EngineeringTeacher.com

First Day for Be An Engineer 2007

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 12:00:00 EST

Today was my first day back teaching engineering enrichment classes after an 18 month hiatus. You can probably tell from the date of the last post that not much has happened on this site since then. For my Super Saturday students, stay tuned. I'm working on a site facelift and will be posting regularly beginning this next week. Until then, it's great having you all in my classes and I'm excited about what we'll explore together over the next five weekends.

Great Start for Be An Engineer Fall 2005-6

Sat, 29 Oct 2005 12:00:00 EST

The Be An Engineer 2005-6 Fall Session started today and I had an absolute blast. I only hope the students enjoyed it half as much as I did. I'm impressed with the two groups and eagerly awaiting what these kids will accomplish over the six weeks.

The morning class (grades 2-4) found themselves working in the Model Shop of a toy company. They made great headway on their prototype Imagination Cards project, learning how to use Xacto knives and soldering irons in the process. The project has a few kinks but it introduces most of the tools and materials we'll be working with. I hope it serves as some imagination fodder and triggers some creative ideas from the kids. For those who picked the Lord of the Rings theme over Winnie the Pooh: you'll need to come up with five pictures related to features on the map. You can find them on the Internet and print them on a color printer or draw your own. Just remember that each picture must fit on a 2 1/2 inch by 3 1/2 inch card (same size as a Pokemon or baseball card).

The afternoon class (grades 5-8) started the session working for a company that makes interactive museum displays. Their assignment: prototype a display to educate visitors about the coming revolution in nanomedicine. The project: a paper/balsa model of a cell repair nanobot with lights that point out features when a membrane switch is pressed. We didn't get to soldering the electronics yet but I think the kids mastered the basic modeling techniques. Next week we'll do the electronics and finish up the project. This one definitely has a high impress-your-friends factor.

My thanks to the parents who jumped in and helped out today. I don't remember having so many parent helpers on day one of a class. The class works best when the kids see adults enthusiastic about the subject and what we're doing. My special thanks to the parents in both the morning and afternoon sessions who made special trips out to bring back drinks for the mid-class break.

I'm a bit remiss in getting the new Be An Engineer page in the Activities and Events section. I'll try to do that this week.

Nanotechnology Award for University of Cincinnati

Tue, 25 Oct 2005 12:00:00 EST

A group of researchers at the University of Cincinnati, my alma mater, have been awarded a National Science Foundation Nanotechnology Undergraduate Education grant. The grant, "Integration of Nanoscale Science and Engineering into Undergraduate Curricula", will fund a series of new lectures and lab courses designed to give students and overview of this new field. Nanotechnology touches a number of disciplines and the grant will fund a project that reaches across several colleges at the university.

Nanoscience and engineering deal with objects and phenomena in the range of the very small. A nanometer is about 40 billionths of an inch. At this scale, scientists and engineers are working with individual molecules and atoms. The goal is to build nanoscale machines and devices to create new materials, medical treatments and computing devices.

UC is heavily involved in nanoscience and engineering. The Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology performs research in nanophotonics, bioMEMS, nanobiosystems and nanoscale materials science. For more information, check out these links:

New Project and Activities Pages

Mon, 24 Oct 2005 12:00:00 EST

I've added two new project pages:

I also added a page for the young ladies of Girl Scout Troop 2998.

Drop-In Energy Generators for Emergency Relief

Fri, 21 Oct 2005 12:00:00 EST

You can't have watched the news this last month and not learned a great deal about disaster relief and emergency response. It's a subject I find engrossing not just from the human side but from the point of view of an engineer who sees problems to be solved.

I'm planning on doing segments on Green Engineering (applying engineering to solve societal problems) in my Be An Engineer classes this Winter. While doing research for the class I found the site for an innovative company, SkyBuilt Power.

SkyBuilt's engineers have designed a modular electrical power producing unit that doesn't require fuel, can be parachuted into place and assembled by two people in a few hours. The power source is flexible and can include combinations of solar, wind, fuel cells as well as fuel like natural gas and propane if supplies are available.

(More on the web site)

Engineering is Elementary

Thu, 20 Oct 2005 12:00:00 EST

Creative kids with interests in science, math and technology need books, videos and games that encourage those interests. A project called "Engineering is Elementary" is doing exactly that. The project team is producing a series of engineering storybooks and accompanying lesson plans, duplication masters and resource information for teachers. Here's a description of one of the storybooks from the project website:

"Yi Min: Materials Engineering and the Great Wall of China. Meet Yi-Min, a Chinese girl whose grandfather is a materials engineer. As she learns more about the history of the Great Wall of China and the efforts of her grandfather to help preserve the engineering wonder, she investigates some of the properties of earth materials and the technologies that have been developed over time to create walls. Readers are challenged to design and build their own miniature walls."

I recommend this site to parents as well as teachers. You can order the storybooks without the teacher-related materials and share them with your children. These look like great materials for homeschooling as well.

Here's the the link.

The Visual Elements Periodic Table

Wed, 19 Oct 2005 12:00:00 EST

Artists play an important role in science and engineering. "A picture paints a thousand words" and a talented artist who loves science can make a huge difference in people's abilities to grasp and understand new science and technology. While researching websites on the Periodic Table to help my daughter in her high-school chemistry class, I found the The Visual Elements Periodic Table.

Artist Murray Robertson has taken the periodic table and given it an artistic face that vastly increases the amount of information one can absorb while working with this mainstay of chemistry education. The art makes it an "experience" and I believe it increases the bandwidth of the knowledge download (mixing in an Internet metaphor). I recommend you check out the site. The Flash version of the Table is well worth the time to download the Flash Player plug-in if you don't already have it installed in your browser.

Engineering a Super-Clock

Wed, 19 Oct 2005 12:00:00 EST

Supercomputer designer and former Imagineer, W. Daniel Hillis has built a clock that will maintain perfect accuracy for 10,000 years. It tracks seconds, minutes, hours, days and year and accounts for leap years and other calendar quirks. To boot, it accurately tracks the orbits of six planets, Mercury through Saturn. The 10 foot tall clock is topped with a sphere where you can observe the realtive position of the planets. The lower half of the device is a mechanical binary computer. Called "The Clock of the Long Now" the current prototype is the latest of a series of clocks designed and prototyped over the last twenty years.

Why build such a clock? Mr. Hillis and the Long Now Foundation want to foster long-term thinking and planning. 10,000 years certainly qualifies. Incidentally, that's about the age of human technology.

Why is this clock posted on EngineeringTeacher.com? The need for time-keeping and tracking of celestial objects is one of the original drivers behind the development of science, mathematics and engineering. Many of the first truly-engineered devices were clocks or star-gazing tools. Our roots as engineers begin in this field.

Here are some interesting pages to visit for more info:

Image Courtesy of The Long Now Foundation

Growing Engineered Body Tissue On Demand

Wed, 19 Oct 2005 12:00:00 EST

British scientist, Robert Brown and his colleagues at the University College London have developed a method for growing tissues used for skin grafts in minutes instead of days. The BBC News reports that the scientists found they could accelerate the normally lengthy process by removing the water from the starting material using a process called plastic compression. The tissue they are growing is called collagen and it is important because it provides the structural support for skin, bones and tendons.

Engineers and medical researchers, working together, should be able to build on this discovery to create new methods for creating engineered tissue structures on demand. Imagine giving doctors the ability to generate the large amounts of tissue needed to treat burn victims in hours versus weeks. The patient will endure far less pain, the new tissues can be tailored to the unique requirements of each case and can even be engineered to make up for post-trauma conditions caused by massive burn damage.

Here's the link to the BBC News article.

New Page: Locust Corner Elementary Engineering Adventures 2005

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 12:00:00 EST

I've added a page for the after-school program at Locust Corner Elementary. You can check it out here and in the Sidebar.

EngineeringTeacher is Back On the Air

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 12:00:00 EST

If you are a returning visitor to EngineeringTeacher.com, you'll be pleased to know that the site is once again active. You can look forward to regular blog posts and updated Activities and Events. So why the hiatus since May? Summer started out with a series of four Engineering Adventures day camps at Queen of Angels Montessori school followed by another Engineering Adventures day camp for the children of employees of Xtek. The camps all went very well. Queen of Angels has already invited me back for next summer and wants me to do three weeks! Problem is I have about four weeks of vacation. Two I'm reserving for summer camps and the other two for family. I'm wondering if my employer would donate a week of my time as a community service?

I've lots of site updates. I need to update the Be An Engineer 2004-5 and Queen of Angels Engineering Adventures 2005 pages with summaries and thank you's. Xtek Engineering Adventures 2005 needs a page. Then there's new pages for a presentation at Bloomfield Elementary in the Spring and the Xtek Engineering Adventures 2005 summer camp. I just started an after-school program at Locust Corner Elementary, New Richmond School District, and need to get a page up for that. The young ladies of Girl Scout Troop 2998 are working on their Silver Service Award and I've been asked to help them out so I'll need a page for them as well.

With all the new activity this year I've decided I really don't like the site organization. The home page needs to be rewritten, the blog needs to be more prominent and I need to finally fill out the project pages. Much, much to do!

Engineers Without Borders

Fri, 01 Apr 2005 12:00:00 EST

In April of 2000, Dr. Bernard Amadei, Professor of Civil Engineering, University of Colorado at Boulder, visited San Pablo, Belize. The Mayan village of 250 people had no electricity, running water or sanitation. Dr. Amadei was asked to help design and install a water delivery system. The lack of facilities made this quite a challenge, but a team of professional and student engineers, working with the villagers, completed a system in May of 2001.

Dr. Amadei was so impressed by the potential of engineers helping solve world problems that he created Engineers Without Borders, an organization much like the much more well-known Doctors Without Borders.

Today, EWB is actively working on 80 projects in 35 countries. Half of the projects involve water delivery and purification and half involve renewable energy. There are student chapters in colleges and universities all over the United States and many schools are now drawing on EWB activities for design assignments.

The EWB website has a wealth of information about the organization, its projects and technologies.

Article About Xtek, Inc. In Today's Newspaper

Mon, 28 Mar 2005 12:00:00 EST

The Cincinnati Enquirer featured an article about Xtek, Inc., the company where I work, in today's paper. You can read the online version here. Pretty cool too see the company get some press. Xtek is a great place to work—being large enough to present lots of interesting problems for engineers to work on and small enough that you get to work on lots of different things.

I started with Xtek, Inc. as a Gear Engineer one year out of graduate school. Since then I've worked in nearly every aspect of engineering. Three years or so ago I made a career change and now work in the company's MIS department as a System Analyst. Currently, I do the design and programming for our web-based software and new custom engineering software.

Devious Alarm Clock Hides From You

Fri, 25 Mar 2005 12:00:00 EST

Engineers use science and technology to solve real-world problems. Some of those problems are more mundane than others. For example, consider the problem of waking up. If you're a deep sleeper like me you probably have trouble responding to your alarm clock. I'll often hit the snooze button several times before finally getting out of bed. Sometimes I'll accidentally turn the alarm off or hit the snooze button one time too many and I'll get up late.

Like any good engineer, MIT Media Lab Research Associate, Gauri Nanda, faced similar problems and devised a solution. Clocky is a smart, but devious, alarm clock. Once you hit the snooze button, Clocky rolls off the nightstand and finds a place to hide. When the alarm goes off again you have no choice but to get up and find Clocky so you can turn the alarm off. Clocky is even more devious in that it finds a new place to hide every day.

Learn more about Clocky and its inventor on the Clocky page on MIT's Media Lab website. Be sure to follow the "More Info >>" link.

1910 Interview With The Wright Brothers

Tue, 22 Mar 2005 12:00:00 EST

I love studying the history of engineering. It seems the characteristics of engineers and engineering have not changed with time, though the characters and their inventions are, of course, products of their times and cultures.

First-to-fly.com has an interesting page that recaptures a lost interview with the Wright Brothers from 1910. The interview is a fascinating peek into the personalities of these two famous engineers. Even more intriguing is the picture the interview paints of the world the Wright Brothers inhabited.

Here's the link:

Kate Carew's Interview

Queen of Angels Montessori Summer Camp Brochure

Mon, 21 Mar 2005 12:00:00 EST

Queen of Angels Montessori forwarded me a copy of the brochure for the summer camps this June. My camps are Engineering Adventures I and II, one each the week beginning June 13 and one each the following week. You can download a copy of the brochure from the Queen of Angels page.

New Howtoon: Bending Light

Mon, 21 Mar 2005 12:00:00 EST

There's a new Howtoon on Howtoons.org. This one shows you how to bend light with items you probably already have around the house. The experiment is fairly simple but it is a great illustration of the principles behind fiber optics. I may use this one for my summer camps in June.

Go to the Howtoons website to get a full-sized printable copy of the Howtoon.

Make: A New Magazine For Hobby Engineers

Sun, 20 Mar 2005 12:00:00 EST

O'Reilly & Associates has long been a favorite publisher of mine. They are famous for their "animal" books—solid technical references for computer programmers with a woodcut-like print of an animal on each cover. Now, O'Reilly is branching out with a quarterly magazine called Make. When I found out about the new magazine, I immediately subscribed, no questions asked.

I received the premier issue this week. The magazine is absolutely packed with do-it-yourself projects, tips and items of interest. My favorite feature is the set of articles on aerial photography using kites. I'm already sketching out plans to use this project in a future camp or Be An Engineer class.

The magazine is targeted at young males, 20-30 but seems to be appropriate for younger audiences. It's a must-have for every engineering hobbyist.

Get the premier issue at Amazon
Or, get a subscription

13 Things That Don't Make Sense

Fri, 18 Mar 2005 12:00:00 EST

The rate at which scientific and engineering advances are made with each coming year is nothing if not astounding. It's enough to discourage any young science or technology aficionado. After all, what will be left to discover or invent when you embark on your career?

My answer is: don't worry for a second. Each advance brings with it a whole new set of unanswered questions and exciting possibilities. This article in New Scientist, 13 Things That Don't Make Sense, does an excellent job of showing how much we find out we really don't know even as we learn more and more. The 13 things New Scientist lists primarily deal with questions about space and physics with a few biological questions thrown in.

The New Scientist article by no means lists all the unanswered questions of science and engineering and it would not be possible to do so. As I said before, each new science or technology always generates hosts of new opportunities for researchers and inventors.

Take for example the burgeoning field of nanomedicine, the technology of microminiature devices to explore and repair the human body. Think about how many new questions will arise as we open this new avenue for exploration. Or what happens when space is invaded by private companies and newcomer nations? How many new questions and problems will we discover when people start living, working and playing in space on a routine basis? What about the real exploration of the deep sea, Antartica or the Earth's interior?

It all comes down to this: each new frontier only serves to set our sites on the next one. Relax, learn as much as you can about the current frontiers and set your sites on the new frontiers that will be waiting for you.

Brazil Produces First Commercial Ethanol-Powered Plane

Thu, 17 Mar 2005 12:00:00 EST

Brazil can teach the United States a great deal about saving the environment and reducing the cost of transportation fuel. In response to the energy crisis of the 1970's, the Brazilian government launched a national ethanol fuel program. Ethanol is an alcohol fuel that is made from sugarcane, a major Brazilian agricultural crop. Ethanol burning engines pollute less than gasoline engines, the fuel is renewable where oil-based gasoline is not and ethanol is much less expensive than gasoline.

By the 1980's, ethanol became the dominant fuel for automobiles, trucks and busses in Brazil. Already, Brazil has hundreds of ethanol powered aircraft but no commercial craft burning the alternate fuel. The Brazilian firm, Neiva Aeronautic Industry, recently unveiled the EMB 292 Ipanema, a single-seat commercial ethanol-powered airplane. They have orders for 70 of the aircraft this year and demand looks strong into the near future.

I can't help but think it's ironic that a country we in the U.S. view as a developing nation is way ahead of us in green fuels. A lot of innovative engineering and technology is coming out of these "developing" nations.

Read more in this News.com Australia article.