I just finished reading a novel called, “Proprietary.” It is an adventure and mystery that illustrates the importance of proprietary information in a company and the reality of industrial espionage in the world. It makes the reader, rightly so, want to be careful with company information. The story did not have a lot of engineering in it, but knowing how to deal with proprietary information is very important for an engineer. I recommend this book.
Author: Kenneth Richard Hardman
Engineering Student Projects Links
The ‘Engineering Stories’ blog gets a lot of hits from people searching for Engineering Student Projects. I expect these are students wondering what to do for their student project. Well, to help them out, I’ve started a blog page to capture all the university and college senior project summaries I can find. Go to my home page and click on the “Mechanical Engineering Student Projects” page. Help me build the list if you know of more sites.
While at Engineering Stories, note the new format. If you haven’t read, “Get A Grip,” yet, please download it for free and enjoy it.
Presentation to Utah Conference of Education Career Counselors
I was invited to speak to a group of K12 career counselors this week helping them see what it’s like to be an engineer, helping them understand how to explain engineering to their students. It was great. Since I write Engineering Stories, I decided weeks ago to memorize one of my stories, The Orbital Mechanic, and be prepared to recite or perform the story for these counselors. I enjoyed the experience. Storytelling is fun. (I would like to perform stories directly for youth.)
I also shared many career experiences and addressed many questions. If you’re interested, click on the link below for a sample of my slides. The first illustrations were used as backdrop for my recitation of, “The Orbital Mechanic.” If you haven’t read this story yet, may I encourage it. It’s a short 15 minute read and you just might learn something about space and spacecrafts you didn’t know before.
Beyond Earth – Website
I am excited about what mankind does in space, because I know that such a journey builds our confidence, enlarges our knowledge, and improves our life on Earth. Check out this great website by Boeing called, Beyond Earth. It is a jumping off point for learning reasons to go to space, for experiencing efforts to go to destinations near and far from Earth, and to see the real and planned Engineering systems to take us there.
There is information for educators (lesson plans) and students, news and multimedia. Here is the link. Return to this post and comment on your experience at Beyond Earth.
“I was ten and a half years old when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar dust and into the history books. Wow, I thought, looking up that evening at the moon, half illuminated by the setting sun, how amazing is that? My childhood thoughts of ‘The Man in the Moon’ were changed forever.” (Hardman, Kenneth R., My Journey to Engineering, Engineering Stories, Chapter 8)
ENGAGE Everyday Examples of Engineering Lesson Plans
They’re not Engineering Stories, but they’re detailed lesson plans being created and used by educators to help students see, feel, and understand engineering, improving STEM teaching in the classroom.
It’s called
Engage – Everyday Examples in Engineering
If you love a good Engineering story-problem, don’t wait until the classroom, take a look at these lessons right now. For example, click on Statics and see how engineering skills of Beam Bending, Bending Moments, and Shear Stress Diagrams can be used to model and analyze the deflections of a skateboard and other planks.
I’ve added the Engage link to my Recommended Links page.
Tunnel Vision Part III
The terminal and smells of hydraulics and motors are now well behind us and the status console indicates NORMAL operating conditions. It is no longer possible to look at the tube structural support rings as they pass at a rate faster than the flapping of hummingbird wings.
As the tube slowly turns to go around and through mountains, the pod rotates like a banking roller coaster keeping our sense of gravity directed down through our seats.
The on-board stereo is softly playing the soundtrack from a popular science fiction space trek show and my mind links up with a scene from an episode where the space ship is propelled to a distant part of the galaxy by mental control of thought, time, and energy. I am awakened from this brief daydream by a yellow WARNING sign above each seat and a soft professional automated voice instructing passengers to place their heads against the head rest for the upcoming increase in acceleration.
Just moments ahead is the greatest design challenge of the whole system: analysis of the geometric, thermal, and dynamic parameters of the wind tunnel throat such that this high volume of air will indeed transition from subsonic to supersonic speeds as the tunnel re-expands. While reflecting on the many details studied during the design phase, my mind wanders for an instant to the many potential applications to use this mode of high speed transportation. A ski lift in the Wasatch mountains, underwater transoceanic links from San Francisco to China, satellite launchers, postal payload and letter delivery networks, and large scale, 100 plus passenger models, like a commercial aircraft or train fuselage with no wings, tail, or landing gear. My reflection is interrupted by a subtle vibration caused by a shock wave forming on the leading edges of the pod…
Tunnel Vision Part II
Just before stepping through the hatch of our five foot diameter bullet, I look behind the craft at the 165 foot diameter fan stretching above and all around me and I realize more than I had ever before, that I would be sharing space with this huge mass of turbulent energy as we both accelerate into the common 5 foot diameter tunnel just ahead. Although invisible, I could feel the airstream converging in on itself, and me, creating a pressure difference across the pod.
We take our seats, which are highly reclined to minimize the pod and tunnel diameter, and fasten our seat belts for the non-stop trip. This is no ordinary craft. There are no wheels, no bearings, no engine, and no brakes. This pod is a pressure vessel with forward and aft regulators to balance the inside environment at a comfortable pressure, temperature and air circulation. Forward and aft circumferential hydrodynamic seals turn the cylinder into a piston, a very fast piston, driven at cruse by pneumatic pressure.
As the hatch is closed, I sit uneasy. I look out through the mostly transparent tubular walls at those who we leave behind and it occurs to me that in a moment, they will be many, many miles away. My eyes scan from the right, over head and to my left, taking in the exciting moment, and then after a brief wink at each member of my family, I look straight ahead and become acutely aware of the small hole which is to be our immediate destination. The ALL CLEAR indicator illuminates on the front console, a small bump sounds from below, and we move out at a brisk 1/2 the acceleration of gravity, 15 ft/sec2.
v = a*t
x = ½ a*t^2
(constant acceleration equations with zero initial velocity and position)
At this rate we reach 100 miles per hour in 10 seconds (not exactly a drag race car), having traveled a quarter mile. After 20 seconds, we pass 200 miles per hour and just over one mile. This constant acceleration continues as the air behind us converges and we approach the throat, minimum tunnel diameter, and 640 miles per hour…
#engineerclips
Tunnel Vision Part I
(Here is a short short story I wrote many years ago, for your engineering imagination, vision, and assessment. Is this story possible? Can such a wind tunnel really be operated? If not, why? Does it violate some law of physics or thermodynamics? What are the challenging design issues? What are the environment and safety issues? I look forward to your comments.)
Tunnel Vision – Part I
Here I am, finally, standing in the entrance of a life-long dream, ready to climb aboard a four-seat cylindrical pod and fly through a 600 mile long wind tunnel at speeds approaching Mach 3. It is a beautiful spring morning here in Salt Lake City, Utah. The sun has just risen over the Great Salt Lake, and in 15 minutes, my family and I will be in Anaheim, California, to see it rise again, this time over the Pacific Ocean. We plan to enjoy two full days at our favorite theme park before returning home having missed only two days of work.
As we enter the terminal, to my left are the huge turbo-fans providing the large mass-flow-rate of air to the slowly converging tunnel stretching to the right. My heart accelerates as I witness the party ahead of us enter their pod, secure themselves and their belongings, and look forward down the launch rails in anticipation.
Upon positive detection of all enable circuits, the pod’s onboard computer engages its drive cam with the variable lead, threaded shaft rotating at constant angular velocity and extending a mile into the tunnel. The pod in front of us moves out at a moderate, but aggressive constant acceleration and in a matter of 10 seconds is out of sight.
For a moment, my mind jumps back to a time when I was a child and I went with my mother to the drive-up window at the bank. She put a check or some money in a small plastic canister, placed it in a machine outside the car window, pushed a button, and after 3 seconds and a vacuum like sound, the canister was in the hands of the teller in a nearby building. Oh how fun, I thought, to go on such a ride.
Then it was our turn. We stepped into the airfoil shaped bridge protecting us from the high winds. From here I could see clearly the variable-lead screw drive shaft just below our pod. Its threaded helix was designed with an initial small gradual angle thus importing a small forward velocity to any vehicle engaged to it. This design concept provides for continuous, unchanging operation, fewer moving parts, and less start and stop action. The acceleration of the engaged pod is directly proportional to the rate-of-change of the helix angle with respect to distance along the shaft. The angle increases steadily until at its high helix end, the pods velocity will be approaching Mach point three (0.3).
Just before stepping through the hatch…
(Click Part II below) #engineerclips
What do Engineers Do? Look at their Senior Projects
Want a good idea of what engineers do? Take a look at thousands of Engineering Senior Projects.
http://www.cefns.nau.edu/interdisciplinary/d4p/
http://www.ce.ucsb.edu/undergrad/sr-projects/
http://www.mtu.edu/mechanical/undergraduate/senior-design/
http://umaine.edu/mecheng/senior-design-projects/
http://www.bu.edu/ece/undergraduate/senior-design-project/
http://eeic.osu.edu/capstone/capstone-design-showcase
http://eecs.oregonstate.edu/node/292
http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/mesp/
http://mechanicalengineering.pages.tcnj.edu/academic-programs/me-senior-projects/
many many more
search the internet for mechanical engineering senior projects
Announcement – Engineering Stories in Paperback
Engineering Stories is now in paperback! Seven stories illustrated, formatted, and published in a handsome professionally bound book for some ernest reading. Listen to these endorsements by engineering academic professionals on the back cover.
“A fabulous collection of realistic engineering adventure stories! Ken Hardman connects the design and development process we teach in engineering school to the exciting challenges faced every day in real engineering practice.” Steven D. Eppinger, Professor of Engineering Systems at MIT, co-author Product Design and Development
“Ken Hardman’s stories about engineering are a joy to read. In them he captures the excitement of engineers developing solutions to realistic technical problems. By describing the engineering process through fictional characters in fictional settings, Hardman invites the reader to participate in the adventure of invention and discovery.” Henry Petroski, A.S. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering, Duke University, and author of, among other books, To Engineer Is Human, To Forgive Design, and An Engineer’s Alphabet.
Engineering Stories are for:
- The high school student who wonders if engineering is for them,
- The K12 career counselor or teacher who needs more depth in explaining engineering to students,
- The parent or grandparent or friend who would like to encourage a youth toward a satisfying, useful, and profitable career,
- The college engineering freshman who is deciding what major to declare,
- The older college engineering student who cries for ways to apply their engineering academics, anxious to experience real engineering, real companies, and real teams, and
- The young engineering professional who wants to live the engineering experiences of there peers, gaining encouragement and insight to move forward in their career.
“Ken Hardman has done a masterful job—even spellbinding—in depicting what real Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) projects, and the people and circumstances involved in them, are actually like in the real world! Having myself been involved for more than fifty years in the types of projects that Ken writes about—and the use of case studies in engineering education for more than forty years—I can say without equivocation that Ken’s case writing ability is superb! Page after page challenges you to use your creative juices, and you feel as if you are right in the lab, conference room—or wherever—huddled around some hardware as part of a team effort working through the technical, as well as the people issues, to get the problem solved! Each engineering story has been carefully chosen to share important skills, topics and essential abilities of great engineers and scientists at work! These stories will help you experience—just about as close to first hand as possible—the joys of creation and problem solving which result from learning and applying skills in a world where all of us have the opportunity to make things better.” Robert H. Todd, PhD, P.E., Fellow of The American Society of Engineering Education, Professor Emeritus Department of Mechanical Engineering Brigham Young University
“Engineering Stories has boiled down the relationship between an engineering education and real-world engineering situations to its core! I know of no better introduction for engineering students preparing to work in industry. Anybody seriously considering a career in engineering will benefit from and enjoy reading Engineering Stories!” Braden Hancock, Mechanical Engineering Student at Brigham Young University, ASME 2012 Kenneth Andrew Roe Scholarship recipient
(If you are not inclined to acquire the paperback, continue to enjoy the same individual stories that are available for free at the authors website. Whether online or paperback, discover the career of engineering through Engineering Stories.)
http://www.amazon.com/Engineering-Stories-Realistic-Fiction-STEM/dp/1483949869