by Alice Agogino
closeAuthor: Alice Agogino
Name: Alice Agogino
Email: agogino@berkeley.edu
Site: http://www.me.berkeley.edu/faculty/agogino/
About: Alice M. Agogino is the Roscoe and Elizabeth Hughes Professor of Mechanical Engineering and is affiliated faculty at the Haas School of Business in their Operations and Information Technology Management Group. Her research interests include: community-based design; sustainable engineering; intelligent learning systems; information retrieval and data mining; multiobjective and strategic product design; nonlinear optimization; probabilistic modeling; intelligent control and manufacturing; sensor validation, fusion and diagnostics; wireless sensor networks; multimedia and computer-aided design; design databases; design theory and methods; MEMS/NEMS synthesis and computer-aided design; artificial intelligence and decision and expert systems; and gender/ethnic equity.
She has served in a number of administrative positions at UC Berkeley, including Chair of the Faculty Senate, Associate Dean of Engineering and Faculty Assistant to the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost in Educational Development and Technology. Prof. Agogino also served as Director for Synthesis, an NSF-sponsored coalition of eight universities with the goal of reforming undergraduate engineering education, and continues as PI for the NEEDS (www.needs.org) and SMETE.ORG digital libraries of courseware in science, mathematics, engineering and technology.
Prof. Agogino received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of New Mexico (1975), M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering (1978) from the University of California at Berkeley and Ph.D. from the Department of Engineering-Economic Systems at Stanford University (1984). Prior to joining the faculty at UC Berkeley, she worked in industry for Dow Chemical, General Electric and SRI International. She has authored over 150 scholarly publications; has won numerous teaching, best paper and research awards; and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). At NAE she served on the Committee on Engineering Education, working on the Technologically Speaking and the Engineer 2020 projects. She is currently a member of the National Research Council's Board on Education and the Women in Academic Science Engineering Committee. She has supervised 66 MS projects/theses, 26 doctoral dissertations and numerous undergraduate researchers.See Authors Posts (597) · January 26th, 2012 · Add a Comment
Today in History – January 26, 1926 – Scottish Engineer John Baird gives first public demonstration of television in London. According to BBC News, his first prototype in 1924 was crudely made of a washstand, a tea chest and a project lamp in a biscuit tin, scanning disks made from carboard and lenses, all held together with srcap wood, darning needles, strings and sealing wax. Nevertheless, he managed to transmit a flickering image for a few feet. On 26 January 1926, he gave the first world’s demonstration to fifty scientists in London. By 1927 he was transmitting an image of over 438 miles between London and Glasgow and started the Baird Television Development Company. Other firsts include: first transmission of a human face in 1925 (see right photo above), first transatlantic television transmission between London and New York in 1928 and first demonstration of color and stereoscopic television.
Baird’s system was amazing in that it was entirely mechanical, but it couldn’t compete against new electronic systems, such as those being developed by Marconi in the United States. Marconi’s approach was ultimately adopted for early television systems, but Baird’s contributions paved the way by introducing the concept and providing the first proof of concept. Prior to this BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) was concentrating on radio production because they thought television would be a passing fad. In 1936 they adopted a television service using the electronic television technology developed by Marconi and thus Baird’s contributions are less well known.
Check out the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on the color television. For more educational resources, see our electrical engineering education and computer engineering education community pages. The Engineering Pathway also hosts Engineering Education communities in all ABET-accredited disciplines.
Also on this date in 1905, Cullinan Diamond (“Star of Africa”), the largest diamond ever found, is unearthed. On January 26, 1697, Isaac Newton solves Bernoulli’s brachistochrone problem, inventing the “calculus of variations”. And in 1992, Americans with Disabilities Act went into effect.
Tags: Electrical Engineering · Engineering Management · General Engineering, Engineering Science
by Alice AgoginocloseAuthor: Alice Agogino
Name: Alice Agogino
Email: agogino@berkeley.edu
Site: http://www.me.berkeley.edu/faculty/agogino/
About: Alice M. Agogino is the Roscoe and Elizabeth Hughes Professor of Mechanical Engineering and is affiliated faculty at the Haas School of Business in their Operations and Information Technology Management Group. Her research interests include: community-based design; sustainable engineering; intelligent learning systems; information retrieval and data mining; multiobjective and strategic product design; nonlinear optimization; probabilistic modeling; intelligent control and manufacturing; sensor validation, fusion and diagnostics; wireless sensor networks; multimedia and computer-aided design; design databases; design theory and methods; MEMS/NEMS synthesis and computer-aided design; artificial intelligence and decision and expert systems; and gender/ethnic equity.
She has served in a number of administrative positions at UC Berkeley, including Chair of the Faculty Senate, Associate Dean of Engineering and Faculty Assistant to the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost in Educational Development and Technology. Prof. Agogino also served as Director for Synthesis, an NSF-sponsored coalition of eight universities with the goal of reforming undergraduate engineering education, and continues as PI for the NEEDS (www.needs.org) and SMETE.ORG digital libraries of courseware in science, mathematics, engineering and technology.
Prof. Agogino received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of New Mexico (1975), M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering (1978) from the University of California at Berkeley and Ph.D. from the Department of Engineering-Economic Systems at Stanford University (1984). Prior to joining the faculty at UC Berkeley, she worked in industry for Dow Chemical, General Electric and SRI International. She has authored over 150 scholarly publications; has won numerous teaching, best paper and research awards; and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). At NAE she served on the Committee on Engineering Education, working on the Technologically Speaking and the Engineer 2020 projects. She is currently a member of the National Research Council's Board on Education and the Women in Academic Science Engineering Committee. She has supervised 66 MS projects/theses, 26 doctoral dissertations and numerous undergraduate researchers.See Authors Posts (597) · January 26th, 2012 · Add a Comment
Today in History – January 26, 1697- Isaac Newton solves Bernoulli’s brachistochrone problem, inventing the “calculus of variations”. The story goes that Jean Bernoulli gave Isaac Newton a challenge solve the following problem in six months:
We are given two fixed points in a vertical plane. A particle starts from rest at one of the points and travels to the other under its own weight. Find the path that the particle must follow in order to reach its destination in the briefest time.
Rather than take 6 months, Newton is reported to have solved the problem the next day. However, the solution, which is a segment of a cycloid, was solved, in part, by Leibniz, L’Hospital, Newton and the two Bernoullis. In fact, there appears to have been quite a lively, and in some cases bitter, debate about the fine points of the solution. Regardless, the challenge was to provide the seed for further development of the theory of calculus of variation used in a wide range of engineering problems, such as optimal control and optimization.
For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on Isaac Newton, the Brachistochrone problem and calculus of variations.
Also on this date in 1905, Cullinan Diamond (“Star of Africa”), the largest diamond ever found, is unearthed. On January 26, 1926, Scottish Engineer John Baird gives first public demonstration of television in London. And in 1992, Americans with Disabilities Act went into effect. Check out the Engineering Pathway’s resources on teaching and learning for persons with disabilities.
Tags: Engineering Mechanics · General Engineering, Engineering Science · Mechanical Engineering
by Alice AgoginocloseAuthor: Alice Agogino
Name: Alice Agogino
Email: agogino@berkeley.edu
Site: http://www.me.berkeley.edu/faculty/agogino/
About: Alice M. Agogino is the Roscoe and Elizabeth Hughes Professor of Mechanical Engineering and is affiliated faculty at the Haas School of Business in their Operations and Information Technology Management Group. Her research interests include: community-based design; sustainable engineering; intelligent learning systems; information retrieval and data mining; multiobjective and strategic product design; nonlinear optimization; probabilistic modeling; intelligent control and manufacturing; sensor validation, fusion and diagnostics; wireless sensor networks; multimedia and computer-aided design; design databases; design theory and methods; MEMS/NEMS synthesis and computer-aided design; artificial intelligence and decision and expert systems; and gender/ethnic equity.
She has served in a number of administrative positions at UC Berkeley, including Chair of the Faculty Senate, Associate Dean of Engineering and Faculty Assistant to the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost in Educational Development and Technology. Prof. Agogino also served as Director for Synthesis, an NSF-sponsored coalition of eight universities with the goal of reforming undergraduate engineering education, and continues as PI for the NEEDS (www.needs.org) and SMETE.ORG digital libraries of courseware in science, mathematics, engineering and technology.
Prof. Agogino received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of New Mexico (1975), M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering (1978) from the University of California at Berkeley and Ph.D. from the Department of Engineering-Economic Systems at Stanford University (1984). Prior to joining the faculty at UC Berkeley, she worked in industry for Dow Chemical, General Electric and SRI International. She has authored over 150 scholarly publications; has won numerous teaching, best paper and research awards; and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). At NAE she served on the Committee on Engineering Education, working on the Technologically Speaking and the Engineer 2020 projects. She is currently a member of the National Research Council's Board on Education and the Women in Academic Science Engineering Committee. She has supervised 66 MS projects/theses, 26 doctoral dissertations and numerous undergraduate researchers.See Authors Posts (597) · January 24th, 2012 · Add a Comment
Today in History – January 24, 1984 – Apple Computer unveils the Macintosh personal computer. Apple introduced “the Mac” through its famous “1984″ television commercial that was played at the 1984 Super Bowl. The imagery pitted Apple’s new generation of the people’s personal computer against the Orwellian IBM. The Mac was an innovation breakthrough in computer design with the introduction of the mouse and a graphical user interface at a relatively low price. It was first sold with only a 400kb floppy drive to load the operating system and files, with no hard drive. Less than 50,000 units were sold after its introduction because of the limited memory and radical features. Sales got a big boost when the LaserWriter printer was introduced along with third party publishing software. The early Mac users provided an enthusiastic customer base of early adopters who formed community groups, participated in early testing and developed third part software using Apple’s user-friendly developer’s kit. My husband and I each bought one of the first offerings and have upgraded to new Apple models ever since. The summer of 1984 I accepted a faculty position at the University of California at Berkeley and my husband became an Apple developer and created software for astronomy enthusiasts.
A decade earlier on April 1, 1976, the Apple Computer Company was formed and released the Apple I computer, the first computer with a single circuit board. There was no assembly line as each Apple I was hand-built by Steve Wozniak in Steve Jobs’ parents’ home and required further assembly by the purchaser, including providing AC input voltages, wiring an ASCII keyboard to a DIP connector and wiring the video output pins to a monitor or to an RF modulator if a TV was used. Steve Wozniak showed the first one to the Homebrew Computer Club to get sales going. He had to sell his Volkswagen bus to help keep the company afloat.
Steve Wozniak designed the Apple II personal computer that was released on April 16, 1977, featuring a central processing unit (CPU), keyboard, floppy disk drive, and a $1,300 price tag. The Apple II launched the personal computer revolution. He left Apple in 1981 and went back to the University of California at Berkeley and finished his degree in electrical engineering and computer science there. Since then, he has been involved in various business and philanthropic ventures, including improving computer capabilities in schools.
So how do you build the first personal computer? Wozniak says when he teaches Personal Computer 101 he asks students to go to the Apple I Owners Club, founded in 1977 by Joe Torzewski. The site contains over 120 pages detailing the Apple I computer. It shows you what it was like to actually buy and assemble one. If you’ve never seen an Apple I, check this site out and see how the personal computer revolution began. Want to know more, read Wozniak’s book: iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It.
Check out the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on Apple computers and history of computing. For more educational resources, see our electrical engineering education, computer science education and computer engineering education community pages. The Engineering Pathway also hosts Engineering Education communities in all ABET-accredited disciplines.
Tags: Computer Engineering · Computer Science · Computing · Engineering Management · General Engineering, Engineering Science · Information Systems · Information Technology · Mechanical Engineering · Software Engineering
by Alice AgoginocloseAuthor: Alice Agogino
Name: Alice Agogino
Email: agogino@berkeley.edu
Site: http://www.me.berkeley.edu/faculty/agogino/
About: Alice M. Agogino is the Roscoe and Elizabeth Hughes Professor of Mechanical Engineering and is affiliated faculty at the Haas School of Business in their Operations and Information Technology Management Group. Her research interests include: community-based design; sustainable engineering; intelligent learning systems; information retrieval and data mining; multiobjective and strategic product design; nonlinear optimization; probabilistic modeling; intelligent control and manufacturing; sensor validation, fusion and diagnostics; wireless sensor networks; multimedia and computer-aided design; design databases; design theory and methods; MEMS/NEMS synthesis and computer-aided design; artificial intelligence and decision and expert systems; and gender/ethnic equity.
She has served in a number of administrative positions at UC Berkeley, including Chair of the Faculty Senate, Associate Dean of Engineering and Faculty Assistant to the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost in Educational Development and Technology. Prof. Agogino also served as Director for Synthesis, an NSF-sponsored coalition of eight universities with the goal of reforming undergraduate engineering education, and continues as PI for the NEEDS (www.needs.org) and SMETE.ORG digital libraries of courseware in science, mathematics, engineering and technology.
Prof. Agogino received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of New Mexico (1975), M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering (1978) from the University of California at Berkeley and Ph.D. from the Department of Engineering-Economic Systems at Stanford University (1984). Prior to joining the faculty at UC Berkeley, she worked in industry for Dow Chemical, General Electric and SRI International. She has authored over 150 scholarly publications; has won numerous teaching, best paper and research awards; and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). At NAE she served on the Committee on Engineering Education, working on the Technologically Speaking and the Engineer 2020 projects. She is currently a member of the National Research Council's Board on Education and the Women in Academic Science Engineering Committee. She has supervised 66 MS projects/theses, 26 doctoral dissertations and numerous undergraduate researchers.See Authors Posts (597) · January 23rd, 2012 · Add a Comment
Today in History – January 23, 1996 – The first version of the Java programming language is released. Java was developed independently of the Web, starting in 1991 with a small group of Sun engineers called the “Green Team”. Their vision was that the next wave in computing was the union of digital consumer devices and computers. James Gosling led the team and worked around the clock to release this first version originally called Oak. The Green Team’s first demonstration of their new language was for an interactive, hand-held home-entertainment controller that was originally targeted at the digital cable television industry. The worked focused on business models and end users. They subscribed to what Bill Joy called “Hammer Technology”: taking a bunch of existing stuff and hammering it together. Learning by doing. We built things you can hold and use. This is why we chose as deliverables a set of working prototypes and a business plan.”
Alas it was technology ahead of its time and it didn’t take off immediately. Coincidentally, however, the World Wide Web was also being launched and the Green Team saw its potential and announced in 1995 that the new Netscape Navigator internet browser would incorporate Java technology. The Java language is now the major programming language for the Web and for many other applications, including robotics, mechatronics, and embedded computing.
I highly recommend that interested readers watch the video introduced by Scott McNealy at the 2009 JavaOne general session. James Gosling narrates this humorous Gospel of Java According to James.
For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on the Java programming language and the history of computing. For related educational resources, visit the Computer Science Education, Information Systems Education, Information Technology Education, Computer Engineering Education or Software Engineering Education disciplinary communities.
Tags: Computer Engineering · Computer Science · Computing · Information Systems · Information Technology · Software Engineering
by Alice AgoginocloseAuthor: Alice Agogino
Name: Alice Agogino
Email: agogino@berkeley.edu
Site: http://www.me.berkeley.edu/faculty/agogino/
About: Alice M. Agogino is the Roscoe and Elizabeth Hughes Professor of Mechanical Engineering and is affiliated faculty at the Haas School of Business in their Operations and Information Technology Management Group. Her research interests include: community-based design; sustainable engineering; intelligent learning systems; information retrieval and data mining; multiobjective and strategic product design; nonlinear optimization; probabilistic modeling; intelligent control and manufacturing; sensor validation, fusion and diagnostics; wireless sensor networks; multimedia and computer-aided design; design databases; design theory and methods; MEMS/NEMS synthesis and computer-aided design; artificial intelligence and decision and expert systems; and gender/ethnic equity.
She has served in a number of administrative positions at UC Berkeley, including Chair of the Faculty Senate, Associate Dean of Engineering and Faculty Assistant to the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost in Educational Development and Technology. Prof. Agogino also served as Director for Synthesis, an NSF-sponsored coalition of eight universities with the goal of reforming undergraduate engineering education, and continues as PI for the NEEDS (www.needs.org) and SMETE.ORG digital libraries of courseware in science, mathematics, engineering and technology.
Prof. Agogino received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of New Mexico (1975), M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering (1978) from the University of California at Berkeley and Ph.D. from the Department of Engineering-Economic Systems at Stanford University (1984). Prior to joining the faculty at UC Berkeley, she worked in industry for Dow Chemical, General Electric and SRI International. She has authored over 150 scholarly publications; has won numerous teaching, best paper and research awards; and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). At NAE she served on the Committee on Engineering Education, working on the Technologically Speaking and the Engineer 2020 projects. She is currently a member of the National Research Council's Board on Education and the Women in Academic Science Engineering Committee. She has supervised 66 MS projects/theses, 26 doctoral dissertations and numerous undergraduate researchers.See Authors Posts (597) · January 20th, 2012 · Add a Comment
January 20, 1986 – First federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King. Through fifteen years of the persistent efforts of Congress Members John Conyers (Michigan), Shirley Chisholm (New York) and an army of other supports, Martin Luther King Day legislation was passed in 1983. A number of changes were required for it to be acceptable as a federal holiday. The date was changed to the third Monday in January, rather than his birthday of January 15, so as to distance it from Christmas and New Years. Several states resisted celebrating the holiday for various reasons. Several southern states included celebrations for various Confederate generals on that day. Arizona voters didn’t approve the holiday until 1992 after pressure from a tourist boycott. Only recently in 2000 was it first officially observed in all 50 states.
Ironically in 2008, the original Martin Luther King Day of January 20 fell on the inauguration of the first acknowledged African American President. Barack Obama’s “This is your victory” election day speech spoke of a nation of hope “where all things are possible”. “Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a bit better than the one we inhabit today”.
Advocates of Martin Luther King Day promote it as a day to focus on service activities using the motto “make it a Day ON, Not a Day Off!”. In fact, the 1994 King Holiday and Service Act designates the holiday as a national day of volunteer service, asking “Americans of all backgrounds and ages to celebrate Dr. King’s legacy by turning community concerns into citizen action.”
Martin Luther King brought together a diverse cross-section of the American citizenry to break down barriers and join forces in a common cause of justice and equity. Unfortunately, we still have much further to go in achieving diversity and inclusion in engineering. Community service learning projects have been proven to be an effective tool in developing integrative thinking and societal context in engineering education, as well as a means of attracting and motivating underrepresented engineers. One of the most successful efforts is the EPICS (Engineering Projects for Community Service) program originated in the College of Engineering at Purdue and the 2005 winner of the National Academy of Engineering‘s prestigious Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education.
For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on Martin Luther King and community service learning. Or view our Engineering Diversity or our Computing Diversity educational community sites. View Michael Smith’s December 10th Engineering Education blog on the anniversary of his Nobel Peace Prize. The title of his Nobel lecture was “The Quest for Peace and Justice”.
Tags: African American · Engineering Ethics · General Engineering, Engineering Science
