The 18th of February has been designated as Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, an offshoot of National Engineers Week. A few days ago we asked Dr. AnnMarie Thomas, a professor of engineering at the University of St. Thomas, to share her thoughts on the occasion. If you haven’t read her guest editorial, please do […]
Our copy chief, Keith Hammond, circulated this in internal Maker Media email. It’s from a piece on Washington Post columnist Joel Achenbach’s blog, from back in June. Advice to graduates: Become an engineer. Design the future. Become someone who knows how to squeeze energy out of seawater or turn sunlight into electricity for pennies on […]
Wow, how cool are these bridges, “grown” by training roots to grow into the shapes you want for your structure. In the depths of northeastern India, in one of the wettest places on earth, bridges aren’t built – they’re grown. The living bridges of Cherrapunji, India are made from the roots of the Ficus elastica […]
If you are looking for a way to smarten up your travels, you may want to look into the Sightseer’s Guide to Engineering provided by the National Society of Professional Engineers and National Engineers Week. From the entry on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge: To engineers, crossing the Tacoma Narrows presented more of an economic challenge. […]
Automata artist Dug North has posted a round-up of books related to gear-making and is looking for suggestions for others. After seeing the beautiful use of gears in Bill Durovchic’s kinetic sculpture, I started looking for books on gears. The following books all look good and get great ratings from Amazon’s vast customer base. Additional […]
I like this “Beginning Engineer’s Checklist,” from the PIClist site. Here are the first six items on the list: 1. NEVER loan out your copies of: The Art of Electronics (Horowitz & Hill, Cambridge University Press) (you do HAVE a copy don’t you?) Illustrated Sourcebook of Mechanical Components or Ingenious Mechanisms for Designers and Inventors […]
How can you encourage the kids in your life to get creative with engineering and making? One of the ways is to check out the resources of Engineers Week. Lots of schools in North America have this week off, so kids can dedicate some full days to exploring engineering, and teachers can hunt down some […]
