Today in History – December 28, 1886 – Josephine Cochrane is issued patent for a commercially successful dishwasher. Josephine Cochrane received the patent for the first commercially successful dishwasher. A mechanical device, turning a crank would provide a continuous flow of either soap suds or hot water to a rack of dishes. She founded a company to manufacture these dish washers, which eventually became KitchenAid. Josephine Cochran unveiled her initial prototype at the 1893, World’s Fair. For many years, only hotels and large restaurants could afford dishwashers. In the 1950s, dishwashers began to make their way to the general public.

Also on this date in history in 1895, world’s first movie theater opens in Paris. Auguste and Louis Lumire held their first private screening of projected motion pictures in March of 1895 and their first public screening of movies on this date in 1895, at Paris’s Salon Indien du Grand Cafe. It all began when a handful of passersby were lured inside the Grand Cafe at 14 Boulevard des Capucines by a poster enigmatically advertising “Cinematographe Lumire.” This history-making presentation featured ten short films, including their first film, Sortie des Usines Lumire  Lyon (Workers Leaving the Lumire Factory). After paying a franc, descending into the grandly named “Salon Indien” in the basement, and sinking into armchairs before an empty screen, some of them wondered if they’d been tricked into seeing yet another cheesy magic lantern show. Then, as the audience stared in disbelief, the two-dimensional screen turned into a panorama of movement, a convincing, Frankensteinian display of artificial human life that would forever change the way we spend our Saturday nights.”

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on women inventors and digital movies and sound. For curricular resources, visit the Mechanical Engineering Education and Computer Science Education community site.

Today in History – December 21, 1807 – Fourier introduces his series at the Paris Institute. Joseph Fourier’s memoir, On the Propagation of Heat in Solid Bodies, was read to the Paris Institute. It introduced the expansion of functions into trigonometric series which are now called Fourier series.

The Fourier series allows periodic functions to be represented as a weighted sum of much simpler sinusoidal component functions sometimes referred to as normal Fourier modes, or simply modes for short. The weights, or coefficients, of the components, arranged in order of increasing frequency, form a sequence (or function) called Fourier series. Fourier analysis provides a frequency domain representation of a time domain function. The mapping between the two functions is one-to-one, so the transform is reversible. A common visualization of this transformation is the audio equalizer, which is a dynamic representation of a time signal converted to the frequency domain. An audio spectrum of both time and frequency is shown below.

Preliminary work by Madhava, Nilakantha Somayaji, Jyesthadeva, Leonhard Euler, Jean le Rond d’Alembert, and Daniel Bernoulli would serve as the foundation for Fourier’s work. He applied his studies of trigonometric series to a solution of the partial differential heat equation to produce the series below:

Fourier’s initial series lacked the precision of a function, and Dirichlet and Riemann would later express the series as a formal integral.

Fourier series applications include electrical engineering, vibration analysis, acoustics, optics, signal and image processing, and data compression. Using the tools and techniques of spectroscopy, astronomers can deduce the chemical composition of a star by analyzing the frequency components, or spectrum, of the star’s emitted light. Similarly, engineers can optimize the design of a telecommunications system using information about the spectral components of the data signal that the system will carry.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway‘s resources on Fourier and the Fourier series For related educational resources, visit the Electrical Engineering Education disciplinary community.

Today in History – December 18, 1958 – SCORE (Signal Communication by Orbital Relay Equipment) was the world’s first communications satellite to be put into orbit. As the first American satellite to relay communications from one ground station to another, SCORE used a tape recorder to store and forward voice messages. It was used to send a Christmas greeting via short wave frequency to the world from U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The SCORE satellite was designed and built by Kenneth Masterman-Smith, a military communication research engineer, along with other personnel with the U.S. Army Signal Research and Development Laboratory (SRDL) at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Launched in an Atlas rocket, SCORE provided a first test of a communications relay system in space. The technical objectives were to demonstrate the capabilities of satellite launch from an Atlas missile and the feasibility of transmitting messages through the upper atmosphere from one ground station to one or more ground stations. Score placed the United States at an even technological par with the Soviet Union as a highly functional response to the Sputnik satellites. The payload weighed 150 pounds, and was built into the fairing pods of the 9000 pound Atlas missile. Any of four ground stations in the southern United States could command the satellite into playback mode to transmit the stored message or into record mode to receive and store a new message. Its batteries lasted 12 days and it reentered the atmosphere on 21 January 1959.

SCORE was an early research endeavor for the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), which eventually evolved into the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). It was developed during the dawn of satellite communication innovation in the U.S. and abroad. The first satellite equipped with on-board radio-transmitters was the Soviet Sputnik 1, launched in 1957. NASA launched an Echo satellite in 1960; the 100-foot aluminized PET film balloon served as a passive reflector for radio communications. Courier 1B, (built by Philco) also launched in 1960, was the world’s first active repeater satellite. Telstar was the first active, direct relay communications satellite. Belonging to AT&T as part of a multi-national agreement between AT&T, Bell Telephone Laboratories, NASA, the British General Post Office, and the French National PTT (Post Office) to develop satellite communication, it was launched by NASA from Cape Canaveral on July 10, 1962, the first privately sponsored space launch.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on communications satellites or GPS and geomatics systems. For related curricula, visit the Information Technology Education, Electrical Engineering Education , Surveying and Geomatics Engineering Education disciplinary communities.

Today in History- November 23, 1992 – Cellular telephone industry sells 10 million cell phones and sets customer mark on way to projected subscriber base of 20 to 27 million by 1997. Cell phone sales passed 1 billion in 2006.

The technology of modern cell phones started with the creation of hexagonal cells for mobile phones by D.H. Ring from Bell Labs in 1947, later on another engineer from Bell Labs conceived of cell towers that would transmit and receive signals in three directions instead of normal bi directional antennas. By 1967, mobile phone technology was available; however, the user had to stay within one cell area. In 1970, Amos Edward Joel developed the call handoff system to facilitate continuity of a phone call from one area to another without dropping the phone call. In 1971, AT&T submitted a request to the FCC for cellular service. It took more than 10 years for an approval and in 1982; the FCC allocated the frequencies of 824-894 MHZ Band to Advanced Mobile Phone Service (AMPS). From 1982 to 1990, AMPS was an analog service, Digital AMPS came online as of 1990.

The first mobile phones were installed in vehicles due to the large battery requirements. The MTA (Mobile Telephone System A) developed by Eriksson was available in Sweden in 1950′s. Unfortunately, it weighed over 80 pounds, later versions however weighed around 20 pounds, still making it ineffective for mobility. In 1983, Motorola unveiled the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, the first truly portable cellular phone. It weighed 28 ounces and was known as the Brick for its shape.

From 1983 to the end of the 1980′s cell phones grew in popularity, although most were made for permanent installation in the car. There were also briefcase models that held large batteries necessary to make calls. Cellular phones from the early 1990′s are considered second generation (2G) and they were able to work on mobile phone systems such as GSM, IS-136 (TDMA) and IS-95 (CDMA). Digital mobile phone networks were in use in the United States in 1990 and in Europe by 1991. 2G mobile phones use digital circuit switched transmissions, which enable quicker network signaling, fewer dropped calls and increased quality.

The Third Generation (3G) cellular phone is the latest technology. While 3G came only a few years after 2G, mainly due to many innovations in technology and services, standards for 3G are usually different depending on the network. Smartphones utilize the advanced capabilities of 2G and 3G beyond typical mobile phones, often with PC-like functionality. Mobile phones are quickly becoming the dominant computer and telephony platform in most of the developing world. Cell phones are pervasive in North America, Europe and Asia and sales statistics are often shown in predictions for future growth, as if 1 billion is not enough.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway‘s resources on the cell phones and telecommunications. Additional curricular materials can be found on the Electrical Engineering Education Community site.

Today in History – November 21, 1877 – Edison announces the invention of his “talking machine”, the phonograph. Also on this date in 1995, Disney releases “Toy Story”, the first full-length movie created entirely by computer animation.

Thomas Alva Edison, nicknamed the “Wizard of Menlo Park”, had 1,093 patents to his name. Some of Edison’s inventions were so advanced that many disbelieved his claims. When he announced the phonograph in 1877, a Yale University professor told the New York Sun that “The idea of a talking machine is ridiculous”. While working to improve the efficiency of a telegraph transmitter, Edison noted that the tape of the machine gave off a noise resembling spoken words when played at a high speed. He wondered if he this could be used to record a telephone message. He began experimenting with the diaphragm of a telephone receiver by attaching a needle to it. He reasoned that the needle could prick paper tape to record a message. His experiments led him to try a stylus on a tinfoil cylinder, which, to his great surprise, played back the short message he recorded, “Mary had a little lamb.” The phonograph would ultimately lay the groundwork for future generations of audio recording technology such as magnetic tape, compact discs and audio compression standards like MP3. Today, the public is offered a wide selection of exciting new products associated with digital music and videos. The iPod represents the next generation of digital music players and has inspired copycats and extensions.

Toy Story was the first feature-length computer-animated film. Released on this date in 1995, this Academy-award winning film helped create a new age of digital cinema and 3D computer graphics. Toy characters proved easier to animate than people, which explains the sparse human subjects in the film. The Toy Story characters used hundreds of features to control movement and facial expressions, whereas, robots in the recent Transformers film use well over a million features. Toy Story would eventually pave the way for motion-capture, simulations of skin, hair and cloth and many advanced computer animation technologies. Later computer graphics movies such as Shrek and Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within would improve upon the photo realism of human characters. The latest big test of motion-capture technology is the recently released ‘Beowulf‒. This film represents the most advanced attempt to show realistic-looking humans with computer generated imagery.

3D graphics are now pervasive in entertainment and education. First-person computer games and 3D movies represent the latest developments in immersive entertainment. Computer animation is also an engaging and intuitive tool for collegiate and K-12 education. 3D computer simulations provide visualization to complex systems in such fields as aeronautics, materials science, mechanical engineering, signal processing and data mining. Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a teaching tool for introductory computing in K-12 or college and it is helpful in broadening diversity in computing. It uses 3D graphics and a drag-and-drop interface to facilitate a more engaging, less frustrating first programming experience. The software is a free open source object-oriented educational programming language with an associated development environment developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon, including Randy Pausch.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway‘s resources on Edison, digital music, or the Toy Story and computer animations.

Also on this date in history in 1977, the first commercial flight of Concorde, London to New York.

Today in history- Aug 30, 1983- Guion “Guy” Bluford became the first African America to travel to space , 22 years after the first American traveled to space. This twenty plus year’s gap makes his accomplishment an important milestone in African American history. Born November 22,1942 with a mother for a teacher and an engineer for a father, Bluford was destined for success. Recognizing that 1942 is well before Brown vs. Board, their academic accomplishments, technically, were prior to school integration. Despite the obstacles to access and success for African Americans, his parents obtained higher level of education. With their examples and achievements you can only imagine their expectations for their children were high. They encouraged their children to strive for the best in life.

It seems as if Bluford did just that: receiving his bachelors of science at Pennsylvania State University in Aerospace Engineering and then going on to be a pilot for the air force and earning a Defense Service medal while serving in the Vietnam War. After the war, Bluford attained his Masters Degree in Aerospace Engineering, then his PhD in Aerospace Engineering with a minor in Laser Physics. Bluford then went on to join NASA in 1979 and four years later became the first African American in space as a mission specialist on the STS-8 flight of the Challenger Space Shuttle. His life and this accomplishment are truly worth being showcased today in history.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s related resources on Guy Bluford or NASA. Or visit the Aerospace Engineering Education community site.

Today in History – June 9, 1931 – Dr. Robert Hutchings Goddard patents a rocket-powered airplane.

Goddard is perhaps best known for the first liquid-fueled rocket,  a very small contraption connected to tanks with gasoline and liquid oxygen, and sitting atop a frame 10 feet tall. It screeched into the air for a few seconds, reaching an altitude of about 40 feet and crashing down about 200 feet from its launch site. Goddard wrote in his diary that the rocket “looked magical as it rose.”

In a liquid rocket, stored fuel and stored oxidizer are pumped into a combustion chamber where they are mixed and burned. The combustion produces great amounts of high-pressure exhaust gas, which produces thrust. Today’s missiles and spacecraft are launched on liquid-propelled rockets based on Goddard’s groundbreaking experiments. In memory of Goddard’s work, a major space science laboratory, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, was established on May 1, 1959.

Also on this date in 1966, NASA launched Gemini VIII, the 12th manned American space flight and first space docking with the Agena Target Vehicle. Neil Armstrong, who was a recent test pilot assigned to the X-15 rocket airplane before becoming an astronaut in 1962, made his first space flight in 1966 on Gemini VIII with David R. Scott. The two men performed the first successful docking of two vehicles in space — the Gemini VIII and an uninhabited Agena rocket. This was the world’s first orbital docking. David Scott was to spend two hours outside of the spacecraft, but subsequent events canceled the planned space-walk. A thruster malfunction caused the Gemini VIII capsule, still docked to the Agena, to roll continuously. The crew undocked from the Agena while rotating at a rate of 60 RPM. The only way to stop the motion was to use the capsule’s reentry control thrusters, which meant that Armstrong and Scott had to cut short their mission and make an emergency return to Earth 10 hours after launch.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway‘s resources on Goddard, rockets and aerospace engineering. For curricular resources, visit the Aerospace Engineering Education community site.

Today in History – April 13, 1960 – First U.S. navigational satellite. Transit satellites were used by the US Navy to develop the first operational navigation satellite system The Transit satellites provided an accurate, all-weather navigational aid for ballistic missile submarines and surface vessels and aircraft. The system was designed such that any craft could pinpoint its position by using a computer specially programmed to translate coded radio signals beamed from the satellites into latitude and longitude.

Transit 1-B, the first in the series, was placed in a north-south polar orbit on April 13, 1960. It had a 40-month life-span, but it operated for only 89 days. Transit 1-B transmitted on two frequency pairs to test the technique for refraction correction and to determine if the transmitted frequencies should be close together or far apart. It also tested a magnetic torque device for spacecraft attitude control – the first satellite to do so. Three advanced Transit models equipped with nuclear-power generators were launched from June 22, 1960, to Nov. 15, 1961.

Transit provided continuous navigation satellite service from 1964, initially for Polaris submarines and later for civilian use. Transit receivers used the known characteristics of the satellites orbit, measured the Doppler shift of the satellite’s radio signal, and thereby calculated the receivers position on the earth. Individual satellites operated for over 10 years. Technical breakthroughs during the program included gravity gradient stabilization, the use of radio-isotope thermoelectric generators (RTG), and navigation satellite technologies used in the later GPS series. The TRIAD satellite was launched in 1972 to test improvements. Transit was superseded by the Navstar global positioning system. The use of the satellites for navigation was discontinued at the end of 1996, but the satellites continued transmitting and became the Navy Ionospheric Monitoring System (NIMS).

Also on this date in 1974, the Westar-1 satellite was launched by Western Union and NASA. This was the first commercially-launched American geosynchronous communications satellite.

See the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on satellites and navigation. For curricular resources, visit the Aerospace Engineering Education, Electrical Engineering Education and the Surveying and Geomatics Engineering Education community sites.

Today in History – April 8, 1953 – the first major 3D movie was released. Well, actually the first 3D movie shown to a paying audience is reported to be the September 22, 1922 screening of a movie called Power of Love shown in a theater in Los Angeles. But the first major Hollywood 3D film was Man in the Dark, a not so great 3D remake of Ralph Bellamy’s move The Man Who Lived Twice. Two days later, another 3D movie with the addition of stereo sound – House of Wax – was screened with a bit better reviews.

Stereoscopic 3-D images or movies use two cameras to capture left and right eye images. They cameras are positioned to mimic the human eye’s stereo vision by providing two images of the same scene from the different angles. These movies have been considered more gimmicks than an improvement in quality of the viewing experience. The movies are hard to create and the infrastructure for viewing is primitive, but that may change with new digital algorithms and viewing media. NASA is exploring using 3D images and films to better project complex phenomena. For example, NASA’s Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) satellites provided the first three-dimensional images of the sun. Using 3D, scientists are reported to be able to see structures in the sun’s atmosphere in three dimensions in a way that improves understanding of solar physics and space weather forecasting. I am skeptical about the increased understanding bit, but the images are fascinating.

Interested readers may want to read Michael Smith’s November 21st blog on the phonograph as he moves on to current technologies and talks about the release of the full digital movie Toy Story and the 3D graphics that are now pervasive in entertainment and education, such as Alice, an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway‘s resources on 3D movies and visuals or the Toy Story and computer animations. Or visit our community sites in Information Technology Education or Computer Science Education.

Today in History – April 3, 1973 – Martin Cooper of Motorola invented the cell phone and provides a public demonstration. He made the call to his rival, Joel Engel, Bell Labs head of research.

Motorola and AT&T Bell Labs were competing to develop cellular communications in the sixties and early seventies. Although AT&T’s Bell Laboratories introduced cellular communications in 1947, Martin Cooper was the first to incorporate the technology into portable devices. His experiment began with a base station in New York and the first working prototype of a cellular telephone, the Motorola Dyna-Tac. After some initial testing in Washington for the F.C.C., the cellular phone technology was shown to the public in New York. The Dyna-Tac weighed roughly 2.5 pounds, included 30 circuit boards and required 10 hours to charge for 35 minutes of talking time.

The technology of modern cell phones started with the creation of hexagonal cells for mobile phones by D.H. Ring from Bell Labs in 1947, later on another engineer from Bell Labs conceived of cell towers that would transmit and receive signals in three directions instead of normal bi directional antennas. By 1967, mobile phone technology was available; however, the user had to stay within one cell area. In 1970, Amos Edward Joel developed the call handoff system to facilitate continuity of a phone call from one area to another without dropping the phone call. In 1971, AT&T submitted a request to the FCC for cellular service. It took more than 10 years for an approval and in 1982; the FCC allocated the frequencies of 824-894 MHZ Band to Advanced Mobile Phone Service (AMPS). From 1982 to 1990, AMPS was an analog service, Digital AMPS came online as of 1990.

The first mobile phones were installed in vehicles due to the large battery requirements. The MTA (Mobile Telephone System A) developed by Eriksson was available in Sweden in 1950′s. Unfortunately, it weighed over 80 pounds, later versions however weighed around 20 pounds, still making it ineffective for mobility. In 1983, Motorola unveiled the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, the first truly portable cellular phone. It weighed 28 ounces and was known as the Brick for its shape.

From 1983 to the end of the 1980′s cell phones grew in popularity, although most were made for permanent installation in the car. There were also briefcase models that held large batteries necessary to make calls. Cellular phones from the early 1990′s are considered second generation (2G) and they were able to work on mobile phone systems such as GSM, IS-136 (TDMA) and IS-95 (CDMA). Digital mobile phone networks were in use in the United States in 1990 and in Europe by 1991. 2G mobile phones use digital circuit switched transmissions, which enable quicker network signaling, fewer dropped calls and increased quality.

The Third Generation (3G) cellular phone is the latest technology. While 3G came only a few years after 2G, mainly due to many innovations in technology and services, standards for 3G are usually different depending on the network. Smartphones utilize the advanced capabilities of 2G and 3G beyond typical mobile phones, often with PC-like functionality. Mobile phones are quickly becoming the dominant computer and telephony platform in most of the developing world. Cell phones are pervasive in North America, Europe and Asia and sales statistics are often shown in predictions for future growth, as if 1 billion is not enough.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway‘s resources on the cell phones and telecommunications. Additional curricular materials can be found on the Computer Engineering Education and the Electrical Engineering Education Community site.