National Academies: Troubleshooting the Pandemic: Engineers Pitch Innovative Solutions to Help Address COVID-19. “While the world waits for a vaccine to prevent COVID-19 infection, international and multigenerational teams of engineers have come together through the National Academy of Engineering’s COVID-19 Call for Engineering Action to find creative solutions to problems caused by the pandemic. Their ideas aim to prevent the spread of the virus, help people most at risk, and make life easier under social distancing protocols.”
engineering
The BayNet: Southern Maryland Engineers Hope to Solve Ventilator Shortage With Breast Pumps
The BayNet: Southern Maryland Engineers Hope to Solve Ventilator Shortage With Breast Pumps. ” There are a lot of moms that still have them sitting around. Maybe stuffed in a drawer, maybe in a random bedroom closet, or maybe just tucked away with the rest of that old diaper bag you used before your baby grew up. Of course, we are talking about those old breast pumps that sit around collecting dust after you no longer need them. But this team of engineers from Southern Maryland hopes they found a new use for those pumps. In the midst of a global health pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus(COVID-19), their ingenuity could potentially save thousands of lives that will be impacted by a shortage of ventilators across the country.”
Newswise: Machine learning technique speeds up crystal structure determination
Newswise: Machine learning technique speeds up crystal structure determination. “Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a computer-based method that could make it less labor-intensive to determine the crystal structures of various materials and molecules, including alloys, proteins and pharmaceuticals. The method uses a machine learning algorithm, similar to the type used in facial recognition and self-driving cars, to independently analyze electron diffraction patterns, and do so with at least 95% accuracy.”
TechCrunch: NASA finds real uses for VR and AR in astronomy and engineering
TechCrunch: NASA finds real uses for VR and AR in astronomy and engineering. “Studying the astronomical number of stars in our galaxy is generally done using legacy tools, scattered databases, perhaps even paper and pencil. And as such it can be hard to use that great multi-purpose pattern recognition engine, the human brain, to full effect on the information. Tom Grubb, an engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, has felt for years that VR and AR are valuable tools for exploring and working with this type of data, and his team has just presented its first paper directly resulting from using those technologies.”
Digital Library of Georgia: Confederate naval ledger now freely available online
Digital Library of Georgia: Confederate naval ledger now freely available online. “The Confederate States Naval Iron Works operated from 1862-1865. The ledger also includes entries as late as 1866 as Warner worked with the United States Navy in turning over naval equipment to the United States government. Records surviving the Civil War that document the Confederate Navy is limited. This ledger provides information about Columbus, Georgia, ironclad construction, steam engines, and the daily operation and industrial reach of the Confederate States Naval Iron Works.”
Hackaday: FieldKit Is The Grand Prize Winner Of The 2019 Hackaday Prize
Hackaday: FieldKit Is The Grand Prize Winner Of The 2019 Hackaday Prize . “FieldKit, an open-source, modular sensor system for conducting research in harsh environments has just been named the Grand Prize winner of the 2019 Hackaday Prize. The award for claiming the top place and title of ‘Best Product’ in this nine-month global engineering initiative is $125,000.”
EurekAlert: New journal to explore the impact of data science on engineering
EurekAlert: New journal to explore the impact of data science on engineering. “A new open access journal from Cambridge University Press will explore the transformative effect of data science on engineering. Launched this week with support from global charity Lloyd’s Register Foundation, Data-Centric Engineering will look at how the revolution in sensing, measurement, and data capture is driving the discovery of new materials, and new methods of manufacture, operation, control and construction.”
New Atlas: 24-hour webcam let’s you watch as engineers build NASA’s next Mars rover
New Atlas: 24-hour webcam let’s you watch as engineers build NASA’s next Mars rover. “A newly-installed clean room webcam at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is giving members of the public a front row seat as technicians and engineers assemble the Mars 2020 rover. The robotic explorer will be accompanied by a helicopter equipped with a high-resolution camera when it launches to the Red Planet atop an Atlas V rocket next year.”
Nature: Catalysis-Hub.org, an open electronic structure database for surface reactions
Nature: Catalysis-Hub.org, an open electronic structure database for surface reactions. “We present a new open repository for chemical reactions on catalytic surfaces, available at https://www.catalysis-hub.org. The featured database for surface reactions contains more than 100,000 chemisorption and reaction energies obtained from electronic structure calculations, and is continuously being updated with new datasets.”
Daily Camera: CU Boulder faculty reach millions with website of engineering lesson plans
Daily Camera: CU Boulder faculty reach millions with website of engineering lesson plans. “Fifteen years ago, Jacquelyn Sullivan and her team at the University of Colorado Boulder started a digital library of engineering lesson plans for teachers at the elementary, middle and high school levels. Last year, TeachEngineering got an upgrade and is growing at a rapid rate and helping teachers across the country — for free.”
USC Viterbi: From Deep Sea Mining To Genetic Engineering
USC Viterbi: From Deep Sea Mining To Genetic Engineering. “A newly launched USC Viterbi online publication – believed to be the first student-run engineering ethics magazine in the country – examines some of the major issues of our day.”
Hackaday: Open Source Biological Gear For The Masses
Hackaday: Open Source Biological Gear For The Masses. “At the risk of putting too fine a point on it, Hackaday exists because people are out there building and documenting open source gadgets. If the person who built a particular gizmo is willing to show the world how they did it, consider us interested. Since you’re reading this, we’ll assume you are as well. Over the years, this mentality has been spreading out from the relatively niche hacker community into the greater engineering world, and we couldn’t be happier.”
New Report Says ‘Citizen Science’ Can Support Both Science Learning and Research Goals; Inequities in Education, Opportunities, and Resources Must be Addressed to Meet Participants’ Learning Demands (The National Academies)
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine: New Report Says ‘Citizen Science’ Can Support Both Science Learning and Research Goals; Inequities in Education, Opportunities, and Resources Must be Addressed to Meet Participants’ Learning Demands . “Scientific research that involves nonscientists contributing to research processes – also known as ‘citizen science’ – supports participants’ learning, engages the public in science, contributes to community scientific literacy, and can serve as a valuable tool to facilitate larger scale research, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. If one of the goals of a citizen science project is to advance learning, designers should plan for it by defining intended learning outcomes and using evidence-based strategies to reach those outcomes.”
Thames Water: New 150-year digital archive captures growth of London
Thames Water: New 150-year digital archive captures growth of London. “Thousands of never-before-seen images documenting Thames Water’s past and the growth of London are now available to the public after a mammoth archiving project. The historic photographs of iconic and critical sites, including Walthamstow reservoirs, Abbey Mills pumping station and Beckton sewage works, from across the capital span almost a century, from 1886 to 1976, and can be downloaded for free.”
Automation .com: Coordinate Metrology Society releases digital library of technical papers
Automation .com: Coordinate Metrology Society releases digital library of technical papers. “The Coordinate Metrology Society (CMS) announced the launch of its digital library of original technical papers delivered by metrology experts over the past twelve years at its annual conference — the Coordinate Metrology Society Conference (CMSC). The library is an online archival of over 100 technical papers and journals covering a range of industry topics including 3D measurement, inspection, assembly, best practices, new innovations and more.” I had to look up metrology. It’s the study of measurement.
