure to real projects and careers in engineering and applied science.

The idea that the education system is a key to creating a supply of capable workers is widely recognized. Now we just need to actually making the changes people are talking about. This article gives a number of interesting suggestions.

At Princeton, a new integrated course that combines computer science, biology, physics and chemistry has attracted several women to major in computer science.

Information Technology has become integral to most significant efforts in most organizations today. Organizations need, IT engineers to work in cooperation with other experts to implement solutions.