Greatest Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century

Image from website

At the end of the year I like to gather information about the year's "greatest" inventions and innovations, and focus on those that are from the engineering fields of my students.

Last year I wrote about the top 5 finalists of the Engadget Insert Coin Competition (Posts from 29 December 2013 to 27 January 2014). The year before I wrote about Time magazine's "Best Inventions of the Year" (24 December 2012), which they publish every year in December.

This year, I decided to use information from a website created by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), which has listed - and given information for - their choices for the 20 greatest engineering achievements of the 20th century.

The website: http://www.greatachievements.org/

The information is based on the book, A Century of Innovation: Twenty Engineering Achievements That Transformed Our Lives, by George Constable and Bob Somerville (2003).

Students can first brainstorm what they think the twenty greatest achievements were, and can discuss their choices. Many - if not most - of their choices will certainly be on the NAE's list.

These achievements are:

1. Electrification
2. Automobile
3. Airplane
4. Water supply and distribution
5. Electronics
6. Radio and Television
7. Agricultural mechanization
8. Computers
9. Telephone
10. Air conditioning and refrigeration
11. Highways
12. Spacecraft
13. Internet
14. Imaging
15. Household appliances
16. Health technologies
17. Petroleum and petrochemical technologies
18. Laser and fiber optics
19. Nuclear technologies
20. High-performance materials

For each achievement, there is a Timeline spanning the development from invention to present day, separate sections of information about the achievement, and an Essay written by an engineer from the field of achievement.

This last resource is particularly useful for students, since the essays can serve as models for students' own writing: about the history of an innovation, the impacts of the innovation, or as an overview of an innovation in their engineering field.

The material on the website is also very useful for reading skills, since students will certainly be motivated to read about an achievement of their choice.

Animated Engines

The Two Stroke Engine

In my last post I wrote about the website 507 Mechanical Movements, created and maintained by Matt Keveney.

He has also created a related website, Animated Engines, which is just as interesting and especially useful for engineering students.

The website: http://www.animatedengines.com




The Home page has 21 engines:

• Four Stroke
• Diesel
• Two Stroke
• Wankel 
• Atkinson 
• Gnome Rotary 
• Jet Propulsion 
• Steam Locomotive 
• Oscillating Steam 
• CO2 Motor 
• Coomber 
• Crank Substitute 
• Revolving Cylinder 
• Watt Beam 
• Grasshopper Beam 
• Unknown Beam 
• Newcomen Atmospheric 
• Two Cylinder Stirling 
• Single Cylinder Stirling 
• Ross Yoke Stirling 
• Low Differential Stirling

Each illustration leads to a separate page on which the engine is animated (in color), with an insert to control the speed of the animation, or to stop it. What is particularly useful (in addition to the animation itself) is further explanation of how the engine works.

For example, the Two Stroke Engine page first has the explanation, "The two stroke engine employs both the crankcase and the cylinder to achieve all the elements of the Otto cycle in only two strokes of the piston." Then separate aspects are explained and illustrated:

• intake
• crankcase compression
• transfer/exhaust
• compression
• power

Each of these aspects has a short description. For example, for intake:

"The fuel/air mixture is first drawn into the crankcase by the vacuum that is created during the upward stroke of the piston. The illustrated engine features a poppet intake valve; however, many engines use a rotary valve incorporated into the crankshaft."

In this short extract, there is the use of the passive (is first drawn into; the vacuum that is created), linking (first; during; however), topic-related technical vocabulary (fuel/air mixture; crankcase; vacuum; upward stroke; piston; poppet intake valve; rotary; crankshaft), and useful collocations (drawn into; vacuum created; upward stroke; incorporated into).

The entire explanation for this one engine is, of course, even more useful for engineering students as a model example of a process description that they can emulate in their own writing or presentations.

In addition to the engines, the website has a "How To" section in which Mr. Keveney explains how he makes these animations. Although he warns that, "What follows is only an outline. Please understand that this is not a complete tutorial," his explanation is in itself a useful process description (with step-by-step illustrations). Students who are interested in knowing more about how the animations are created can sign up for an update to be notified when Matt Keveney documents this technique.

507 Mechanical Movements - animated

A page from the book on the website

The homepage of the website 507 Mechanical Movements explains that "This is an online edition of the classic technical reference "Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements" by Henry T. Brown.

This site contains the original illustrations and text from the 21st edition of the book, published in 1908. It also includes animated versions of the illustrations, and occasional notes by the webmaster."

The webmaster is Matt Keveney, who has developed the animated versions of the illustrated movements, and is still working on them. The website says that the "animated versions are not yet complete." The ones that are complete are in color. Visitors to the site can follow the developments by subscribing to the website.

Link to website: http://507movements.com/

This seems like a great resource for mechanical engineering students, as well as students of other engineering disciplines. I myself found the movement of the images hypnotic. There is a certain beauty in the precision of the movements.

Underneath each image is a short description of the movement and how it works. These short texts provide a model description of the movement shown, and could help students describe the features of machines that incorporate these movements. The specific vocabulary of movements is also very useful.

For example, these are the descriptions of two of the movements (I chose them because I found them particularly lovely to watch!):

• #123 (substitutes for the crank): Intended as a substitute for the crank. Reciprocating rectilinear motion of the double rack gives a continuous rotary motion to the center gear. The teeth on the rack act upon those of the two semi-circular toothed sectors, and the spur-gears attached to the sectors operate upon the center gear. The two stops on the rack shown by dotted lines are caught by the curved piece on the center gear, and lead the toothed sectors alternately into gear with the double rack.

•  #145 (cranks): Reciprocating curvilinear motion of the beam gives a continuous rotary motion to the crank and fly-wheel. The small standard at the right, to which is attached one end of the lever with which the beam is connected by the connecting-rod, has a horizontal reciprocating rectilinear movement.

There is an alphabetical index of the movements, as well as "thumbnails," which show 9 related movements on one page. A user can also move through the images one by one.

I plan to recommend this website to my students in preparation for their process description presentations, and also because I think they'll enjoy it as much as I do!

Two-year anniversary of this blog

It's now been 2 years since I started this blog (on November 30, 2012) and the reasons I started it are still valid today. Here are 3 reasons I mention in the About this blog section:

(1)  There are many textbooks available for engineering students learning English, but it's difficult to find one with material specifically focused on my students' particular technical areas.

(2)  Much of the language material on the web seems to focus on grammar and vocabulary skills in general, rather than the kind of language features my students encounter in their technical reading and writing.

(3)  I want to share the material I find with other English teachers who are working with students in technical areas, and to give those teachers a place to contribute what they find useful.

It is still difficult to find published material that is relevant for specific technical areas -- I think this is a major issue for ESP teachers in general.

And I still work with more than the "grammar and vocabulary" areas in the classroom, and when I do focus on language skills, I try to connect them to my students' specific engineering areas.

But over the past 2 years, I have started teaching in more engineering areas.

I started teaching ESP (as distinct from EAP - English for Academic Purposes) with classes for students of electronics engineering and of computer science. Then I had groups in mechatronics and robotics engineering and in biomedical engineering. When I started this blog, those were the groups I focused on.

Since then I have also been teaching students of international business engineering and of mechanical engineering. And in each of these areas, the levels have ranged from low-intermediate to advanced.

So my interest in finding relevant articles, videos, websites and other material that will engage my students keeps expanding.

It would be interesting to get input from readers of this blog to find out what areas of engineering your students are studying, and what kind of material you find most useful.