Engineering Education "Today in History" Blog: America’s First Gas-Powered Automobile Race
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 (149) · November 27th, 2007 · Add a Comment
Today in History - November 27, 1895 - The first gasoline-powered automobile race in the United States. The Duryea brothers - Charles and Frank - created their first gasoline-powered “horseless-carriage” in 1893. The Duryeas were bicycle mechanics who built their first car in a workshop located in a building in downtown Springfield, MA. in September 1893. It was built around a one-cylinder, gasoline engine and a three-speed transmission mounted on a used horse carriage, hitting a stop speed of 7.5 mph. In 1894, Frank developed a second car with a more powerful two-cylinder engine that he drove in America’s first automobile race on Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 1895 and ran a 54-mile course from down-town Chicago to Evanston, Il and back. Taking a little over 10 hours, Frank Duryea was the first to cross the finish line, averaging 7.3 miles per hour and winning a prize of $2,000 ($49,500 in today’s money).”
A few years later the first U.S. automobile show opened in Madison Square Graden, NYC. (See November 3 blog). Henry Ford’s development of mass production techniques in the automotive industry in 1913 made the automobile affordable to the general population.
The National Academy of Engineering named the automobile as the 2nd greatest invention of the twentieth century. Through continuous improvement and the ingenious application of new technology, the automobile reconfirmed and updated its status as a triumph of engineering throughout the 20th century.
The challenge today is to make automobiles and their impact on the environment sustainable for future generations. Hybrids and automobiles using alternate fuels such as solar, biofuels or hydrogen are promising directions for research and development. The solar car, human powered vehicle and supermileage vehicle engineering student competitions at universities today help students develop integrative design and team skills, as well as provide engaging examples for the next generation of engineering students.
See the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources in automotive engineering and design or visit the Mechanical Engineering Education Community site.
Tags: Broadening Participation · General Engineering, Engineering Science · Materials Engineering
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