Steel sculptures

I found the steel sculpture at the University of Florida (mentioned here); it is on the west side of Weil Hall not far from Florida Field and the O'Connell Center. I also happened to find a similar sculpture on the campus of the University of South Florida; it is near the engineering buildings. Here is a photo of that one:

Video on OR

Georgia Tech Professor David Goldsman's video about operations research. Hat tip: Punk Rock Operations Research.

Manufacturing zippers

Article about YKK, the "mysterious" Japanese company that dominates the zipper market. Their zippers are much better but only slightly more expensive. (This also appeared in The Washington Post.)

Skillful writing of an awful research paper

This editorial by Royce Murray at UNC is good advice to avoid. Rule 3 is particularly good:

Diagrams are worth a thousand words, so in the interest of writing a concise paper, omit all words that explain the diagram, including labels. Let the reader use his/her fertile imagination.

Hat tip: my colleague Elisabeth Smela, who posted a copy on the bulletin board outside her office.

How Economics Shapes Science

An interview with Paula Stephan, the author of How Economics Shapes Science, which discusses the economic and other incentives of academic researchers. Among the items covered in the interview:

The evidence is overwhelming that in certain fields — especially in the biomedical sciences — we produce more Ph.D.s than there are research or teaching jobs. This imbalance is caused by the fact that principal investigators staff their labs with postdocs and graduate students, not permanent staff scientists. Faculty like the model: graduate students and postdocs have new, fresh ideas; they are also inexpensive and they are temporary. But unless the number of new jobs grows quickly enough to absorb the newly trained, (which it hasn’t for many years), this system of staffing produces many more Ph.D.s than the job market can absorb. That’s why I call it a pyramid scheme.

A Guide to Journal Publication

According to the web site,

The purpose ... is to aggregate advice and best practices from accomplished engineering academics that will assist both doctoral students and junior faculty members achieve success in journal publication.

Hat tip: Alice Smith.

Steel Sculpture

This "Steel Sculpture" was created 1986 by a University of Florida engineering professor for teaching structures. Over 100 other universities now have one also (see http://www.aisc.org/content.aspx?id=704). Photo from the UF Civil Engineering department web site. Where on the UF campus is this sculpture?

Typewriter history

From the ASME announcement:

The Sholes & Glidden typewriter, the first commercially successful mechanical writing machine, will be recognized by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) for historic significance and contribution to the progress of mechanical engineering.

See also the typewriter's Wikipedia entry.

Punk Rock Operations Research

Laura McLay's blog on operations research.

EPA administrator defines engineer

According to EPA administrator Lisa Jackson:

An engineer is somebody who can formulate a problem and then solve it.

The Challenger Accident Weather

Weather's Role in the Challenger Accident, by Andy Cox, Space Weather Correspondent, The Weather Channel, goes beyond the cold that froze the O-rings.

History of Engineering

The October 2010 issue of ASEE Prism had Robin Tatu's review of Engineers: A History of Engineering and Structural Design by Matthew Wells.

From the review:

This sort of contextualized overview enlivens Wells’s study of Baroque England’s penchant for “dismemberment” – the systemized study of parts, reassembled into wholes; the 18th-century struggle to devise a theory of elasticity; the technical idealism that suffused Napoleon Bonaparte’s empire building; and the frenzy of American industrialization, during which “almost every possibility for advantage was grasped at.”

It sounds, therefore, that this history is quite different from Henry Petroski's histories of particular artifacts, which focus on the never-ending challenge of overcoming a design's shortcomings.

More Unwritten Laws of Engineering

Part 3 of 3 has tips regarding personal and professional behavior in the workplace.

Links to Parts 1 and 2 can be found in my earlier post.

Via Mechanical Engineering Magazine.

billions of bills

You would think that they would fix the problem before printing 1.1 BILLION $100 bills, some (but not all) of which have mistakes.

(Thanks, Mike!)

The Unwritten Laws of Engineering

The Unwritten Laws of Engineering by W. J. King was first published in 1944 as three articles in Mechanical Engineering magazine, which is excerpting laws from the book, presented in three articles just as in 1944, with comments from contemporary authorities.

Part 1: WHAT THE BEGINNER NEEDS TO LEARN AT ONCE

Part 2: RELATING CHIEFLY TO ENGINEERING MANAGERS

An Honored Engineer

Mike visited a national monument that honors Thaddeus Kosciuszko, a Polish engineer who designed Fort Saratoga and other defenses in New York.

Parking underground

Mom Garrity sent me this link to a video describing an automated underground parking lot in Europe. It is an impressive system. The plans at the end give some hint of how they get cars out from the back row.

Liker on Toyota

Jeffrey K. Liker, a professor at the University of Michigan, has written an article about the situation at Toyota and their response to their problems.

The Essential Engineer

Review of The Essential Engineer, by Henry Petroski. Review by Thomas Hayden, The Washington Post, Sunday, February 28, 2010.
From the review:

Petroski reminds us, quite rightly, that while scientists may ring the warning when it comes to potential disasters, "warnings are not solutions -- nor are they necessarily a death knell. It will be the optimistic engineers who hear the warnings not as doomsday scenarios but as calls to tackle significant problems."

The French and l'Internet

Also in the WSJ is an interesting article about how the French adopt new terms for modern technology. For example, the French word for "email" is "courriel."