Engineering Education "Today in History" Blog: Vacuum clearners, engineering design and prototype testing
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 (122) · February 18th, 2008 · 2 Comments
Today in History - February 18, 1901 - First vacuum cleaner patented by Hubert Cecil Booth, an English structural engineer. This design had the disadvantage that it had no way to collect the dust and never became a commercial success. In 1907, James Spangler, a janitor working in Canton, Ohio, was not aware of this Booth’s design, but was motivate to clean floors and carpets more effectively as he suffered from asthma. He built the first motorized vacuum cleaner using an old motor fan attached to a soap box and broom handle, using a pillowcase as a dust collector. Spangler is credited with building the first commercially successful vacuum cleaner and obtained his patent in 1908. One of his first customers was his cousin and her husband William H. Hoover, who eventually formed the Hoover Company in 1922. For the next one hundred years the basic operation of a vacuum cleaner remained the same - dirt was collected in a dust bag that required replacing and cleaning out a filter.
Then a British industrial designer and engineer, James Dyson, made it his mission to build a better vacuum cleaner. He used a high speed motor to produce a constant suction through centrifugal force and used the volume of the cleaner to replace the bag. Hoover and Electrolux did not take his invention seriously and refused to consider the idea when Dyson first discussed it with them. Instead Dyson formed his own company. His ‘vacuum cleaner that doesn’t lose suction’ is a market leader, one that excels in quality products, as well as cutting edge industrial design. I am always struck by James Dyson’s claim that he built 5,127 prototypes before he got it right. This reminds me of IDEO’s philosophy of “fail early and often to succeed at the end”. Dyson argues that there is more we can learn from failures than from successes.
Another recent vacuum cleaner innovation is the iRobots series called “Roomba” that uses artificial intelligence and robotics to “automatically” vacuum, even when no humans are in the room. The co-inventors were Rodney Brooks, Helen Greiner, and Colin Angle.
For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on the James Dyson, vacuum cleaner design, and industrial design. For related educational resources, visit the Mechanical Engineering Education and the Engineering Management community sites. The Engineering Pathway also hosts Engineering Education communities in all ABET-accredited disciplines.
Also on this date in 1930, Tombaugh discovers the dwarf planet Pluto.
For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on the Pluto and space exploration. For related educational resources, visit the Aerospace Engineering Education Community site.
Tags: Computer Science · Gender Equity · General Engineering, Engineering Science · Industrial Design · Industrial Engineering · Mechanical Engineering
2 responses so far ↓
1 » Engineering Education "Today in History" Blog: First All American Soap Box Derby » NSDL Pathways News // Aug 18, 2008 at 8:30 pm
[...] I don’t believe that I have ever seen a wooden soap box, but they must have been an icon of the American scene at one time. Until the middle of the 20th century they were made of sturdy wood and were used after shipping for a wide range of reuse applications. I recall that politicians and preachers used to stand on a soap box as a makeshift speaking platform. A number of American inventions used them for early prototypes. For example, James Spangler made the first effective vacuum cleaner from an old fan motor attached it to a soap box stapled to a broom handle, using a pillow case as a dust collector. See my blog on the prototyping and the first vacuum cleaner patent on February 18, 1901. [...]
2 Engineering Education "Today in History" Blog: First All American Soap Box Derby // Aug 19, 2008 at 1:04 am
[...] I don’t believe that I have ever seen a wooden soap box, but they must have been an icon of the American scene at one time. Until the middle of the 20th century they were made of sturdy wood and were used after shipping for a wide range of reuse applications. I recall that politicians and preachers used to stand on a soap box as a makeshift speaking platform. A number of American inventions used them for early prototypes. For example, James Spangler made the first effective vacuum cleaner from an old fan motor attached it to a soap box stapled to a broom handle, using a pillow case as a dust collector. See my blog on the prototyping and the first vacuum cleaner patent on February 18, 1901. [...]
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