Saturday, October 30, 2010

Coffee "powered" robotic gripper

Hello Future Engineer,

You may have read my post favoring simple solutions earlier. IEEE Spectrum magazine recently published an article about robotic gripper (think of your palm and fingers as gripping mechanism) that was made out of balloon and filled with ground coffee. You can read (and watch video clips of the same) by clicking here.

Great minds favor simplicity (but not triviality).

For other interesting articles, please be sure to visit the Inver Hills Community College's library. The library started subscription to IEEE Spectrum (the flagship magazine of IEEE) since Jan 2010.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Inver Thrills in Associated Press news brief

Its official! Inver Hills Community College's rocketry team is making news. You can read all about it here.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Google Lunar X Prize

Hello Future Engineer,

I invite you to browse the website for Google Lunar X prize. Several teams are participating in this venture with interesting ideas of getting back to the moon, and the one that I know a bit more about is the Rocket City Pioneers. In particular, I had the good fortune to share the dinner table with Tim Pickens who is also the leader of the Rocket City Pioneers team (along with my students Caleb Boe and Bryan Sullivan, and Dr. John Gregory at Alabama Space Grant Consortium).

Reminds me of a dialogue from the movie, Forrest Gump, "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you gonna get!"

Monday, October 11, 2010

Self-steering cars and Google

Hello Future Engineer,

It seems that what can be imagined is easily realizable in span of a decade. When I was a graduate student (about 7-8 years ago), I remember reading an article about self-steering cars in a magazine. The article was about innovations possible in near future.

During my previous employment at the University of Delaware, I had known about a research program in computer science/electrical engrg dept about robotic cars that would self-steer/navigate thru hilly terrain. In about two years, Google has taken that research (not just from U of D, but many others who were also funded by DARPA) and taken it a step further.

You can read more about the Google's support of this venture here.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Scientist wins Nobel Prize using Scotch Tape

Hello Future Engineer,

Sometimes you don't need all the high tech equipment to be able to accomplish something profound. A scientist used Scotch tape to demonstrate creation of thin layer of graphene using a Scotch tape...and won Nobel Prize for it! You can read more about it at here.

This reminds me of telling you about the KISS principle put forth by Kelly Johnson (inventor/designer of a few legendary aircrafts namely U-2, SR-71).

KISS == Keep It Simple, Stupid!