Today in History – July 27, 2010 – Plastic bottle catamaran named “Plastiki” completes epic pacific crossing. A crew of experts, scientists, and creatives, led by visionary explorer David de Rothschild,  sailed over 12,000 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco to Sydney in a boat made out of plastic bottles and recycled waste products. The name “Plastiki” was inspired by Thor Heyerdal’s 1947 epic expedition the Kontiki.

The purpose of this bold adventure was to draw attention to our carbon footprint with a focus on those ubiquitous PEP water bottles and the Pacific Garbage Patch.  The catamaran design was a pioneering example of sustainable design.

The team aims to captivate and inspire, as well as to motivate tomorrow’s environmental thinkers and doers to take positive action for the planet and be smart with waste. Ultimately, they hope to inspire people to rethink waste as a valuable resource. One person’s waste could be another person’s treasure.”

When teaching a course for engineering faculty in India, I used the problems of PEP water bottles as the week-long class project. Usually made of PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate), ~25g per bottle, these plastics use:

• 6.45 kg oil/ kg PET
• 294.2 kg water/ kg PET
• 3.723 kg Green House Gases/ kg PET
• and that’s not even including transportation!

You are welcome to use my slides. This problem is ubiquitous, and the solutions will be geographically and culturally depend. Makes a great project for human-centered sustainable design. Also allows for some creative designs that address the triple bottom line of planet, people and profit. My favorite case study is the formation and expansion of the TerraCycle company.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on Plastiki and  water bottles.  Or take a virtual tour of the Plastiki and learn how this boat survived the mighty ocean. Click on “hot spots” for more details on the catamaran design. For related educational resources, visit the Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering Education and Ocean Engineering Education disciplinary communities.

Also on this date on July 27, 1866, the First transatlantic cable was completed.

Today in History – July 14, 1867 - Nobel first demonstrates dynamite. While in Paris, Nobel came to work with Ascanio Sobrero, the inventor of nitroglycerine. Though it was ten times stronger that black powder, it was highly unstable. Nobel was intrigued with nitroglycerine’s potential as a construction tool. But he knew he had to make it safer to use. In 1860 he began his experiments on nitroglycerine and went on to create an detonator (blasting cap) for it. Though one of his brothers died in an 1864 nitroglycerine accident, Nobel continued his work to improve the substance. In 1866 he finds that the addition of kieselguhr (diatomaceous earth) stabilizes the substances and makes it moldable. Because the substance could be shaped into cylinders it made it a perfect fit for the holes created by the newly invented diamond tipped drill. With dynamite construction on bridges, tunnels, and other projects occurred faster, cheaper, and safer. And in 1867 Nobel obtained the patent for the substance now known as dynamite.

Nobel’s makes much of his fortune through dynamite. And it later years he pursues further work in weapons technology. However late in his life, and especially through his interactions with Bertha von Suttner, he became increasingly interested in working for world peace. In 1888 a premature obituary was printed condemning him for inventing dynamite, which was now also used as a weapon in wars. In order to create a more positive legacy, Nobel left much of his estate to create the Nobel Prizes.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway‘s resources on, Alfred Nobel, the Nobel Prize, and other scientific and engineering awards. Or browse related curricular resources and events in the Civil Engineering Education, Construction Engineering Education, Mineral and Mining Engineering Eduacation or the Chemical Engineering Education community sites.

Today in History -  May 20, 1899 – the American Physical Society (APS) is founded for the advancement and diffusion of the knowledge of physics. It was originally formed at Columbia University by 36 scientists from 17 institutions who elected Henry Rowland as their first president and A.A. Michelson as the first vice-president. It has since grown to a membership of more than 46,000 and publishes some of the most prestigious physics journals in the world. As the APS has grown, it has become ever more involved in issues of public outreach and education. For more information on educational resources in physics, see the APS Education web pages, search the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on applied physics, or visit the comPADRE Digital Library for physics and astronomy education, a partnership of the American Association of Physics Teachers, the APS, the American Astronomical Society, the American Institute of Physics, and the Society for Physics Students.

Also on this date in 1790, Charles Lindbergh makes the first solo flight across the Atlantic. For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on the history of flight or view our Aerospace Engineering Education community site.

Today in History – April 29, 1998 – Ten percent of the Amazon rain forest is preserved. On this day, Brazil agreed to set aside about 25 million ha (62 million ac) of the Amazon rain forest for conservation in cooperation with the World Bank and the World Wildlife Fund. This initiative will  protect 10% of its forests by the year 2000. The estimated cost of setting aside this land the size of Great Britain is between $84 million and $156 million.

The plant-rich Amazon ecosystem is sometimes called “the lungs of the Earth” with  one-fifth of the world’s plants, one sixth of all the world’s birds, one in 11 of the world’s mammals and one in 15 of the world’s reptiles.

Alas, massive deforestation and development have polluted the environment and now Brazil is one of the world’s top four emitters of greenhouse gases. Between May 2002 and May 2003, it is reported that Brazil lost more than 24,000 square kilometers of forest – an area larger than the size of Israel.

This  1998 initiative has been followed by more recent efforts, but the work seems to be trying to hold back the tide. A recent news article claims: “Since reaching a recent peak of 10,588 square miles of forest destroyed in the Amazon in 2004, deforestation dropped for the next three years, before rising slightly this year to 4,621 square miles, according to data from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, which monitors deforestation. “

The good news is that Brazil has decided recently  to set a target for reducing deforestation by 70 percent over the next decade. The success of these plans for set asides require finding economic alternatives for the people living in the rain forests and close monitoring for illegal clear cutting.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on rain forest preservation and global warming or view our Environmental Engineering Education community site.

The 7.0 Magnitude Earthquake in Haiti struck a highly populated region of this impoverished Caribbean island approximately 17 km from the capital city of Port-au-Prince. Hundreds of thousands died,  many more injured, many buildings were  destroyed or seriously damaged, infrastructures collapsed and millions became homeless and without food and water.

The Haiti earthquake created a level of human tragedy that makes it difficult to examine, but it is imperative that we learn everything we can from this disaster. What lessons will engineers find in the ruins? What role will engineers have in restoring the country? Can engineers limit the structural and societal damages of similar, future catastrophes around the world?

Two weeks after the Haiti earthquake, Eduardo Fierro, president of Bertero, Fierro, Perry, Engineering, Inc., gave a talk at the University of California at  Berkeley with a summary of his engineering team’s analysis of the quality of the construction. He was funded by the UC Berkeley’s Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center. He cited structural damage to a combination of lack of education and sound infrastructure policies in Haiti. “Many of the buildings were broken down …” he said. “The smell was getting to be really bad from decaying bodies … The part that really got to me was that humans were in the street, bloated, like animals.”   “You can learn what worked and what didn’t work,” he said. Fierro said the combination of lack of attention to detail, poor building materials, lack of reinforcement and the density of construction are what brought down the Haitian capitol of Port-Au-Prince. In some cases people built on soft soil, using mud and sand for construction. As Fierro pointed out, “This was not an earthquake disaster, [This] was caused by people that didn’t know how to use codes . . . These were the people that caused the tragedy.” Fiero cites poor detailing, lack of rebar, poorly constructed columns, bad concrete and inappropriate buildings on soft soil.

I expect more details of sloppy construction and poor policies will emerge from the evaluation of the rubble from the Haiti earthquake. The preliminary results also raise questions about Engineering ethics on the part of construction companies involved in the severely damaged buildings.

Another critical question is: How can engineering technology be applied to solve current and future problems in Haiti? As the news unfolded about the Haiti earthquake on the evening of January 12th, I was horrified by the thought that one of my doctoral students was there, Jessica Vechakal, along with another UC Berkeley student, Ryan Stanley, to work on an extension of a community-based service learning design project they had developed originally for Africa. Their goal was to transform carbonized agricultural waste into charcoal briquettes that could  be used for cooking fuel. This kind of fuel would reduce deforestation in wood-fuel dependent areas such as Haiti as well as providing a business opportunity for this impoverished nation. I cried in relief when we were able to get hold of Jessica  by cell phone and internet. She and Ryan decided to stay as long as they could at the request of the United Nations to help build human-powered ambulances based on another one of Jessica’s designs in Zambia. Other examples of technology to the rescue are the solar suitcase devices designed to provide hospitals with solar energy and emergency housing from cargo containers. Jessica has agreed to work with my senior product design class this year on the sustainable emergency housing using cargo containers this semester in a joint project with Clemson University. I hope this will be a good example of a community-based service learning design project for the class.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway‘s resources on earthquakes and seismic hazards. For related educational resources, visit the Civil Engineering Education, Geological Engineering Education, Construction Engineering Education, or Architectural Engineering Education community sites.

Today in History – January 12, 2010 – 7.0 Magnitude Earthquake in Haiti. The earthquake struck a highly populated region of this impoverished Caribbean island approximately 17 km from the capital city of Port-au-Prince. Hundreds of thousands died,  many more injured, many buildings were destroyed or seriously damaged, infrastructures collapsed and millions became homeless and without food.

The Haiti earthquake created a level of human tragedy that makes it difficult to examine, but it is imperative that we learn everything we can from this disaster. What lessons will engineers find in the ruins? What role will engineers have in restoring the country? Can engineers limit the structural and societal damages of similar, future catastrophes around the world?

Another critical question is: How can engineering technology be applied to solve current and future problems in Haiti? As the news unfolded about the Haiti earthquake on the evening of January 12th, I was horrified by the thought that one of my doctoral students was there, along with another UC Berkeley student, to work on one of her socially-responsible design projects. Their goal of their project was to transform carbonized agricultural waste into charcoal briquettes that could  be used for cooking fuel. This kind of fuel would reduce deforestation in wood-fuel dependent areas such as Haiti as well as providing a business opportunity for this impoverished nation. I cried in relief when we were able to get hold of her by cell phone and internet. She and her colleague decided to stay as long as they could at the request of the United Nations to help build human-powered ambulances based on another one of her designs in Zambia.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway‘s resources on earthquakes and seismic hazards. For related educational resources, visit the Civil Engineering Education, Geological Engineering Education, Construction Engineering Education, or Architectural Engineering Education community sites.

Also on this date the Space Shuttle Columbia carries the first Hispanic astronaut into space.

Today in History – January 11, 1954 – Although radio weather broadcasts have been around since 1922, it was not until 1953 that BBC executives, gathered for a luncheon, introduced the idea of presenting a weather forecast on television. These BBC executives searched the Met Office and chose the 32-year-old George Cowling, a former Royal Air Force meteorologist, to take on this new idea. Cowling delivered the first televised weather forecast on January 11th, 1954 at 7:55 PM from BBC’s Lime Grove Studios. The broadcast lasted for only five minutes and cost 50 pounds to deliver, but it started a weather forecasting revolution. Today, the BBC’s Weather Center produces 100 forecasts each weekday, now with the help of modern computer, lighting, sound, and camera technology. This equipment was not available to Cowling, who relied on an easel to deliver his first broadcast.

Two months later RCA produced the first color television sets. See Lisa Huettel’s March 25 blog on this event.

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.

Today in History – December 7, 1988 – 6.9 earthquake destroys Armenia, Spitak and kills over 60,000. It is reported that the entire population of Spitak died in this devastating earthquake, making it one of the most deadly earthquakes in human history. Partial blame was placed on the substandard infrastructure in Soviet-era buildings. The Soviet response was to outlaw construction of any buildings higher than five stories in the area, but little was done in terms improving construction standards or retrofitting existing buildings in the area. According to the World Global Seismic Hazard Map (left image) organized by the United Nations, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Iran, Turkey and Georgia are situated in one of the most seismically active zones in the world. In August 199, Istanbul was hit by an earthquake of 7.4 magnitude, killing over 17,000 and injuring approximately 250,000. In December 2003, a 6.6 magnitude earthquake hit Bam, Iran with an estimated death tally of near 50,000. More recently an earthquake on October 2005, the Kashmir region in Pakistan and India lost over 75,00 lives and displaced millions. Historical records suggest the deadliest earthquake in history killed approximately 1.1 million people in Egypt and Syria. Alas, a comprehensive strategy for urban planning is still lacking in much of these area, according to Architect Pirouz Khanlou.

Observe from the worldwide earthquake hazard map (second from left, above) that the entire west coast of the Americas and areas of China and Japan are also in the “red hot zone” for earthquakes on the planet. It is estimated that in 1556 a quake hit the Chinese province of Shansi, killing over 830,000 people. More recently in 1976, a deadly earthquake of a magnitude 8.0 hit Tianjin, China. The official casualty figure issued by the Chinese government was 255,000 people.

Sometimes the deaths are due to the immediate earthquake movement, but to the secondary forces unleashed, such as mudslides, avalanches or tsunamis. For example, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake at Mount Huascaran, Peru, on May 21, 1970, caused a rock and snow avalanche that buried 2 towns, killing as many as 20,000 people. Fortunately, these disasters are not daily events. But this does lull us into a false sense of security. How many of us living in earthquake zones are adequately prepared? Have we retrofitted our homes up to the latest building code standards? Do we have a home emergency plan? Professionally, engineers play a major role in better understanding the prediction and impact of earthquakes, as well as developing safety standards, building guidelines, inspection technologies and urban plans for emergency response.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway‘s resources on earthquakes and seismic hazards. For related educational resources, visit the Civil Engineering Education, Geological Engineering Education, Construction Engineering Education, or Architectural Engineering Education community sites.

Also today in 1972, the first color photograph of Earth was captured (left photo above). I recall when these “blue marble” photos from Apollo 17 were made public. I was struck by the interconnectedness for all beings and countries on our planet. It was the first time that the south polar ice cap was made visible from space. Today these photos from space are being used for commercial applications, such as Google Earth, as well as for monitoring global warming and environmental concerns. Coincidentally, also launched today was the new map of the Antarctica from the LIMA (Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica) initiative in support of International Polar Year. For more information, see the Engineering Pathway‘s resources on earth photos, Landsat, Antarctica and global warming. For related educational resources, visit the Environmental Engineering Education or the Geological Engineering Education community sites.

Also on this day in 1926, the gas refrigerator was patented. Browse are related resources on refrigerators and industrial design.

Today in History – October 1, 1958 – NASA is offically begins operations. Before the launch of Sputnik, the United States felt confident in its position on space technology. The modern liquid fueled rocket had been invented in America by Robert Goddard. In addition Wernher von Braun, the developer of the successful German V2 rocket was working for the US Army’s rocket program. The view in Washington was that the government should only develop purely military rockets and leave the rest to the private sector. Wernher von Braun was even discouraged from developing rockets that could carry satellites. That all changed when the Soviet Union launch Sputnik on October 4, 1957. The United States had clearly lost its edge in space technology and it was decided that a new federal agency should be established for non-military space programs.

On July 29, 1958 President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to begin on October 1, 1958. Many parts of the Naval Research Laboratory and the Army Ballistic Missile Agency were incorporated into NASA, including Wernher von Braun. NASA quickly ramped up its human space flight program resulting in the launch of the first American in space on May 5, 1961, and the first American in orbit on February 20, 1962. One of NASA’s largest accomplishments was just seven years later with the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, 1969. During this short amount of time NASA helped America regain its confidence as a leader in space flight.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’srent a car bulgaria related resources on NASA. Or visit the Aerospace Engineering Education community site.

Today in History – May 18, 2004 – Founding of the ?????? ???????National Center for Women in Information Technology (NCWIT).

Alas women now only represent a small fraction of computer science graduates and are not fully represented in the world of information technology and computing. This is one reason I enthusiastically agreed to co-found and serve as founding CEO of the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) with the overarching goal to achieve parity in the professional information technology (IT) workforce and to educate, disseminate, and advocate a national, multi-year implementation plan that generates tangible progress within 20 years.

Why is this issue important? Innovation thrives with a diversity of ideas and input. As IT becomes pervasive in our lives, we need women’s full participation in the the creation of the technology upon which our society increasingly depends. Further, U.S. Department of Labor projections forecast that our economy will add 1 million professional IT jobs by 2014. In the aftermath of the dot-com bust, however, the perception of a job shortage has caused a sharp decline in enrollment at 4 year computer science programs. Women’s lack of participation results in ideas not realized, products not implemented and jobs going unfilled.

It was in May 2004 that NCWIT held our first meetings in Boulder, Colorado, and announced our formation and funding from the National Science Foundation. What started as a collective passion to ensure that women are fully represented in computing and IT has become a movement involving the work of over 170 organizations, spanning K-12 to faculty and non-profits to corporations, working in areas spanning from outreach to entrepreneurship to institutional reform.  At our May 2009 annual meeting we celebrated our fifth birthday (see me introducing the keynote speaker at the start of conference below,  Jessica Jackley, Cofounder of Kiva). Jessica’s story is a fantastic inspiration for us all!!

NCWIT is now a coalition of over 100 universities, corporations and non-profits who all feel we can and must do a better job of attracting women to computing. We have developed interventions across the entire educational and career pipeline, including new ideas in curriculum, outreach, recruiting and retention. We are also studying women’s participation in key innovation metrics such as IT patenting, open source and entrepreneurship.

The history of computing owes much to contributions of talented women. Ada Byron Lovelace is credited first envisioning programming with her statement: “The analytical engine weaves algebraic patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves”. Six of the ENIAC programmers were womenonline casino at the University of Pennsylvania during World War II who had been calculating ballistics trajectories by hand. Admiral Grace Hopper, inventor of the first computer compiler, coined the term “computer bug” and is the namesake for the Grace Hopper Conference – Celebration of Women in Computing.

See the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on the ENIAC, history of computing, Ada Lovelace and women in information technology. For curricular resources, visit the Computer Science Education, Information Science Education, Information Technology Education,  Computer Engineering Education of Software Engineering Education community sites. Or check out our new Broadening Participation in Computing community.

Also on this date Mount St. Helen erupts after 130 years of dormancy. See the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on the volcanoes and geological engineering.