Category Archives: Engineering

Global Engineering Education Study

Global Engineering Education Study includes a great deal of useful information. Universities partnering in the study include: Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany; Georgia Institute of Technology, USA; MIT, USA; Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China and University of Tokyo, Japan.

This unique collaboration will study the influence and importance of technological expertise and education on the competitiveness of nations, people, and companies. At the heart of this initiative is a comprehensive study designed to reflect a broad spectrum of topics dealing with all aspects of engineering and natural sciences.

Recommendations include:

  • Global competence needs to become a key qualification of engineering graduates
  • Transnational mobility for engineering students, researchers, and professionals needs to become a priority
  • Global engineering excellence depends critically on a mutual commitment to partnerships, especially those that link engineering education to professional practice
  • Research on engineering in a global context is urgently needed

Related: The World’s Best Research Universities – Innovative Science and Engineering Higher Education – Science and Engineering in Global Economics

Nanoscale Images Using an X-ray Laser

Scientists capture nanoscale images with short and intense X-ray laser

Using the free-electron laser at Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg, Livermore scientists, as part of an international collaboration led by LLNL’s Henry Chapman and Janos Hajdu of Uppsala University, were able to record a single diffraction pattern of a nanostructured object before the laser destroyed the sample. A Livermore-developed computer algorithm was then used to recreate an image of the object based on the recorded diffraction pattern. This “lensless” imaging technique could be applied to atomic-resolution imaging because it is not limited by the need to build a high-resolution lens. The flash images could resolve features 50 nanometers in size, which is about 10 times smaller than what is achievable with an optical microscope.

Nanotechnology Research

Brave nano world by Nate Birt:

At the federal level, the National Nanotechnology Initiative has requested more than $1 billion for nanotechnology research and development in 2007. The initiative is a network of 25 federal organizations, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Defense, that fund nanotechnology research at their own labs and at universities around the country, including MU.

Former President Bill Clinton started the initiative in 2000, and it became a part of the federal budget in fiscal 2001. Back then, the federal government spent an estimated $464 million on nanotechnology

Related: MIT Energy Storage Using Carbon Nanotubes – Nanotechnology Overview – R&D Spending in USA Universities

Science and Engineering Graduate Data from NSF

NSF presents a large amount of data on the Characteristics of Recent S&E Graduates: 2003. The data covers undergraduates and graduates in 2001 and 2002. The report shows 937,700 bachelor’s graduates (*682,200 in science fields; 112,300 in engineering; and 143,300 in health care). And 246,700 master’s graduates (117,000 science; 47,000 engineering; 82,700 health).

Median 2003 salary for 2001 and 2002 bachelor’s graduates:

all science: $32,000
all engineering: $50,000

Some of the specific areas median salaries: computer and information sciences $60,000; electrical/computer engineering $70,000 and industrial engineering $70,000.

2003 median salaries for 2001 and 2002 masters graduates:

all science: $45,000
all engineering: $65,000

* the report totals do not exactly add do to rounding estimates by NSF.

Related: Top degree for S&P 500 CEOs? Engineering – Science and Engineering Degrees – Career Success – Lucrative college degrees

World Robot Olympiad

This year 195 teams from 17 countries (mainly from Asia) will participate in the World Robot Olympiad next week. The World Robot Olympiad brings together young people to develop their creativity and problem solving skills through challenging and educational robot competitions.

Brunei’s bid to make history at World Robotics Olympiad

Related: Lego Learning – For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) – Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology – La Vida Robot

Australia Student Formula One Engineering Competition

On November 8 2006 four students from Laverton Secondary College, Victoria, Australia, won the national final of the Formula One Competition held in Brisbane. They will now represent Australia internationally. In 2005 students from the same school, Laverton Secondary College, were runners up in the national competition. The National winners of that year went on to win the international final. Laverton students and staff will be keenly watching their team’s performance in the international event which will be held in Melbourne this time. Last year’s international competition was held in the UK.

Comment sent to us from Jan Van Dalfsen

Mini-F1s take over Technology Park:

“We give them a kit that has a rectangular shaped piece of balsa wood inside it, then the task for them is to design the car in the context of the piece of balsa wood, using CAD software, and having that car machined in a computer-controlled milling machine and then they can test it in wind tunnels and all sort of other exciting gear,”

Related: Formula One Race Car Engineering by Students – Intel Science Talent Search Results – For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST)

Engineering Outsourcing Effects

A Business Week article discusses two Duke studies of Engineering jobs in the USA and world: Outsourcing: Job Killer or Innovation Boost?

One finds that companies are going offshore because they are desperate for talent and are shifting more complex work to nations such as India and China for strategic reasons. The other Duke study concludes that the offshoring phenomenon is all about cost and that there is no shortage of engineers in the U.S. Therefore, the labor shift is coming at the expense of U.S. jobs.

Related: blog posts on science and engineering careers – USA Engineering Jobs – House Testimony on Engineering Education – Filling the Engineering Gap – USA Under-counting Engineering Graduates

The Silent Aircraft Initiative

Conceptual aircraft image

Silent Aircraft gives young engineers a flight of fancy:

these students are not undergraduates. They are budding young engineers, aged 13 to 18, taking part in a three-month design challenge with Cambridge’s Engineering Department to tackle aircraft noise. Working in teams, the students – from schools and colleges across the country, from Bristol to Sheffield – are doing a project related to the Cambridge-MIT Institute’s Silent Aircraft Initiative. This initiative links researchers at Cambridge and MIT with industrial partners to design a radically quieter passenger plane, and includes research into ways to reduce the noise from the undercarriage – one of the major noise sources on a landing aircraft. So this challenge has tasked these young students to design, and make a model of, a quieter undercarriage.

Related: The Silent Aircraft Initiative – Engineering the Boarding of Airplanes – Flying Luxury Hotel – The birth of a quieter, greener plane

The Silent Aircraft Initiative (SAI) team has succeeded in coming up with a radically quieter plane. Crucially, the SAX-40 is also 35% more fuel-efficient than any airliner currently flying.