Engineering Stories

Engineering Stories is the website of Kenneth Richard Hardman, an Associate Technical Fellow at an aerospace company who "has worked for 26 years in the aerospace and industrial automation fields defining, creating, researching, evaluating, managing, testing, and supporting satellites, aircraft, test equipment, and custom automation."

He has written 8 stories (with more on the way) that use his experiences in the engineering field, so the stories are very realistic - and yet clear and simple enough for learners.

From the About section: "The objective is to encourage students to consider or continue careers in science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM), show what it may be like, dispel a myth or two, and encourage creativity, problem solving, and the confidence to make the world a better place."

The website: http://engineerstories.com/

The stories are available for free, in a downloadable pdf format. They cover various aspects of engineering, and how engineering skills are used to solve all types of problems.

An example is The Orbital Mechanic, in which aerospace engineers have to deal with the problem of a spacecraft whose orbit has been damaged by an unusually large solar flare. In the story, the chief engineer has brought his young teenage daughter to "Bring Your Child to Work Day," so he explains to her step-by-step how he has plotted the spacecraft's orbit, and what the nature of the problem is.

This provides a simple, yet factually accurate, explanation that would not only be easy enough for ESP students to understand, but also provide them with a good model of a clear technical explanation for a non-technical audience.

By the way, in this story the engineer is hoping to get his daughter interested in aspects of engineering. This relates very well to ideas I've given in other posts on getting young people interested in technology (see the posts Girls Who Code, Aug. 24, 2014, and Inspiring tomorrow's engineers, May 18, 2014).

In My Journey to Engineering, Kenneth Hardman explains how he became interested in engineering - from being a curious boy who like to tinker with things in his environment, to his current role in engineering. In his story he asks the reader, "Dear reader, what was it that drew you, as a child, toward science, technology, engineering, or math?"

It would be interesting for students to discuss this together in class before reading the story, and then compare experiences with the author's account.

Blog - In addition to the stories, there is a blog on the website with interesting entries and links to other websites.

Riddles - There are also "Engineering Riddles" in the topic areas of physics, math, materials, heat transfer, and fluid mechanics. A riddle from "materials" is:

You're welcome to disfigure, transform or twist with vigor,
But let me be your warning, to save you dreadful mourning.
When released from deformation, whether tension or compression,
From my left get restoration, from my right, life-long mutation.
I'm a bridge best not for burning, a point of no returning,
Where rifts occur much faster, and cycling meets disaster.

What material property am I?

I didn't know the answer - but notice the relevant and useful vocabulary for areas of material engineering:

• disfigure
• transform
• twist
• deform
• tension
• compression
• restore
• mutation
• burning
• rifts
• cycling

Of course, students will probably be more interested in solving the riddle than in noticing the useful vocabulary. Readers of the blog are invited to post their answers, and Dr. Hardman responds to each attempt. To find out the answer to this riddle, check out the website!
http://engineerstories.com/2014/08/02/engineering-riddle-no-4-materials-a-point-of-no-returning/

Girls Who Code

In my post of May 18, 2014, Inspiring tomorrow's engineers, I wrote about programs in the United States that encourage children to engage in activities that will help them develop abilities associated with engineering skills.

In a similar development, there are programs in the U.S. now focusing on encouraging girls and young women to become more technology- and computer-literate. One such program is from the nonprofit organization Girls Who Code, whose mission is to "work to inspire, educate, and equip girls with the computing skills to pursue 21st century opportunities."

Girls Who Code website: http://girlswhocode.com/

The website describes its vision thus: "Launched in Spring 2012, Girls Who Code is a national nonprofit organization working to close the gender gap in the technology and engineering sectors. With support from public and private partners, Girls Who Code works to educate, inspire, and equip high school girls with the skills and resources to pursue opportunities in computing fields."

In addition to information on the website, there is an article in Time magazine, "Cracking the Girl Code: How to End the Tech Gender Gap."

http://time.com/3062885/girls-who-code-google-facebook/ 

The online article has an accompanying video (3:08) in which girls in the Girls Who Code program explain why they had not been technically focused before, and what the program has done for them.

The video is short with clear speaking, so in addition to reading the article, students can watch the video and answer questions such as:

• What reasons do the girls mention that they were afraid of learning to code?
• What reasons are given for why this program was started?
• What do you think of these reasons - do they seem important to you?
• Can you add to any of these reasons?
• Why do you think companies like Google and Facebook want to encourage more girls to pursue technical careers?

Then students can be encouraged to brainstorm further ideas for getting more girls interested in technology. It would be interesting to notice any ideas, comments, suggestions that differ between male and female students. If there are female students in the class, they can explain how they became interested in technology, and in the particular engineering field.

Giving phones a sense of smell

One of my electronic engineering courses is an evening course for students who work full-time. Many of them work for mobile phone companies or servers. So we read an article about an innovation being developed for mobile phones that seemed rather unusual.

The innovation, from Adamant Technologies, is an iPhone app that "can take the sense of smell and taste and digitize them," allowing users to determine whether they have bad breath or not, and - more importantly - can be used to detect and monitor medical problems.

The article, This Guy is Teaching Your iPhone to Detect Bad Breath ... And Other Smells from Business Insider is at:

http://www.businessinsider.com/your-iphone-will-soon-detect-bad-breath-2013-1

Another article from the website Slate, Siri, How Bad is My Breath? is at:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/01/07/adamant_technologies_wants_to_give_your_smartphone_a_sense_of_smell.html

These articles were written in January 2013, and mention the development being realized in "a year or two," but so far there is no further news from Adamant Technologies. Their website doesn't give much information, and consists only of a home page and a "Contact Us" link.

The company website: http://www.adamanttech.com/

The home page describes the innovation in this way:

"Adamant Technologies is a San Francisco based company that has developed a novel mobile chemical sensor device that allows users to track their health and fitness through chemicals in their breath. We empower users to take control of their own health and understand it through real-time, non-invasive detection."

The link to "Contact Us" says, "Adamant Technologies is looking for motivated, hardworking and high energy people to add to our team. If you're interested in being a part of the next big thing, contact us and let us know."

My students discussed what kind of engineers would be relevant for this project, and to what extent they would find it interesting to work on this technology.

For further discussions, students could also brainstorm the impact of such technology, and what it could be used for. To what extent to do they feel this could be considered "the next big thing"?

The Center for Communicating Science

The Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science "works to enhance understanding of science by helping train the next generation of scientists and health professionals to communicate more effectively with the public, public officials, the media, and others outside their own discipline."

This aim makes the website comprehensible to students studying English, and the variety of topics covered ensures that students will find something that interests them. This aim is also a worthy one for students to achieve, since they will have to communicate with "others outside their discipline" in their professional careers.

Link to website: http://www.centerforcommunicatingscience.org

One way in which the Center helps to train students and young professionals in communicating science is "The Flame Challenge," which is described as "explaining science to an 11-year-old." This is an annual competition to answer a question in a way that an 11-year-old would understand. The questions are submitted by 9- to 12-year-olds, and one is chosen each year for the competition. In 2014 the question was: "What is color?" The winning entries - one in the written category and one in the visual category - are available on the website.

The 2014 winners: http://www.centerforcommunicatingscience.org/the-flame-challenge-2/flame-challenge-winners-2014/

Since this is an interesting challenge for engineering students, teachers can set up their own "Flame Challenge" to see which students can explain their ideas, research or project most clearly.

Another section of the website is Science Shows, which includes "Science on Tap." This is a collection of videos on a variety of topics that are presented to a lay audience. The setting is a pub (hence "on tap"), with an interviewer talking with an expert in the particular area.

The videos: http://www.centerforcommunicatingscience.org/watch-science-on-tap

The episodes so far:

1. The Physics of Sport with Chang Kee Jung
2. Evolution and the Crocodile with Paul Gignac
3. Savory Science: food, flavor and feelings with Alfredo Fontanini
4. Pay Attention! ADHD and the Brain with Mary Kritzer
5. Back to the Stone Age with John Shea
6. What do you Remember? with Nancy Franklin
7. Driving on Mars with Scott McLennan
8. The Lemurs of Madagascar with Patricia Wright

The first four episodes are in two parts. The timing of each episode is between 30 and 45 minutes, so whether students can handle this depends, of course, on the class and the students' level. But the clear speaking and casual interaction between interviewer and expert make these videos very student-friendly. So they could be used for a variety of student projects and activities.

Source of short videos on technical topics

The Gadgetoff logo

Gadgetoff is the name of an event that took place in the New York City area once a year from 2004-2007. Its website describes its focus as "Our early focus on gadgets has dramatically expanded and we are now a celebration of technical and artistic innovation and a salon to ponder the future. All of our guests participate and include inventors, entrepreneurs, educators, artists, creators, visionaries and geniuses."

Gadgetoff website: http://www.gadgetoff.com

The last event was on September 25, 2009 - and since then there has been no news on its website and no further information about another Gadgetoff event. I wrote to them on their website's contact address, but so far have not received a response.

However, the presentations from 2007 are uploaded on the Video section of the website, and they are still relevant and up-to-date. The presentations are fewer than 10 minutes, and some are fewer than 5 - so they are practical for use in class or for students to view at home.

Link to videos: http://www.gadgetoff.com/2007/video.html

The topics include:

• DARPA projects
• Artificial intelligence
• Human-robot interaction
• Hacking
• Biotechonomy
• Aircraft
• Photography
• The brain
• All types of robots and robotic gadgets
• Information about many areas of science and technology

It's hard to imagine that students wouldn't find something to interest them, and these short videos could be used for listening practice, presentations, research and/or discussion.