The future weapon-laser weapon

by Weiyu Li

I believe almost everyone can imagine what laser weapon would like because of the future war films such as Star-Wars or Independence Day. The amazing outlook and the giant power must be the main goal of the weapon company today.

The laser weapon is using the laser which contains the high energy to hit the target in long distance or intercept the missiles from the enemies. The laser weapons mainly cost the electricity so the cheap cost is the reason why it is mainly focused of researching. However, this weapon has the critical defect as well. The laser weapon will easily be influenced by the condition of the weather such as fog, rain, snow. After that, the condition of the atmosphere can affect the laser weapon as well. The thermal blooming or atmospheric disturbance and other things can also decrease the power of the laser or even let it disappear.
 Several things make the laser weapon has such an enormous power. First of all, the high temperature of the point focused by the laser weapon could easily melt the shell of most things. Also, the force of the laser beam could make the target shape change. Last, the x-ray and the ultraviolet ray could damage the inner parts of the electric products which is the most deadly point to modern military weapons.

 resource

Mercury-Arc Rectifiers

By: Joao Martins

Have you ever wondered how high voltage AC (Alternating Current) was converted into DC (Direct Current) before the 1970's? Well, probably not, but this is how it was done: using Mercury-Arc Rectifiers.
In the 20th Century, scientists and engineers needed a new and more efficient way of converting Alternating Current, which changes from negative to positive current very quickly, to Direct Current, in which the current always flows in the same direction. The old technology that performed this task was incredibly inefficient and it was also prone to failure, so in 1902, Peter Cooper Hewitt invented the Mercury-Arc Rectifier. This is how it works: A pool of liquid Mercury sits at the bottom of a closed glass bulb. The Mercury acts as a Cathode, while at the top of the bulb carbon rods act as the Anode. When electricity and heat is applied, the Mercury pool emits electrons which are attracted to the carbon anode. This "electron arc" makes the current only flow in one direction only, effectively converting AC into DC. This process is a lot more efficient than older methods, and quickly Mercury-Arc Rectifiers began to be used to power trains, streetcars, and industrial motors. These rectifiers do have some downsides, however. The mercury in it makes it really dangerous for the people that work around it if one breaks, and they take up a lot of space. After 1970, most of them were replaced after the invention of semiconductors, which are more efficient and not toxic, but some Mercury-Arc Rectifiers are still in use to this day powering older parts of the NYC subway system among other things.

Source:

Cory, B.J.; Adamson, C.; Ainsworth, J.D.; Freris, L.L.; Funke, B.; Harris, L.A.; Sykes, J.H.M. (1965). "Chapter 2". High voltage direct current converters and systems. Macdonald & Co. Ltd

Prompt number 9: Recognizing Significance

Post By: David DeMeo

         An article was posted in regard to the Oskaloosa, Iowa schooling system and their stess on STEM in education. STEM refers to careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. There has recently been a strong push for the involvement of these programs in education. One of the most significant points the article drew up was that everyone needs some knowledge of STEM even if not going into that field. The speaker at the event, Derry, stated, "You still need to make decisions about the food that you eat, the news you read about, and your health." Science, technology, engineering and math are in our lives no matter what field you go into. This is different from most other field as in I would never need to know how to teach, or produce art if I was not in that field. Specifically, engineering is everywhere and in everything we use and knowledge on how all of this works will be useful for anyone and everyone.

          Our world has become integrated with advancing technology so quickly our education system has not kept up with this progress. The point of this article was to enforce the need to advance our systems in education to be on par with the level engineering and other STEM jobs. Personally I was a part of this change going on in school systems. In high school, I was a part of a pilot, "STEM Academy" program that took students who excelled in math and science and gave them the opportunity to excel in a STEM career. It was interesting to see and be a part of the changing education system. What I experienced is exactly what was being discussed in the article for the schools in Iowa. Similar programs are being seen as more and more important and will soon be a part of every students learning not just a select few.

          In the article it discusses the fact that Derry found that STEM is drawing high interest in students along with the demand. This shows that the these programs are even more necessary. The importance for education in science, technology, engineering and math is higher than it has ever been. The significance of STEM knowledge is greater than ever as pointed out in the article and it is necessary for the education system to evolve.

Source: 

The Steel Makeover?

By: Alex Vu

Material scientists always spend the time to try and discover new way to make improvements to the steel industry. While the original recipe for steel (adding aluminum to the iron mix) remained very strong and sturdy, one of the biggest problems there was that the scientist wanted the steel to bend rather than break when it went under a lot of stress.   They discovered that within the chemical reaction, a small crystalline structure would form called B2 that would disperse all throughout the steel.

The B2 crystal is in light gray and the alloy is in dark gray

Improvements have ben discovered by trying to use "heat treating" in order to get more control over the B2 crystals but can not be mass produced yet.

Pros

•  It has a similar strength/weight ratios to current titanium alloys.  
• It is 13% less dense than the normal steel alloy
• Can be made at 1/10 of the original cost of steel

Works Cited

Herkewitz William "Scientist Invent a New Steel as Strong as Titanium."  Popular Mechanics, Hearst Communications 4 Feb.  2015. www.popularmechanics.com/technology/news/a13919/new-steel-alloy-titanium/ Accessed 25 Feb. 2017.

Tesla engineering for the future

     Post by David DeMeo

         Elon Musk and his company Tesla have been making major moves recently in expanding his business while looking to help the environment and economy. Personally I care deeply about this topic as I hope to minor in Energy and am currently apart of the Michigan State Greenpeace club.
     
          On January 31st, Tesla opened a lithium Ion Battery power plant in California that will power 15,000 homes while kicking fossil fuels out of use. This is a huge step, but is soon to be put under the shadow of their next project. Teaming up with Panasonic, they will be producing a massive battery factory in Nevada that will rive down the price of electric cars to lose to $35,000 for the Tesla Model 3. This Gigafactory will give them the chance to be the largest energy company in the world. It was stated by Elon Musk himself, that if only 100 of these Gigafactories are used, energy can be provided to the entire world. This was mind blowing to me, but put it in proportion on how large this Gigafactory will effect the energy industry.  His goal is clearly larger than the profits gained from these factories as he is visibly an activist in the environmental protection area. Once this is put to work, many changes are to come for the energy industry.

        The benefits and job production levels are too good to look past and the risky investments of fossil fuels are starting to become more apparent. The power in energy companies will start to transition to renewable energy. There is already a second plant planned to be built in Eruope and by Elon Musk statements, his company itself will be taking care of 2% of the worlds energy in a renewable way. This is a look into the future and the power of engineering.

source

Does UAV improvement really benefit mankind-prompt 6

by Weiyu Li

The UAV first made in 20th century 20s during the second world war. It was designed to throw bombs to the enemies' areas. After the thought came out, the initial UVA are used to train the air defense soldiers.
Then the days went on, the UAV developed so fast that many people couldn't imagine the how big the power it would have.

However, the fast development doesn't give the public tranquilizer, but the panic spread all over the world because of the American army use UAV during the Iraq War.
Not only the Iraq, but also the whole middle east. There are serious issues for U.S. UAV manufacturers and sensor makers in addressing the export market in general and the Middle East specifically. Because of Israel's proximity, getting authorization to sell systems to other countries in the region is very difficult. In addition, Middle Eastern nations often want systems used by the military that are considered MTCR Category I systems (with a presumption of denial of exports according to the MTCR's rules).(1)
We can't see the disadvantage only, there are also some good aspects.

Expectations that U.S. UAVs would dominate the market both in the Middle East and worldwide have never been realized, despite the systems' effectiveness in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

U.S. industry's serious competitive advantages over exporting rivals in Israel, Europe, and China have not yet resulted in export strength. The U.S. market will spend 62% of the $28.5 billion spent on R&D over the period from 2012 to 2021, according to projections prepared by the Teal Group. The U.S. market will represent 55% of the $60.6-billion procurement market over the same period. That figure means that U.S. industry will have clear advantages both in its ability to fund research and in having the economies of scale that should make it the world's leader in sales.(2)

(1),(2) from  Hopes rise for U.S. UAV sales to Middle East by Finnegan,P
resource

Eco-friendly Concrete

By: Joao Martins

A recent article posted on the Science Daily website gives us a brief overview of a new technology that will have a great and positive impact on climate change and global warming. This technology, which was developed by Rutgers' Richard E. Riman, uses water based reactions to create materials that would otherwise have to be created using ways that are harmful for the environment. Through this new technology, manufacturers can create a concrete replacement that holds carbon dioxide gas. This concrete also costs the same as regular concrete and it is also stronger and more durable. It is estimated that over 70 percent of the carbon footprint of concrete manufacturing can be reduced, which would result in over 500 billion gallons of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere every year.

Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170213130450.htm

Why is Engineering Essential For Our Lives?

By: Alex Vu

When you look around almost everything you see, was created or handled by an engineer to better our daily lives.   Without the field of engineering,  we wouldn't be able to travel,  keep up with our daily hygiene issues, or wouldn't have things to keep up with our own entertainment.  One thing that humans use the most in their lives is either their phone or computer, which was created by mechanical, electrical, and computer engineering.  Personally, I use my phone and headphones the most in my daily life. To really understand how engineering affects our daily lives, I searched around for the communities opinion.

~One girl said that engineering relates to everything we do in our lives, "This includes everything from the toothpaste you use in the morning, to your iPhones, facebook apps, medical devices, transport, energy, defence, buildings and every thing in your homes, schools, hospitals"  Source: here

~Another person I found says the first thing engineers do before creating products to better our lives is that they go through this process that ultimately repeats itself.

Source: Process Wheel


~Finally, the last example someone explains that engineering is a necessity rather than a desire. Because nowadays the human culture is so technology driven, and if engineering was not always there for us, we would not be able to meet the demands for technology and the human race would fail.  :Technology driven culture

The engineering miracle in the past

By: Weiyu Li

The pyramid can be called as the most shocked engineering miracle in the world. Not only because of the huge amount process of working might be impossible to the human in the past or even at today, but also the number coincidence between the math and the data of the pyramid.
The material of building the pyramid is the stone, the huge stones. Scientists compute that if we use trains to transfer the stone material which makes Pyramid of Khufu, it will take about 600 thousand carriages to transfer those materials. Also, if we use them to build a way which has a width of 1 meter rode, the road can surround the Earth for 1 circle. The average of each brick weights 2.5 tons, the biggest one weights 160 tons. This giant programme took 300 thousand people to work 30 years. This time is too short for us now as well.

The number coincidence sounds more amazing. For example about the Pyramid of Khufu, the meridian line of Khufu times 1 billion is the distance of the Sun and the Earth, the line can also divide the land and the ocean in the Earth into 2 equal parts. If we go from the top point of the pyramid to north, we can reach the point which only has the distance of the North Pole 6.5 kilometers, if we consider about the North Pole is always moving, at that time, we could reach the North Pole exactly. At the end, the perimeter of the bottom of the Khufu divides the double times height of it can get the number of π. The whole weight of Khufu times 10^15 can get the weight of the Earth. So many coincidences make us think: is that real coincidence or the miracle gathered of the wise of the people in the past?

resource

Building Computer Processors

By Joao Martins

Have you ever wondered how those tiny, but very powerful computer chips are made?
Well, it turns out there is quite a process behind it. It all starts with sand, believe it or not. The sand is then purified so that the element Silicon can be extracted from it. Silicon is the base ingredient for computer chips manufacturing. The Silicon is then put through a vigorous purifying process that makes it extremely pure. After that, the raw Silicon is melted into a big ingot that is 99.9999 percent pure. The ingots, which can be higher than five feet tall are then sliced into thin discs called wafers.
These wafers are then polished until they are like mirrors, and go through various chemical processes that get it ready for the etching process. This etching process creates groves on the wafer where data will pass through. After that, multiple metal interconnects are added.

Ingot Being Sliced

Metal Interconnects

These act like wires and look like a complex highway system. A processor can have over 20 layers. If the wafer passes some basic testing, it is now ready to be cut into separate pieces called dies (a wafer contains many equal dies). The individual die is then packaged into the final computer processor, where it can be used by the customer.


Source:
http://www.tomshardware.com/picturestory/514-intel-cpu-processor-core-i7.html#s24 

Engineering redesigning the health industry

Post By: David DeMeo


        Harvard Business Review posted an article on February 9th describing the issues with the way hospitals and other health care operations are designed. The comparison between and the way an airplane and and a hospital are engineered is how they show the inefficiency in hospital productions.

        In order to successfully engineer something a goal in the beginning is needed. The article uses the reference that when a plane is engineered it is not designed with wings and engines separately, but by using a goal to get a plane that can go a certain distance in a short amount of time and then creating a plane as a whole with that goal. In hospitals today pieces of high tech equipment are used, but not together.
        The engineering mindset can create better health care and faster recoveries for everyone. A new technology that was presented in the article will create one screen where nurses and doctors can read all the machines. This will change the fact that all the machines cannot communicate. This program will connect all of them and make a more interactive recovery for the patient and family as well, because they will be all in one place and easy to read. This way of implementing the engineering mindset will raise the bar in hospitals and improve health care.


Source: Harvard Business Review

Contemplating Controversy in Engineering: Prompt 7

By: Alex Vu


Controversy:

n. "a prolonged public dispute, debate, or contention; disputation concerning a matter of opinion."

The reason why I included this definition is because I feel like people these days are using the word controversy in context of pointless and stupid "matters of opinion".

What is Genetic engineering? Is it something only mother nature can acquire or is something that can be achieved by the power of the people?





     The main controversy of Genetic Engineering is why are some forms of GMO's and natural organisms approved or not. Why do people rave about some GMO's, saying they are bad for the environment or bad for people's health. There is an organization called Greenpeace and their main stance on GMO's is that they are completely against the use of them. They claim that there are a lot of hazardous and environmental risking factors that come with Genetic Engineering. And they also claim that other companies pose a risk to the environment because they will use genetic engineering for profit.
     Although in previous years, there were experiments conducted by the Committee of the National Academy of Science. And in their findings, they conducted that GMO"s and genetically modified food poses no risk to the environment.

     Another controversy about the same two organizations is that both sides claim to support their own beliefs, but the belief's of each is supported by truths that is specifically made to back up each claim. So the question is, which side is true or should I say more right in supporting their claim?
~Source:

Genetic Engineering: Why so Controversial?

    

The diverse shells of electronic products

by Weiyu Li

As the time goes, the shells of the electronic products can protect our phones, laptops in many different kinds of ways, water-proof, drop proof, and even bullet proof, these are the high-tec of today's engineering.
Now, let me give you some examples of the functions I exampled just now.

Waterproof is simple in technology way because just make the phone in a kind of close space which the water can't get into that so the phone is waterproof. Many phones can get to this field now such as iPhone, Huawei, Sony and so on.

Drop proof focus more on the material of the shell and the robustness of all parts inside the phone. Nowdays, smart phones can be drop proof as well. These hardy devices can survive a coffee deluge or a drop on the asphalt, yet don’t look like they’re designed to go to war.

In China, there is a joke, if you have NOKIA, you can rule the world. This joke really shows how hard the NOKIA phone is. In high school, I saw a friend of mine slammed his NOKIA hard on the ground, and then received a phone call like normal in person. I also used my NOKIA i7 to push the nails in the wooden borad, sounds crazy? But that's true.

resource just from google and self-experience

Breaking Engineering Assumptions: Prompt One

Engineering is a very broad and sometimes misunderstood field, and there are many stereotypes that come to mind after hearing the word "engineer". Here are a few examples:

• Engineers love math
• Engineers work better alone
• They are usually introverts

After very little research one will find out that many of these are false. For example, group work is essential for engineers, as it makes designing something new faster and more efficient. The book Thinking Like an Engineer: an Active Learning Approach, introduces many of the engineering fields and goes into detail explaining the tasks that are part of said field. This book also deals with other things that people usually do not think about when they begin their engineer careers, such as ethics and social responsibility. 

This source of information is very helpful because while the stereotypes can be easily proven false, not many people think about ethics and social responsibility when they begin to think about their engineering careers.  

The ethical part is actually extremely important. One example of this would be if someone was working for a cellphone company, and the boss ordered that person to design a new phone that has to stop working after 3 years (so it forces consumers to buy new ones). The person designing the new phone gets very unhappy about that, so the boss says he will get a great bonus and a raise if he creates this new phone. What you do in this situation? Ethics can be very complicated because what you think is right can be wrong for someone else.

Source:

Thinking Like an Engineer: an Active Learning Approach, Third Edition by Elizabeth A. Stephan, David R. Bowman, William J Park, Benjamin L. Sill, and Matthew W. Ohland

Copyright 2015, 2013,  2011 by Pearson Education, Inc.

New York, New York

Joao Martins

Hyperloop Competition

By David DeMeo

Elon Musk and his company, SpaceX, have been holding a hyperloop pod competition. A hyperloop is a high speed, futuristic transportation system created by Elon Musk. It is still very much in the design phase and it will be a long time until we see this in action. The competition is between groups of engineers from colleges and universities.

One article posted by ChicagoInno describes the University of Illinois engineering students who have been working on their “Illini Hyperloop.” The article describes the confidence and statistics of the 7 foot long, 3 foot wide pod. One of the interesting things was that it was not yet close to ready to house a human. I think that this will be a huge addition because of the weight that these comforts like a seat will add to the pod. Elon Musk’s original plan was to see the pods traveling at 750mph and the Illini pod is planned to travel at 250mph without human comforts. It will be interesting to see how long it takes to see this project expand and move to the next step.

After further research I found out that out of the 20 teams including the Illini Hyperloop, MIT, Delft and WARR, were the three finalist in the competition. Many other teams received awards including the only high school that participated. Because these are the first prototypes, it will most likely be quite a while before we see this in action. I’m excited to see this revolutionize our travel.

Sources:
ChicagoInno
ArsTechnia

Applied 3D Printing

By: Alex Vu

Before, I thought 3D printing was just a new way to make cooler and better toys. But now, engineers these days, are applying 3D printing to new kinds of technologies. medicine, machinery, biochemistry, nano technology etc. First they would start coming up with ways to keep refining the material these projects are made with. Meaning they would find ways to incorporate metal, carbon fiber, minerals, different chemicals to use as their base material. And they would apply it to help to discover new advances in technology.

The one thing that really caught my interest is how they apply the technology of 3d printing to make virtually anything anyone wants, from protheses, to machinery.

~source 3D Printing inovation