engineering

Engineer Guy vs The LCD Monitor

Engineer Guy vs The LCD Monitor

For a few years now, I’ve had this hare-brained idea to try to separate the layers of polarizing film from a scrap LCD panel and make a polariscope out of them. So whenever I come across a dead one I tear it apart and do some experimenting. Probably been into half a dozen by now. But I’ve probably learned as much, or more, about how they actually work by watching Bill Hammack’s video this week. As always, this segment has something to offer novices, experts, and those, like myself, who know just enough to be dangerous. [Thanks, Bill!]

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Engineer Guy explains the world’s first transistor

Unlike all the other men in my family (and most of my friends) I am not an electrical engineer by training. I’ve spent my life around electrical engineering, and although I’ve known about the historical details of the invention of the transistor since I was a wee lad, I can’t claim to have understood how the first transistor worked until I saw Bill Hammack’s video for this week. So, thanks for that, Bill, on a personal level.

Continue Reading Sean Michael Ragan2

Engineer Guy vs. the flight data recorder

Bill Hammack’s video confection is especially sweet this week. Bill scored a vintage Delta “black box” on eBay and, in this week’s installment, tears it apart on camera to show you how they built ’em in the old days to stand up to “three-thousand gees and one-thousand degrees.” I just watched it, and I’m having a hard time resisting my ebullient urge to spoil the ending for you, so I’ll just shut up and let Engineer Guy take it away. [Thanks, Bill!]

Continue Reading Sean Michael Ragan

The mechanical elegance of the pop-can stay tab

If you’ve been around long enough to have ever actually blown out your flip-flop, stepped on a pop top, you’ve already got one great reason to appreciate the 1975 introduction of the stay-on tab or stay tab: No more little metal razors littering the beaches.

Now, “Engineer Guy” Bill Hammack helps us appreciate the stay tab for another reason: It’s a little gem of mechanical poetry. There’s a lot going on when you pull that little ring. Bill’s video exegesis of that action, like all Bill’s videos, is a little piece of poetry unto itself. I can’t get enough of ’em. [Thanks, Bill!]

Continue Reading Sean Michael Ragan

Rogue engineer steals departmental copier, tears it apart for fun

Bill Hammack is one part Mr. Wizard and one part James Burke. He’s a professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and his alter ego Engineer Guy has made over 300 public radio spots emphasizing the creative aspects of science and engineering. In this three minute video, Bill tears apart a photocopier and explains, with great wit and wisdom, how it works. Ten more videos are available at his site. I especially like the one about tantalum. [via Boing Boing]

Continue Reading Sean Michael Ragan
More thoughts on “Coder Barbie”

More thoughts on “Coder Barbie”

On Mashable, math teacher Rebecca Zook weighs in on the whole Computer Engineer Barbie (aka Coder Barbie) “controversy” with “Why Computer Engineer Barbie Is Good for Women in Tech.” While some have embraced Coder Barbie, others have attacked the concept, saying that her pink laptop, sparkly leggings, and trendy glasses are “too feminine” to be […]

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Perfect Woven Owl Fabric

Cross Stitch Ninja, an author on the amazing (and delightfully revolutionary) blogradicalcrossstitch.com is learning textile engineering. How cool is that?!?! The owl fabric that she recently created is mind blowing. I can hardly set an alarm clock, let alone program a loom to weave a pattern based on a vintage cross-stitch! Well done.

Continue Reading Brookelynn Morris