Engineering Education "Today in History" Blog: First snowmobile patent
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 (334) · November 22nd, 2008 · Add a Comment
Today in History – November 22, 1927 – Carl Eliason patented the first snowmobile. Eliason built the prototype snowmobile in a small garage behind his general store over a two year period during his spare time. He purchased the bicycle parts required for the drive train and track assembly from Milwaukee. The small 1924 snowmobile used running boards made of two downhill skis, countoured in the belly pan, a front mounted liquid cooled 2.5 HP outboard engine, slide rail track guides, wooden cleats, rope controlled steering skis and two-up seating located over the track (left image).
Off-road recreational vehicle design competitions can provide exciting opportunities for engineering students to develop teamwork and divise intergrative engineering skills i in multiple disciplines. Examples include the mini baja competition (right image).
Off-road recreational vehicles can have a huge impact on the environment, however, and environmental impact needs to be considered in their design, use and related governmental policy. Snowmobiles produce carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon pollution, in addition to having a deleterious effect on vegetation and wildlife in pristine environments. This is one reason that the SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) started the clean snowmobile competition.
For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on student competitions.
Also on this date in history in 1904, the first patent for a direct current electric motor, called a “variable speed motor”, was issued to Mathias Pfatischer. The motor could run under a variable load at a variable speed, in both forward and reverse.
Tags: Engineering Management · Engineering Mechanics · Mechanical Engineering
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