Tag: Creativity

Pocket Prototyping

Dear Engineering Stories followers, It has been a great #engineering#career so far including my #coaching of about 20 teams in 20 years at the local university. I’ve noticed a few things over the years that could help newer engineers be more successful, and I offer ‘Pocket #Prototyping‘ pointers in this article in the BYU Design Review. Please read it and then share it with your colleagues (and ask them to share it), especially with those just getting started in engineering and #design who need #mentoring. Thanks, Ken

Pocket Prototyping, BYU Design Review

#EngineerClips – “Power Ski” – March 18, 2022

#EngineerClips – “Drawn to Write” – by Ken Hardman (Feb. 27, 2022)

#EngineerClips – “High-Speed Chairs”

#EngineerClips – Bathing with Bottles

by Kenneth Hardman

“Jake!” Mom calls out from the bathroom.

“Ya, Mom?”

“Why is there a case of bottled water in my bathtub?”

“It’s an engineering experiment, for my middle-school science class.”

“An engineering exp…?” Mom pauses, then slowly inquires. “Let me guess, you are… trying to optimize… water cooling by…”

Jake enters the room. “No. It’s a water conservation experiment.”

“So…” Mom scratches her head. “You are re-using bath water by putting it in the bottles?”

“No, Mom.” Jake exhales a puff of air. “The water bottles displace, or reduce the water needed for the bath. You get the same deep soak with two gallons less fresh water using thirty-two, 8 ounce bottles.”

Mom now squinting, and still scratching her head. “Thirty-two? Do I have to sit on the bottles?”

“Of course not. Thanks to Archimedes’, the small air bubble in each bottle keeps it buoyant, barely breaking the water surface. They’re small enough that they should move around easily in the bath.”

“Oh!” Mom gets it, thinking through the process. “Who’s Archimedes’? Never mind. So, do I have to tell my friends that I bathe with plastic bottles?”

“Look,” Jake walks to the tub and picks up a bottle. “In addition to satisfaction helping the planet, you get drinking water storage, waste water reduction, less guilt from taking a 30 gallon bath instead of a 15 gallon shower, and reduced land fill, all by giving up your pride. And! If you get thirsty while bathing, well, they’ve never been opened; just grab a bottle. Oh, and did I mention the free reading material? The labels are waterproof.”

Get a Grip – by Kenneth R Hardman

In Get a Grip, a young engineer is assigned to an experienced engineering team responsible for developing critical automation in the manufacture of smart phones. She travels internationally with the team, generates concepts, and helps the team struggle through difficult setbacks and technical problems.

https://engineerstories.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/get_a_grip_20130812.pdf

Engineering Project – Re-inventing the 35mm Color Slide Digitizer

I can’t help myself. When I get it in my head to create a solution or solve a problem, it doesn’t matter that it has already been done before. I love finding a quick, in-expensive solution to a need. In the 1970s and 80s, my film of choice was 35mm Color slides; I enjoyed making slide shows.

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I haven’t yet digitized these photos, so my kids haven’t seen many of them, including pictures with them as small children. It’s time to change that.

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Now I know that I can purchase a digitizer for 35mm slides; but, “where’s the fun in that?” I have a smart-phone with a digital camera and amazing pixel resolution, and I understand the basics of light and optics to give it a shot. So one evening, I grabbed my grand-kids favorite box of Lego’s® and went to work, for fun of course.

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Requirements: 1) a way to hold the slide a fixed and steady distance from the camera, 2) a way to illuminate the image, and 3) a digital representation of the image good enough for social media.

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Concepts: 1) a structure to hold a light source, a light diffuser, a slide holder, and the camera (see picture), try variations and lengths (don’t worry about the color of the structure.)

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Design: an electric Christmas candle mounted to a base, a light diffuser cut from a white paint bucket lid or plastic putty knife, a support for the slide, and an adjustable support for the camera

Image Processing: place slide in holder, turn on the light, avoid stray light, assure that the camera does not focus on the diffuser, focus on the slide, take the picture, crop the image, adjust the color as necessary, post and enjoy pictures with family and friends

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Lessons Learned: the camera can’t get close enough to the slide to utilize all of the camera pixels therefore some resolution is lost (still okay for social media)

Conclusion: Great project, lots of fun, and included one of my favorite activities; that is, walking through a hardware store looking for suitable substitutes for what I really need. In this case, a high density plastic light diffuser. Enjoy the results, and keep on engineering. Go ahead; share this with your friends. Better yet, get that old box of slides out of your attic or basement, and share them with family and friends.

Sketching

I whole-heartedly agree with the following brief article on sketching for engineers. Please take a few minutes and read what this engineer has to say. Sketching improves the ideas, brings forth solutions, and drives the work forward.

http://mechanical-engineering.in/forum/blog/209/entry-774-the-importance-of-sketching/

Big Hero 6 – An Engineering Story with Adventure

While on an engineering trip to Maui (yes! Hawaii on business, but that’s another story), I took an evening after work to see Disney’s Big Hero 6 in Kahalui. I was impressed. Instead of telling you all about it, I found this nice blog by Kirk Englehardt. Please enjoy the science, the problem solving, the fun, the adventure, and the engineering.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20141124182227-3091133-geeks-robots-and-drooling-stem-educators

7 Missing Basics of Engineering

In my 12th year of coaching college engineering students, I concur with David Goldberg in his assertion that engineering students are missing eight skills critical to being a complete, effective, and whole engineer. View his talk at TEDxUIUC, “7 Missing Basics of Engineering.” My Engineering Stories are an attempt to encourage engineering students to practice many of these skills.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp9PfqUQ8a4