Machine Design Community

Five things you should always tell your boss

Vicki_Reitz — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:45:00 GMT

What should you tell your boss? Start with the truth. That's what the folks at Computerworld found out when they talked to their IT leaders. Other things to tell the boss include your ideas, your successes, your wants, and, when appropriate, tell them "no."

Read five things you should always tell your boss.

Finally some sanity about high school GPAs

Lee_Teschler — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:08:00 GMT

I always thought it was a little screwy that the grade I got in a high school typing class counted as much as my grade in precalculus. Looks like I wasn't the only one with this idea. Texas is apparently going to fold course difficulty into the calculation of high school GPAs. The move is quite controversial judging by the comments posted for this item in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

http://chronicle.com/news/article/4766/recalculation-of-high-school-gpas-sows-confusion-in-texas?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Not what you'd expect: More high school seniors take math/physics classes

Lee_Teschler — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:26:00 GMT

Well, so much for the idea that fewer and fewer students are studying math and the sciences. The National Center for Education Statistics compared surveys of high school seniors in 1972, 1980, 1982, 1992, and 2004. One result:

The percentage of seniors enrolling in calculus during their senior year grew from 6 percent to 13 percent between 1982 and 2004. The percentage of seniors taking no mathematics courses during their senior year declined from 57 percent to 34 percent over this time period. Seniors increased their senior-year enrollment in advanced science courses (chemistry II, physics II, and advanced biology) from 12 percent in 1982 to 25 percent in 2004.

Here is the link for the complete report, which is free:

http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2008320

take a math course, make more money

Lee_Teschler — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 12:07:00 GMT

Here's a news flash: People who take higher level math courses tend to make more money than those who do not, regardless of what they majored in. As reported in the blogs of the Chronicle of Higher Education,

In raw terms, the two scholars found the usual salary disparities: Nursing and social-work majors earn $48,900 per year, on average, while engineering majors bring home an average of $102,290. But Mr. Hamermesh and Mr. Donald found that .....................regardless of their choice of major and regardless of their mathematics SAT scores — students earn significantly more money if they take more upper-level math and science courses.

Here is the link:

http://chronicle.com/news/article/4656/major-in-business-make-a-bundle-its-not-quite-so-simple?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Conversion kits: You, too, can have a plug-in hybrid

Lee_Teschler — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 11:44:00 GMT

For just writing a $10,000 check for a conversion kit, you, too, can have a plug-in hybrid. Oh, and if you drive 40 miles daily, you'll break even on your investment after about eight years:

http://www.forbesautos.com/news/features/2008/plug-in-electric-vehicles-story.html

Avatars help those with Asperger

Leslie_Gordon — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:18:00 GMT

Avatars or online alter-egos can help individuals with Asperger syndrome deal with frustration in a computer-simulated environment to better cope in the real world, say researchers at the Univ. of Texas at Dallas Center for BrainHealth. Asperger syndrome is a form of autism that does not completely isolate people from the real world. But having the disease makes it hard to understand non-verbal cues such as facial expressions. A program at the university lets patients use avatars in a simulated world to learn how to negotiate with a difficult manager, practice dealing with customers on the job, and interact with people in general.

What's new in UAVs: better engines, morphed wings

Lee_Teschler — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:13:00 GMT

At the AUVSI unmanned systems show earlier this week, it was interesting to note all the interest in engine technology for UAVs. The image most people have of the typical UAV powerplant is something pulled out of an RC plane and tweaked for military use. Not anymore. Perhaps the most interesting development at the show was a super compact but powerful gas turbine from Hamilton Sundstrand that company officials wouldn't discuss with us, even though an example was on display at the booth. It was small enough to hold in your hands.

Another theme: There is a lot of work among both piston engine and gas turbine suppliers toward making these things operate from heavy fuel -- that's ordinary kerosene-like jet fuel to for the uninitiated. The key seems to be in atomizing the fuel adequately so it will burn more efficiently. That lets the military use one kind of fuel for all its vehicles and simplifies logistics immensely.

Finally, another interesting development came from Frontline Aerospace, Inc. with its V-Star UAV. The V-Star employs morphing wing technology in the form of extensions at the end of its wings that flip up to handle slow flight conditions. So far the craft is only a concept, and there is some pooh-poohing about it from the aviation press because the company is a start-up:

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog%3a27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3a54bc4110-8356-43c5-9876-ff8dd5578ede

But there is a 50% scale demonstrator under construction that should be ready next year.

Free symmetry software

Lee_Teschler — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:05:00 GMT

You may remember from your calculus classes that symmetry can sometimes be used to solve equations that at first look daunting. But some symmetries are so complicated that they are tough to spot, even for a computer. University of Michigan researchers recently reported a breakthrough in this area. From the release:

In less than a half-second, the new software captured 1083,687 different symmetries in an Internet connectivity graph of routers around the world. A symmetry in this graph signifies a way the routers could be shuffled that wouldn't change the operation.

Previous methods timed out in the 30 minutes they were given to generate results in these experiments. Darga said it would take these older programs days to solve such a complicated problem. In searching for symmetries in the road networks between cities and towns in Illinois, the new algorithm captured the 104,843 symmetries in less than a half-second, whereas the most robust previous algorithm took 16 minutes.

They are even giving the software away. You can request a copy here:

http://vlsicad.eecs.umich.edu/BK/SAUCY/

Here's a guy who is literally buried in his work

Lee_Teschler — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:45:00 GMT

This sort of makes you wonder about other inventors who might have been buried in what they invented:

Associated Press

June 3, 2008 - Cincinnati--The man who designed the Pringles potato crisp packaging system was so proud of his accomplishment that a portion of his ashes has been buried in one of the iconic cans.

Fredric J. Baur, of Cincinnati, died May 4 at Vitas Hospice in Cincinnati, his family said. He was 89.

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Baur's children said they honored his request to bury him in one of the cans by placing part of his cremated remains in a Pringles container in his grave in suburban Springfield Township. The rest of his remains were placed in an urn buried along with the can, with some placed in another urn and given to a grandson, said Baur's daughter, Linda Baur of Diamondhead, Miss.

Baur requested the burial arrangement because he was proud of his design of the Pringles container, a son, Lawrence Baur of Stevensville, Mich., said Monday.

Baur was an organic chemist and food storage technician who specialized in research and development and quality control for Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble Co.

Baur filed for a patent for the tubular Pringles container and for the method of packaging the curved, stacked chips in the container in 1966, and it was granted in 1970, P&G archivist Ed Rider said.

Baur retired from P&G in the early 1980s.

PTC 2008 Global Media Event

Leslie_Gordon — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 23:34:00 GMT

Unfortunately, I can only attend one day of PTC's three-day Global Media Event, being held in Long Beach, Calif. This morning's presentations covered the business side of things. It was said that 2,046 registrants from some 24 countries attended the conference. First to speak was the President of PTC's World User group Dan Glenn. He says there are plenty of active user portals and technical communities. The company has restructured the regional user groups -- only active members are now represented.

Customers of PTC include ABB, Seimens, Boeing, HP, Rolex, Motorola, Harley Davidson, Dell, and Liz Clairborn. PTC is opening a new development center in China to take advantage of that new consumer base.

"How are companies to succeed?" asks the second speaker. By using technology that supports ROI. In other words, each of the six product families: Windchill, Pro/E, CoCreate, Arbotext, MathCAD, and ProductView.

For customer satisfaction, the company has been rated by an independant firm at 7.0 out of a possible 10 -- "right in the middle of the pack for technology companies." Globally, there are 800,000 seats of Windchill and 1.5 M users. Revenue growth has been 14% over the last 3 years.

PTC practices what it preaches in terms of the globalization of product development -- it has 1,700 engineers in India, Asia, and China, and other countries overseas, and is focusing on IT consolidation so global interaction is better.

Two new products were announced:

Windchill ProductPoint, which sits inside Microsoft SharePoint. ProductPoint 1.0 Beta in Aug 2008.

Windows SharePoint Services a technology suite that was not good for understanding CAD files structures. But a lot of companies use it to share documents. Sharepoint now understands what CAD is saying:

Windchill ProductPoint Server:

Windows SharePoint Services, a portal, can share documents,

Windchill adds tab for products where you can see thumbnails of files

Filters to find files

Embedded visualization

Can see assembly structures "under the hood" Wildfire 4.0 is integrated with it, so you can quickly search and find assembly components.

Windchill PDMLink, Windchill ProductPoint, Windchill PLM Connector: PLM solutions for varying size companies.

ProductPoint -- simple, general purpose, standalone and integral (the pieces are made to work together). It does not replace Pro/Intralink, PDMLink, ProjectLink

And:

ProductView 9.1

View, markup tool, MCAD, ECAD, document formats.

Standalone, integral with Windchill, and 2.5 GByte file in ProductView gets compressed to a few MBytes.

Is easy to run queries and the software color-codes model based on the query. For example, all parts that are behind schedule turn red.

500,000 components can run in one session!

ProductView is in Windchill 9.1 -- mouse-over icons and see what part it is, where it is used, all its children, can drag columns to increase their size.

Lastly, enhancements for Pro/Engineer : flexible modeling for Wildfire 6.0. will allow freeform sculpting or conceptualizing the shape as you go. What is created is not an STL or a faceted model -- it is Pro/E surfaces from which you can make a solid model.

What goes into the cost of a gallon of gas?

Lee_Teschler — Fri, 30 May 2008 20:44:00 GMT

I happened to come upon this piece of information from D.R. Barton, a financial columnist, on the cost components of gasoline. It makes interesting reading.

----------------------------------------

What is the breakdown in the cost of a gallon of gasoline? Based on several sources, here are the best ranges I could find:

• Tax per gallon (U.S. Only): 18.4 cent Federal excise tax, plus, an average of 27 cents of state taxes (including sales and environmental taxes).

• Refining costs: ranging in estimates from 8% up to 22%.

• Transportation, storage & marketing: about 4.5% to 8%.

• Cost of crude oil: at $3.80 per gallon – 72% or $2.74.

These numbers come from a combination of resources including the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and articles from the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and CNN.com.

I provided these numbers because the number one question I’ve been asked by folks when discussing the article is, “What goes into the price of a gallon of gas?”

Interestingly, in 2006, with gas at an average of $2.43 per gallon, taxes made up almost 19% of the cost; now it’s down to “only” 12%. Clearly the price of crude oil is dominating the cost right now, but that’s not always the case. As we found out when Katrina shut down key refining plants on the Gulf coast, refining, distribution and storage costs can fluctuate based on supply and demand.

But despite high historic prices in the U.S, prices here remain relatively low compared to other countries around the world. Many oil producing countries subsidize gas prices, so countries like Venezuela, Nigeria, and most states in the Middle East have prices well below the cost of production (to stimulate economic growth and gain political favor). On the other end of the scale, most European countries have heavy gas taxes; the average price for a gallon of petrol in the UK is now $8.56 and in many Scandinavian countries, it’s north of $9.00 per gallon.

more bad news for corn-based ethanol

Lee_Teschler — Thu, 29 May 2008 14:06:00 GMT

There has been yet another study that has concluded that corn-based ethanol is bad news from a variety of angles. To quote the summary,

The study looked at factors such as the energy needed to produce a renewable fuel source compared with how much energy is produced, the impact on soil fertility and effects on food supply when fuels based on crops such as corn and soybeans are mixed with fossil fuels. Based on those factors, the authors determined that corn-based ethanol is the worst alternative overall.

The authors, research biologists, think that cellulosic and algea-based ethanol would be better, but their technologies really aren't developed yet. Here is the link to the full press release:

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/541144/?sc=swtr

"EDM No-No"

Leslie_Gordon — Thu, 29 May 2008 11:30:00 GMT

A few readers wrote in to MACHINE DESIGN commenting on the mistake I made on my blog item "Artistic EDM". In it, I said that "electrically conductive materials cannot be EDMed." Ovbiously, this is incorrect. As one reader says, "EDM will spark-erode any material that conducts electricity."

Dear readers, thanks for keeping me on my technical toes!

Did you have instructors who were dolts?

Lee_Teschler — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:14:00 GMT

Here's a situation a lot of us have experienced: You take a class that gives you headaches. After a lot of soul searching, you start to wonder if the problem is not you and not the material, but the instructor.

Well, the problem might well have been a poor hiring choice on the part of school administrators. This short article from the Chronicle of Higher Education gives some interesting insights into some not-so-good educators who were considered for college teaching jobs.

http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2008/05/2008052301c/careers.html?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

RAPID Manufacturing 2008

Leslie_Gordon — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:10:00 GMT

Later this afternoon, I’m headed to the RAPID 2008 Conference held in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. In manufacturing, “rapid” does not really have an exact definition. Sometimes it connotes additive fabrication techniques (certainly not rapid as in “made quickly”). The techniques are rapid because machines use CAD files directly to make parts. Thus, there is a turnaround of a day or a few days compared to weeks or months. I think the definition is getting broader to include subtractive technologies also. Think of how quickly Mom and Pop rapid shops could pump out parts with free, downloadable CAD and CNCs that cost under $3,000.

The show looks interesting. Workshops include “Metal Parts Using Additive Technologies,” “Reverse Engineering and 3D Data Capture,” and “3D Scanning: Reverse Engineering, Analysis, and Inspection.” Others that look neat are “3D Printing of Ceramics for Dental and Medical Applications,” and “Reverse Engineering and Aging Aircraft.”

More to come tomorrow...

FedEx misses its earnings forecast -- could hybrid trucks be the culprit?

Lee_Teschler — Mon, 12 May 2008 17:55:00 GMT

Awhile back I wrote about a mutual funds manager who took FedEx management to task for investing in hybrid delivery vehicles though there was no economic justification for it:

http://machinedesign.com/ContentItem/57416/Costlybutgreen.aspx

Then on Friday, FedEx missed its earnings target, saying, according to CBS Marketwatch:

FedEx Corp. warned Friday that fourth-quarter earnings are poised to come up well short of prior targets, adding that if oil prices continue to rise from this point, more damage to the bottom line could be on the way.

FedEx blaimed both a slowing economy and lower package volume as well as fuel costs for the shortfall, but did not say how much of the shortfall was due to either factor, at least not in the statements I've seen. There are a couple of things that could be said here. One is that presumably, some of the higher fuel costs FedEx is seeing presumably come from keeping its fleet of jets flying, which fly all its packages to Tennessee for distribution. I wonder if company management has considered turboprops as a means of reducing that fuel cost. You can find out more about what's new on the turboprop scene here:

http://machinedesign.com/ContentItem/70215/Fewertripsforthefueltruck.aspx

Second, one wonders how much benefit FedEx really gets out of a hybrid delivery truck in that the energy efficiency benefits only emerge during stops/starts. Vehicles that do a lot of stopping and starting will get the most benefit out of hybrid technology -- postal delivery vans and garbage trucks come immediately to mind. But for commercial vehicles that spend a lot of time on the highway, the payoff is less dramatic. There is no benefit from a hybrid powertrain while tooling along on a freeway. That's why a lot of Californians criticize the decision to allow single-occupant Prius' in the car pool lanes there.

My guess is that FedEx trucks may not do enough start/stop driving on average to get much benefit out of a hybrid powertrain. Some benefit, yes, but probably not enough to put much of a dent in the company's fuel costs. And when the additional capital costs of acquiring the hybrids are factored in, does FedEx come out ahead? The answer to that question would be interesting.

Want an engineering job? Click here.

Vicki_Reitz — Mon, 12 May 2008 15:57:00 GMT

If you're looking for a job and tired of sorting through unrelated job listings, check out Machine Design's new Design Engineer Job Zone at designengineerjobzone.com.

All posted resumes are anonymous, so you can post yours knowing your current boss won't find you. You can also create an e-mail alert to tell you when certain jobs are posted.

And there's good news for companies who are hiring. You can search resumes for free, and pay only when you want to contact a job seeker, unlike the other job sites.

Free download of CoCreate

Leslie_Gordon — Fri, 09 May 2008 11:06:00 GMT

Interestingly, PTC is now offering a free download of CoCreate personal version. As you recall, not long ago, PTC -- well known for inventing history-based modeling -- purchased CoCreate, an explicit or non-history-based modeler. PTC says the download provides the world's first free explicit 3D CAD software. Users work directly on geometry they want to modify and can design models with no upfront engineering. This helps to create lightweight designs fast.

Download CoCreate

engineers of jihad - Stephen King said it first

Lee_Teschler — Thu, 08 May 2008 11:57:00 GMT

A few issues ago, I wrote an editorial challenging the conclusions of a report called Engineers of Jihad, which claimed engineers had a linear-thinking mindset that predisposed them to recruitment by Islamic terrorist groups. You can read the editorial here:

http://machinedesign.com/ContentItem/72455/LelandTeschlersEditorialTheEngineeringExtremistMindset.aspx

The authors of the report in question weren't the first to claim something like this. The novelist Stephen King alluded to something similar in his book called The Stand, which came out in the 1980s and was made into a TV miniseries. In the book, a plague has cut the total population of the US to less than 2 million people who are separating themselves into two different camps, one following God, the other following the devil. King creates this conversation between two members of the 'God' camp:

"I think he's (referring here to the devil) going to get most of the techies......Don't ask me why; it's just a hunch. Except that tech people like to work in an atmosphere of tight discipline and linear goals, for the most part. They like it when the trains run on time.......But that other fellow (again, referring to the devil)... I'll bet he's got the trains running on time and all his ducks in a row. And techies are just as human as the rest of us; they'll go where they're wanted the most. I've a suspicion that our Adversary wants as many as he can get."

It's all utter BS in my opinion. Note to Stephen King: I've known a lot of high-caliber engineers whose desks looked like disaster areas and who couldn't show up on time for an appointment if their life depended on it. Does that sound like linear goals and tight discipline to you?

return of the retro turboencabulator

Lee_Teschler — Mon, 05 May 2008 13:59:00 GMT

Someone emailed me a link to Rockwell Automation's spoof of several years ago wherein they created a short video for their new "retro turboencabulator." I had forgotten about this thing. It is still funny. I also found out there is even a Wikipedia page on the origins of the Turboencabulator:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turboencabulator

According to Wikipedia, GE engineers even managed to insert a page in a GE catalog in 1962 about GE's version of the encabulator. All I can say is, GE must have been a different place in 1962 than it is now. Here is the link to the Rockwell video:

http://www.komando.com/videos/3-22.asp

A gripe about interoperability

Leslie_Gordon — Sat, 03 May 2008 16:38:00 GMT

You always hear about interoperability problems in CAD. Well, I have a gripe about interoperability issues with everyday software. If like me, you travel a lot on business, you probably find it sometimes hard to keep up with your work at the office. What to do? You might occasionally take home work on nights or weekends to catch up. That's what I oh-so blithely did this weekend, thinking I was so smart.

I had forgotten that we recently moved to Windows Vista at work. My home and laptop have Windows XP Professional. Guess what. Word documents in the new format (DOCX) WILL NOT OPEN ON MY HOME OR LAPTOP COMPUTERS, which, of course, only understand the DOC format. I am so upset! This means instead of being able to cut-and-paste, and thus save a lot of time, I have to RETYPE THE WHOLD G__D_____ DOCUMENT, all five pages of it.

*&#$#%&*(#%%^$#% :( :( :(

No wonder so many people dislike Microsoft.

When you think you've had a tough day at the office, think of these pilots

Lee_Teschler — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:37:00 GMT

Sure makes you think twice about taking a helicopter ride.........................

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbmLauL0GtU

What's your online identity?

Vicki_Reitz — Fri, 02 May 2008 18:30:00 GMT

We've all heard about "Googling" your own name to see what your online trail says about you. I discovered a tool called the Online Identity Calculator that helps you assess your online "personal brand" and where you stand.

Using my maiden name (been married for seven months) I scored pretty high, 8.2 out of 10, mostly because seven years of magazine articles are splattered all over the internet. There's not as many pages of me with my married name, and a lot of other women with my name show up in Google results.

most tech entrepreneurs aren't kids

Lee_Teschler — Fri, 02 May 2008 12:01:00 GMT

A while back I wrote an editorial wherein I quoted Duke University's Vivek Wadhwa about the role of foreign PhD's in U.S. innovation. Wadhwa recently coauthored a report about the character of U.S.-born tech entrepreneurs.

What he found was that they had an average age of 39 and were likely to come from Ivy league schools. But their definition of a tech startup is important. The report authors talked to 652 U.S.-born chief executive officers and heads of product development in 502 engineering and technology companies established from 1995 through 2005. The companies have more than $1 million in sales, twenty or more employees, and company branches with fifty or more employees.

In other words, they only talked to startups that by any definition were overwhelming success stories. Companies started up in the same period that could be considered successful but not overwhelmingly so never got interviewed. And, of course, startups that got acquired by somebody else aren't in the data, nor are those that went belly up. So the best you can say is that the report authors now have data on super-visible tech startups by US-born tech entropreneurs. That's better than nothing.

Here's a link to the report:

http://www.kauffman.org/pdf/Education_Tech_Ent_042908.pdf

a robot with eyebrows

Lee_Teschler — Thu, 01 May 2008 17:21:00 GMT

MIT's media lab recently posted on YouTube a video of a creation called Nexi. Its claim to fame is a set of eyebrows that can rise in surprise, slant in anger, and register other emotions, with some help from eyes that can change shape somewhat to help register the intended mood. You can view a news release and get to the video here:

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/nexi-0409.html

I must admit that the video is a bit of a let down. Anamatronic designers have been creating puppets able to express similar emotions for years. Of course, puppets can't react to their surroundings or interact with humans as Nexi is ultimately supposed to do.