Category Archives: Engineering

Engineering at Home

Home made air conditioner

Kevin Kelly has started a new blog: Street Use. Street Use highlights home engineered technology solutions. Interesting stuff, and given the Kevin Kelly’s great ideas this blog should be interesting.

Photo: Fan Hack:

A guy takes copper tubing wrapped in a spiral around both sides of an electric fan. The tubing is connected (via cable ties) to an aquarium pump which circulates ice water held in a plastic storage bin beneath the fan. The fan then dispenses the cold into the room. A full set of pictures can be seen on the guy’s Flickr set.

Robots Wrestling, Students Learning

Robots Wrestling, Students Learning by Jessica Marks:

Building motorized robots and making them sumo wrestle is more than just fun – it’s also a way for high school and college students to get interested in engineering, and David Martinez, engineering department chair at College of the Canyons in Valencia, is dedicated to doing just that.
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And it has been exciting for many of the students who took Martinez’s class over the summer – a class that was designed to give students an introduction to robotics and engineering.

These students spent a majority of their 9-week class building a “Boe-bot” – a small “brain with wheels,” which the students modified – putting light sensors on them to detect shadows and “whiskers” to detect hard objects – so they could perform tasks, most of which were pretty complex.

One group of students filed down part of the aluminum legs and made the Boe-bot creep around like a spider. It was able to climb the steep dirt embankment outside the class.
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And while the students were having fun, they were actually learning high-end scientific and mathematical concepts.

College of the Canyons is part of the California Regional Consortium for Engineering Advances in Technological Education (CREATE) project is a joint effort between seven community colleges and over 30 large high tech engineering/technology employers.

Electrical Engineering Student

I ran across Christian Montoya’s web site today, he is:

a 20 year old Electrical Engineering student at Cornell University. I will graduate in May of 2007 with a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering. My main focus is digital circuit design and I am also interested in networks and statistical analysis.
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I am currently looking for a job, preferably in Europe. I am studying in the U.S. and I am a U.S. citizen so finding overseas employment isn’t easy.

I like the use of the blog to aid in finding employment. We see many warnings about how internet posting is going to harm students careers – but blogging can help your career. He also has a series of posts on life at Cornell, including:

Promoting Science and Engineering

Sexing Up Science (broken link deleted) by Mac Margolis and Karla Bruning

Another article discussing the need to focus on science and engineering education in the USA and the United Kingdom. It is nice to see the Duke study has worked its way into most recent articles.

Being in the field “teaches you to be flexible and ruthlessly creative,” says Pearson. Indeed, Richard K. Miller, president of Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts, which graduated its first class in May, says it’s crucial to get students to think “outside the box” and work in teams. “Our future doesn’t depend on producing more engineers than China. [We] need more innovators,” he says. “Engineering is about invention.”

Engineering Projects in Community Service

Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) at Purdue University provides students the opportunity to apply engineering to provide real world solutions in the community (since 1995). Over 25 projects are underway including:

Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology – to design new software and hardware to spark the interest of girls in technology. Projects include: multimedia computer games; interactive and intelligent toys – the link includes downloadable games
Columbian Park Zoo – to design, build, deliver, and maintain engineering projects that will aid the Columbian Park Zoo in inspiring the community with an appreciation for the world’s animals.
Discovering Engineering Careers – to Develop portable, hands-on demonstrations of engineering principles and practice and web-based games that will spark interest in engineering careers among elementary, middle, and junior high school students and teachers.
Klondike Elementary School – to design custom educational products involving both hardware and software.

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R&D Spending in USA Universities

National Science Foundation, Division of Science Resources Statistics, Academic Research and Development Expenditures: Fiscal Year 2004, NSF 06-323 provides a view of R&D spending at universities in the USA.

Spending over the last 5 years in billions: $30.7 in 2000; 32.8; 36.4; 40.1 and $42.9 in 2004. For 2004 the funding source for the spending was:

Federal Government: $27.4
State and Local: 2.8
Industry: 2.1
Institutional: 7.8
All other: 2.8

Also for 2004 of the total $32.3 billion was for basic research and $10.6 billion for applied research and development.

The schools spending the largest amounts on R&D in 2004 and the spending in millions:

Johns Hopkins $1,375
UCLA 773
Univ of Michigan (all) 769
UW – Madison 764
UC – San Francisco 728
Univ Washington 714
UC – San Diego 709
Stanford 671

The publication includes a huge amount of data on current spending and historical spending.

More Unmanned Water Vehicles

The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International recently completed the 9th International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition [link broken, so it was removed].

City College built little sub that almost could by Ronald W. Powell:

The four-day event ended yesterday with the University of Florida repeating as champions and winning $7,000, and Duke finishing second and claiming $5,000.

Academic teams from 20 colleges and universities and one high school deployed their submersibles in a pool at Point Loma’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center and attempted to complete three underwater tasks. The crew from San Diego City College was among 11 teams to navigate its 22-pound vessel through a gate.

See: La Vida Robot (a great article on the Carl Hayden Community High Schools entry in the Marine Advanced Technology Education Center’s Remotely Operated Vehicle Competition last year).

While we have posted about several autonomous water robots lately don’t think water is the only place engineers are experimenting with autonomous robots. The Aerial Robotics Competition [link broken, so it was removed] offers bragging rights and possibly US $60,000 (if I understand the rules – see the full rules for details [link broken, so it was removed]). An idea for the competition can be seen from this excerpt:
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Girls in Science and Engineering

Best of Our Knowledge podcast from December 2005, Queens University in Ontario, Canada.

In this podcast they explore the Smith College summer science program for high school girls.

According to Smith College, 75% of the program’s graduates say it increased their interest in science and their confidence. Each summer girls spend a full month in research courses as varied as: Designing Intelligent Robots; Telescopes and Astronomical Imaging; and, Genetics and Ecology.

In my opinion this is exactly the type of program we should encourage. I think given the data on diversity in science and engineering we need to make some efforts to encourage under-represented groups. And programs such as this can help increase the diversity in the pipeline.

Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics on the air offers related podcasts online, including:
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$40 Million for Engineering Education in Boston

Bernard M. Gordon, is giving away $20 million each, for the engineering education and research at two major Boston institutions: the Museum of Science and Northeastern University. Science museum, NU to widen paths:

At the museum, the gift will expand the engineering focus in exhibits and educational programs aimed at motivating a new crop of American engineers and inventors. The money will be used to remodel a wing of the museum to house its two-year-old National Center for Technological Literacy, which seeks to boost engineering curricula in schools.

We previously have posted on the engineering education work of the museum and its president, Ioannis Miaoulis: k-12 Engineering Education and k-12 Science Education Podcast:

Gordon, an MIT graduate and a Tufts University trustee, had no previous connection to Northeastern, Freeland said. He said the philanthropist was attracted by the university’s emphasis on marrying research with practical applications.

NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRF) is now accepting applications (through early November). The NSF GRF is the largest and most prestigious graduate fellowship program for the sciences in the USA. Approximately 1,000 fellowships, which cover tuition and pay a $30,500 stipend for 3 years, will be awarded again this year. Previous winners include Sergey Brin, Google co-founder (he list winning in his 3 paragraph bio on Google’s site).

The main site for the NSF GRFP includes the solicitation with details on applying and eligibility etc.. I can’t figure out how you find the application from the main site but here is the link to apply for the fellowship.

Advice is available online for applying for the fellowship: How to Win a Graduate Fellowship, Advice for Applicants to the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and the University of Missouri provides a guide for completing an NSF FRF application.
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