“Today in History” Engineering Education Blog of the Engineering Pathway

Engineering Education “Today in History” Blog: Pathfinder lands on Mars

by Alice Agogino · July 4th, 2009 · Add a Comment

simulated image of Pathfinder next to the Sojourner rover

Simulated image of Pathfinder and Sojourner rover

Today in History - July 4, 1997 - Launched on December 4, 1996, Pathfinder impacted the surface of Mars on July 4, 1997 at a velocity of 18 m/s (40 mph) and then bounced into the air 15 times at a maximum height of 15 meters (50 feet), before rolling and coming to rest 1 km from the initial impact site. The lander and landing site was named the Carl Sagan Memorial Station. Pathfinder was designed, built and operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for NASA.

Image of Sojourner rover used to travel on Mars

first image of the Sojourner rover on Mars

The Sojourner Rover (above left) carried by Pathfinder rolled onto the Mars’ surface two days later on July 6. Click on the image above right to see a video of its initial positioning.

The project ended on March 10, 1998 when the lander failed to respond to communicate with controllers at JPL. The mission operated three times longer than its original 30-day planned lifetime. I was honored to have served on the Advisory Board for the Engineering Division at JPL and was impressed with their “faster, better, cheaper” approach to space exploration.

The images from Pathfinder-Sojourner are spectacular, ranging from videos of Martian sunsets (click on image above left to see movie), data on the composition of the Martian rocks and the role of water on Mars. Quoting from a NASA press release of June 29, 1998:

The current assessment of data from this instrument suggests that all of the rocks studied by the rover resemble a type of volcanic rock with a high silicon content known on Earth as andesite, covered with a fine layer of dust. All of the rocks appear to be chemically far different from meteorites discovered. on Earth that are believed to have come from Mars.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on the Pathfinder mission and space exploration. For related educational resources, visit the Aerospace Engineering Education, Engineering Mechanics Engineering Education, Computer Engineering Education or the Mechatronics Engineering Education Community sites.

→ Add a CommentTags: Aerospace Engineering · Earth Sciences · General Engineering, Engineering Science

2009 Premier Award Competition - Submission date July 17

by Alice Agogino · June 28th, 2009 · Add a Comment

Have you developed courseware - interactive websites,simulations, tutorials, case studies, software environments or tools - designed to enhance engineering education? We want to see it! Submissions due July 17, 2009.

The Premier Award for Excellence in Engineering Education Courseware, hosted by the Engineering Pathway, is open to a wide range of submissions of high-quality, engaging, non-commercial learning innovations designed to enhance engineering education. Submissions for 2009 are due by July 17, 2009, and the Premier Courseware of 2009 will be announced at the Frontiers In Education Conference to be held October 18-21 in San Antonio, Texas. More details on the Premier Award and current and previous winners can be found on the Engineering Pathway at: http://www.engineeringpathway.org/premier/.

Check out our prior Premier Award winners. The 2008 Premier Award for Excellence in Engineering Education Courseware was awarded to Richard Anderson, Ruth Anderson, Natalie Linnell, Craig Prince and members of the development team from the University of Washington for Classroom Presenter.

image from CD cover of instructor using digital ink

Classroom Presenter is a Tablet PC-based interaction system that supports the sharing of digital ink on slides between instructors and students. Classroom Presenter enables the flexible delivery of lecture content and can increase student engagement and understanding of material. When used as a presentation tool, Classroom Presenter allows the integration of
digital ink and electronic slides, making it possible to combine the advantages of whiteboard style and slide-based presentation. The ability to link the instructor and student devices, and to send information back and forth provides a mechanism for introducing active learning into the classroom and creates additional feedback channels.

Richard Anderson is a professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington and also serves as Associate Chair of educational programs. He won the 2007 UW Faculty Innovator for Teaching Award. Ruth Anderson teaches Computer Science at the University of Washington. Natalie Linnell and Craig Prince are both PhD students at University of Washington working on educational technology with Richard Anderson.

The Engineering Pathway (www.engineeringpathway.org) is a portal to high-quality teaching and learning resources in applied science and math, engineering, computer science/information technology and engineering technology, for use by K-12 and university educators and students. Engineering Pathway is the engineering education “wing” of the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) at www.nsdl.org.

The Engineering Pathway also hosts Engineering Education communities in all ABET-accredited computing and engineering disciplines as well as emerging new interdisciplinary communities.

→ Add a CommentTags: General Engineering, Engineering Science

Engineering Education Blog: First nuclear power plant

by Joonhong Ahn · June 27th, 2009 · 1 Comment

Photo of world's first nuclear power plant

Today in History - June 27, 1954 - First nuclear power plant begins operation. In the mid-1950’s, both the Soviet Union and western countries were exploring the non-military uses of the atom. However, even this non-military work was done in secret and not much was known about it in the West at the time. The Obninsk Power Plant in the USSR, was the world’s first nuclear power plant to generate electricity at 5 megawatts. Ordered by Stalin for nonmilitary purposes, this graphite-moderated and water-cooled reactor could be switched to plutonium production if needed.

Two years later in Calder Hall (England) and three years later in Shippingport two other power plants started operation.

On April 29, 2002, the Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant was decommissioned after 48 years of commercial operation.

See the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on nuclear power . Or visit the Nuclear Engineering Education community site for more information.

→ 1 CommentTags: General Engineering, Engineering Science

Engineering Education “Today in History” Blog: Bar codes and RFID tags

by Alice Agogino · June 26th, 2009 · 1 Comment

Today in History - June 26, 1974 - First barcode using the universal product code (UPC) was scanned by a cashier at a supermarket checkout counter. A shopper named Clyde Dawson handed a cashier at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio named Sharon Buchanan a 10-pack of chewing gum. The gum’s black and white barcode was scanned with a $4000 laser scanner from PSC, Inc. and rang up at 67 cents. A new era in supermarket shopping was born.

The barcode was originally patented by Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver on October 7, 1952 for “Classifying Apparatus and Method”. Although it was commercially available in 1966, it took work in standardizing to make it successful. George J. Lauer is credited with the invention of the Universal Product Code (UPC) that made barcodes viable (left image above).

If you are interested in seeing Clyde Dawson’s package of Juicy Fruit gum, go to the Smithsonian Institute’s Museum of American History. Today supermarket barcodes are standard and available for a fraction of their original cost.

Thirty-four years after their introduction, barcodes on supermarket items may soon become as antiquated as audio cassettes - they only tell the cashier which type of product is being sold, while Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) allows retailers to track every item individually through the use of smart tags.

Because such tags transmit the information they contain to any RFID reader nearby, employees locate misplaced items more easily and hopefully deter theft. While cost concerns have hindered the adoption of the new technology, just like its predecessor in the 1970s, the humble bar code seems unlikely to stand a chance once RFID reaches critical mass.

Luckily, it has found many other uses beyond retail, in fields such as certified mail, courier services and airline luggage processing, although customers might come to wish airlines placed smart tags on their suitcases. Two novel areas stand out: airline check-in and e-government.

If you recently checked in for your flight using your home or work computer, rather than at the airport kiosk, you might have noticed that the bar code on your boarding pass looked a bit odd - the black-and-white pattern was more complex than the usual array of vertical bars we all have grown accustomed to. You were, in fact, staring at a two-dimensional bar code.

Two-dimensional bar codes were developed in the late 1980s to store large amounts of information with high security, especially when space is limited. They are also extremely difficult to forge. Continental Airlines even hopes to let customers check in by uploading 2D bar codes on their cell phones, which would decrease paper costs, and is now testing the viability of the approach in a pilot program.

The US government uses bar codes too. The American embassy in London, among others, puts bar codes in the confirmation emails it sends to visa applicants once they have submitted their documentation online. The bar code is scanned when the candidates arrive at the embassy for their interview, allowing the visa officer to quickly access their information. Paper tax forms have bar codes as well. Additional potential applications include driver’s licenses and medical patient records.

Even if bar codes disappear from retailers’ shelves, they will not go the way of the audio cassettes any time soon.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on barcodes and RFID tags. Additional curricular materials on modern manufacturing practices can be found on the Manufacturing Engineering Education or the Industrial Engineering Education community sites.

→ 1 CommentTags: General Engineering, Engineering Science

Engineering Education Blog: Marie Curie defends thesis

by Alice Agogino · June 25th, 2009 · Add a Comment

Today in History - June 25, 1903 - Marie Curie defends her doctoral thesis, then gets Nobel Prize five months later. Did she just procrastinate? Or were thesis standards higher a century ago at the Sorbonne? I haven’t seen a good explanation for the delay, other than she was busy discovering new elements.

Earlier in 1898, Marie and Pierre Curie made repeated separations of the various substances in pitchblende (photo on left) and used a Curie electrometer to identify two unidentified radioactive fractions that remained in pitchblende after uranium was removed. They discovered that the one containing mostly bismuth also contained a new element they named “polonium” in honor of the country of Marie’s birth. The barium fraction contained another new element, which they named “radium” from the Latin word for ray. They were able to add two new elements in the Periodic Table. While the chemical properties of the two new elements were completely dissimilar, they both had strong radioactivity. Radium was later isolated as a pure metal in 1902, but the discovery was not published in the popular press until this day in 1903.

Evidently, Marie Curie was so focused on her research that she had neglected to complete the writing of her thesis, which she finally got around to defending on June 25, 1903 titled: “Research on radioactive substances”.

Marie and Pierre Curie shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics, along with Henri Becquerel, their contributions associated with the discovery of spontaneous radioactivity. Marie Curie was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911 “in recognition of her services to the advancement of chemistry by the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element”. Alas Pierre Curie was not able to share the Nobel Prize this time as he was killed earlier in a carriage accident in a rainstorm in Paris on April 11, 1906. The curie is a unit of radioactivity originally named in honor of Pierre Curie by the Radiology Congress in 1910, after his death.

Marie Curie was the first person to win two Nobel prizes. Her daughter, Irene Joliot-Curie (photo below right), also won a Nobel Prize in 1935.