Engineering Education "Today in History"Blog: First voyage of Fulton's steamboat
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 (333) · August 17th, 2008 · Add a Comment
Today in History – August 17, 1807- Robert Fulton’s North River Steam Boat, called the Clermont, began its first voyage up New York’s Hudson River to complete a successful round-trip from New York City to Albany, traveling 150 miles in 32 hours.
Although Robert Fulton did not invent the steamboat, he is credited with making it a commercial success. Robert Fulton was born in Little Britain township (now Fulton), Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 1765 and died in New York, 24 February 1815. His father came from Kilkenny, Ireland, and immigrated to the United States early in the 18th century. Robert Fulton was a motivated artist and tinkerer. He was constructing paddlewheels at the age of thirteen, which he successfully applied to a fishing boat. He also supported himself through painting miniature portraits and landscapes, as well as mechanical and architectural drawing. He traveled to London to study under Benjamin West to improve his artistic skills and also visited artists in Paris. But he was drawn further into experiments in mechanics and engines. In 1798 Fulton worked on a project for the improvement of canal navigation and obtained a British patent for a double inclined plane for raising or lowering boats from one level to another on a system of small canals.
Fulton returned to the U.S. and completed the boat that was to navigate the Hudson in Spring of 1807. The Clermont’s steam-power trip up the Hudson to Albany was subject to much jealousy and rivalry, depriving him from most of the profits from his innovation. Yet few challenge his claim to have been the major influence behind the rapid multiplication and commercial success of steamboats in the U.S. and elsewhere. Robert Fulton is also well known for his role in a number of other innovations, including the submarine.
For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on Robert Fulton, steam engines and thermodynamics. For related educational resources, visit the Mechanical Engineering Education disciplinary community.
Tags: Engineering Management · General Engineering, Engineering Science · Mechanical Engineering · Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering
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