These are the names of the 14 women who were killed on this day, 26 years ago, at École Polytechnique because they dared to be educated and trained as Engineers.
They lost their lives because a fragile man, whose name deserves no mention, couldn’t dare think that women deserved to be Engineers. He viewed Engineering as the realm of men, and men alone.
He was wrong.
Many of us in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics community take time today, December 6th, to remember what happened and reflect on the work which is still required to be more inclusive for women in these fields - in all professions, really.
I say it each year: To the women currently studying and working in STEM fields. You belong here. Some days you may not feel you do. Some days your colleagues and coworkers can make the school or work environment feel toxic. It is every bit your right to be working in these fields which you love and find interesting. You are every bit as qualified and gifted. It is a better world because you persevere.
When Jared Mauldin saw how his female peers were treated, he realized men and women in STEM are definitely not equal.
The senior in mechanical engineering at Eastern Washington University sent a letter to the editor of his school’s student newspaper, The Easterner, addressed to “the women in [his] engineering classes.” Mauldin’s introduction, in which he writes that he and the women “are in fact unequal,” seems problematic, until he explains why.
When I think back to my college orientation, I get hot flashes as I remember mortifying moments of inebriation, silly costumes, and an abundance of face paint. Luckily, the engineering students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology won’t grow old with embarrassing memories like mine, because for their orientation, they spent a week building a three-dip wooden roller coaster.
As I did some research into this, I found that there has been a tradition of roller coaster building on the East Campus since the year 2000, and when it petered out for a couple of years, three mechanical engineering students decided to end the hiatus. Ben Katz, Jaguar Kristeller, and Wesley Lau designed a roller coaster that was to be “bigger and better than ever,” and by the looks of this thing in the time-lapse construction video, it is made with some serious skill and creativity.
Hey so I am back after a short hiatus from staring a new job a few months ago and getting some home projects done. Expect to see more posts showing up on your dashboard here soon.
Also don’t forget there is a submit page to share interesting projects.
So I am an avid reader of Hackadayfor a long time now and they have been putting out a lot of great introductions to tools and processes to get makers up to speed on the resources that are available. This is just a splattering of links that I have found lately that you guys might be interested in.
Canadian engineering team Aerovelo just broke their own world record in the Eta, a recumbent bicycle fitted with a windowless, egg-like shell. Most of the incredibly efficient machine is built of carbon fiber. The engine is muscle, sweat and sinew – engineer Todd Reichert.
When Isis Wenger agreed to be part of a recruiting campaign for engineers, she never imagined she’d face the controversy that arose.
What exactly was it about this image that had people clamoring to dissect her involvement? Did she say something messed up about engineering? Did she do something offensive in her pose?
All of the hubbub is over what she looks like. Because she’s a woman.
Hackaday has done a terrific write up of the engineering behind the Othermill cnc machine. In the article, which is way too long to post, they compare it to another generic desktop CNC kit, but at the same time they point out all the key areas that the designers had to take into account in order to build the machine. One detail is the hdpe frame vs aluminum extrusion that results in greater machinabililty (yep, it is a word), lighter weight, and cheaper cost of goods. It’s a great demonstration of how engineering doesn’t happen in a vacuum. There are many factors that have to be taken into account like materials, vibrations, loose material, wiring, fasteners, cost of goods, and ease of use.
While Hackaday is mainly an electronics and software blog, they occasionally branch out into the mechanical area. Definitely check it out.
Note: Just like Hackaday, we have not received any form of compensation for posting this from Othermill, I just think its a well designed machine.
This is a guest post. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not represent positions of IEEE Spectrum or the IEEE.
The simple task of picking something up is not as easy as it seems. Not for a robot, at least. Roboticists aim to develop a robot that can pick up anything—but today most robots perform “blind grasping,” where they’re dedicated to picking up an object from the same location every time. If anything changes, such as the shape, texture, or location of the object, the robot won’t know how to respond, and the grasp attempt will most likely fail.
Robots are still a long way off from being able to grasp any object perfectly on their first attempt. Why do grasping tasks pose such a difficult problem? Well, when people try to grasp something they use a combination of senses, the primary ones being visual and tactile. But so far, most attempts at solving the grasping problem have focused on using vision alone.
Ruchi Sanghvi (b. 1982) is an Indian engineer, and the first female engineer employed by Facebook. She was one of the primary developers for the Facebook News Feed, and was behind many initiatives and new products released by the social network over time.
She left Facebook in 2011 in order to found her own company, called Cove, which was later sold to Dropbox. She also founded FWD.us, a lobbying group in Silicone Valley concerned with promoting immigration reform and education.
For years, scientists and engineers have synthesized materials at the nanoscale level to take advantage of their mechanical, optical, and energy properties, but efforts to scale these materials to larger sizes have resulted in diminished performance and structural integrity.
Now, researchers led by Xiaoyu “Rayne” Zheng, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech have published a study in the journal Nature Materials that describes a new process to create lightweight, strong and super elastic 3-D printed metallic nanostructured materials with unprecedented scalability, a full seven orders of magnitude control of arbitrary 3-D architectures.
Strikingly, these multiscale metallic materials have displayed super elasticity because of their designed hierarchical 3-D architectural arrangement and nanoscale hollow tubes, resulting in more than a 400 percent increase of tensile elasticity over conventional lightweight metals and ceramic foams.
Verena Holmes (1889-1964) was an English engineer and inventor, the first woman elected to the Institution of Mechanical engineers. She also co-founded the Women’s Engineering Society in 1919, and advocated for more inclusion of the female gender in a traditionally male-dominated profession.
She specialized in several types of engines, such as locomotive, diesel, and internal combustion. While working for Research Engineers Ltd., she patented several inventions, such as an apparatus used for treating tuberculosis. During World War II, she worked on naval weaponry and trained women for munitions work.
If we’re going to talk about heat transfer, we’ve got to talk a little bit about thermodynamics. We’ll take it one law at a time.
The first law of thermodynamics just boils down to conservation of energy.
In a closed system, the total energy present remains constant. The only way the amount of energy present can change is if energy is put into the system or taken out. There are two ways to make energy cross system boundaries like this: either by heat transfer or by work done. So for a closed system, the total change in energy of the system is the net amount of heat put in minus the net amount of work out.
In addition to a closed system, this principle can also be applied to a control volume - that is, a defined region of space that mass can enter and leave. Mass entering will carry energy in with it, and mass leaving will carry energy out with it.
In the situation in which you are considering a control volume in the midst of a constant flow of incompressible fluid, you can consider the heat transfer occurring to be a function of the temperature difference between the fluid entering and the fluid exiting, the mass flow rate of the fluid (mass transferred per unit time), and the specific heat of the fluid, c, which is a physical property of the fluid - basically, how much energy you have to put into it to raise its temperature.
This is a simplified equation, and many situations involving fluid flow require consideration of additional factors, but for now it’ll work for us. We’ll get into the more complicated stuff later.
Ayanna Howard (b. 1972) is an American robot scientist who works for the Georgia Institute of Technology, and has been featured in the MIT Technology Review as one of the top young innovators in the world. She is most famous for designing the robots that study the impact of global warming on Antarctic ice shelfs.
She has also worked for the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where she led research efforts on robotics projects such as computer vision and neural networks. She has received numerous awards in recognition of her achievements in engineering.
On this day in 1856, Nikola Tesla was born! We had the privilege of interviewing him back in November 1928 on his predictions for the future, and naturally, the experience blew our minds. Here’s what we said about the scientist: “To talk with Dr. Tesla is to become acquainted with an extraordinary life packed with adventure into uncharted realms of knowledge.”
Development of a high-frequency experimental platform exploring the performance space of swimming fishes. Image credit: Haibo Dong.
By Anthony Caggiano
Mechanical engineers at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and biologists from Harvard University have created a robotic fish that mimics the speed and movements of live yellowfin tuna. The research could be used to help inform development of underwater vehicles driven by fish-like systems better than propellors.
Tunabot is eyeless, finless and about 25cm long, while the biological equivalent can grow up to 210cm. A fishing line tether keeps the robot steady, while a green laser light cuts across the midline of the plastic fish. The laser measures the fluid motion shed by the robot with each sweep of its fabricated tail. As the current of water in the flow tank speeds up, the Tunabot’s tail and whole body move in a rapid bending pattern, similar to the way a live yellowfin tuna swims.
‘Our goal wasn’t just to build a robot. We really wanted to understand the science of biological swimming,’ Bart-Smith said. ‘Our aim was to build something that we could test hypotheses on in terms of what makes biological swimmers so fast and efficient.’
First, Harvard biology professor George V. Lauder’s research team measured the swimming dynamics of yellowfin tuna and mackerel. Using that data, Bart-Smith and her team, built a robot that moved like a fish underwater and beat its tail fast enough to reach nearly equivalent speeds.
‘There are lot of papers on fish robots, but most of them don’t have much biological data in them. So I think this paper is unique in the quality of both the robotic work and the biological data married together into one paper,’ Lauder said.
‘These fishes have had a long time to evolve to a solution that enables them to survive, specifically, to eat, reproduce and not be eaten. Unconstrained by these requirements, we can focus solely on mechanisms and features that promote higher performance, higher speed, higher efficiency. Our ultimate goal is to surpass biology. How can we build something that looks like biology but swims faster than anything you see out there in the ocean?,’ Bart-Smith said.
It is 100 years ago since the Women’s Engineering Society formed and to mark the occasion, the group is launching a 100 years – 100 Women Engineers list as part of a project to celebrate and pay tribute to women’s achievements in various engineering fields. The aim is to let the spotlight shine bright on these extraordinary achievements that were accomplished in professional environments that were not women-friendly nor inclusive.
The list was created via an online site open for nominations from the public, while a panel of judges consisting of Dawn Bonfield FIMMM, Nina Baker, Henrietta Heald, Anne Locker, Gordon Masterton and Will Whittow, edited the top 100 list.
‘It has been inspiring to learn more about these magnificnet women who were pioneers in their field and had to contend with not only a legal system which prevented their participation, but an engineering profession which made it very difficult for women to succeed in the workplace. Depite these hostile conditions, many women did thrive, and that makes their stories even more compelling,’ Dawn Bonfield said.
Included in the list are eight members of the Institute. These are: Cleone de Heveningham Benest (1880-1963), Marie Gayler (1891-1976), Monica Maurice (1908-1995), Marion McQuillan (1922-1998), Dorothy Pile (1902-1993), Jane Plant (1945-2016), Jean Taylor (1924-1999) and Constance Tipper (1894-1995).
Two of these women were past IOM3 presidents. Materials World featured their bios in our anniversary issue earlier this year. And in light of the release of the list, we celebrate them and their achievements once again.
JANE ANN PLANT (1945-2016)
Credit: IOM3
Professor Jane Plant was the first female President of the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy (IMM) in 2000-2002, immediately before its merger with the Institute of Materials to form IOM3.
Plant graduated in geology from Liverpool University, UK, and subsequently worked for the British Geological Survey (BGS) developing methods for geochemical mapping of the UK. As she progressed through BGS, she was awarded a PhD in geochemistry and later took a sabbatical to work for Middleton Exploration in North America on mineral exploration programmes. She was promoted to Chief Scientist of the BGS in 2000. Among her other appointments, she was a member of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, Chair of the Government’s Advisory Committee on Hazardous Substances, a visiting professor at Liverpool University and Joint Leader of the US Global Geochemical Baselines programme. Plant was a Fellow of the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy and of the Royal Society of Arts, and a Freeman of the City of London. She was awarded a CBE in 1997 for services to geosciences and the minerals industry. In 2000 she published a book titled Your Life in Your Hands about her successful battle with breast cancer, which became a best seller.
JEAN MARION TAYLOR (1924-1999)
Credit: IOM3
Jean Taylor served as President of the Institute of Wood Science (IWSc) from 1986-1988 and was probably the first woman member of IWSc. Taylor served in the WRAF during WWII working on airframe maintenance and graduated from Cardiff University, UK, with a degree in Zoology. She joined the Forest Products Research Laboratory (FPRL) under R C Fisher in 1949 and was part of the post-war intake who spent much of their careers at FPRL and made major contributions to wood science. Taylor’s work was concerned with the development of laboratory testing technology and prediction of real-life performance. 20 years later she became Technical Director at Protim, where she stayed until retirement.
IWSc played a large part in Taylor’s life – she was elected a Fellow in 1962 and served on various committees before becoming President at a time of considerable change for the Institute. Her clear analytical approach and gift for enthusing people was put to good use during this time.
Featured on the list were also the unnamed women of the construction group that re-built Waterloo Bridge in London during WWII, now commonly known as the Ladies’ Bridge. Also featured were Rachel Parsons and Laura Annie Willson MBE who founded the Women’s Engineering Society and the developer of the ‘Lyon Shape’ which was adopted by both airship R101 and submarine USS Albacore, Hilda Lyon, amongst many others.
The list accompanies the release of the book Magnificent Women and their Revolutionary Machines written by Henrietta Heald. The book tells the stories of several women in the engineering world and highlights their influence on the industry in a male-dominated profession. The title will also be listed in the October issue of Materials World and can be requested to review for the magazine.
For more information on the celebration and Magnificent Women access their website here: https://bit.ly/2mnMAmo
