This is a great demolition game where the object is to reduce a building’s structure to rubble with as little dynamite as possible. It’s intoxicating. The game is embedded below. Read the rest of this entry »
Industrial Interface was mentioned recently in a great article in Manufacturing Business Technology magazine titled “Product Innovation: Keeping good ideas on the fast track.”
“Companies like IndustrialInterface.com take the collaborative approach a step further, offering online platforms that provide product engineers with a whole new universe of potential resources and partners.” ~Manufacturing Business Technologies Magazine
Arrange objects on the screen to stack colored objects inside their outlined spaces. Great spacial orientation game. Game embedded below. Read the rest of this entry »
This is a guest post by the moderator of the Electrical Engineering Blog. It’s a great blog going into the technical details of many interesting and useful facets of electrical engineering and design.
Electrical engineering BLOG was launched in April 2009 by a group of enthusiasts in the field of electrical installation and energy management (mainly based on IEC standards).
With these passionate people, we have created an environment for collaboration and exchange, and we wish to use this Blog to share our current experience as well as our questions about the future – to elicit reactions from others and to discover new concrete ideas, as well as technical and practical tips.
This week’s Economist nicely presents the current status of global nuclear power development.
The Generation IV International Forum (GIF, a consortium of 10+ countries) has drawn up plans for six new reactor designs. From these six, they will whittle down to the design that becomes the standard for the fourth generation of nuclear power plants. These six designs range from merely updated designs to entirely new types of fuels and coolants.
Amazing video (embedded below) of James May from Top Gear taking a ride to the edge of space (70K feet) in a U2 Spyplane. The flight suit looks like that of an astronaut and plane looks like a menacing bird. It’s 100 foot wingspan is balanced by inline wheels when landing. The entire system is from the 1950’s. At one point James realizes that he and his pilot are the highest people in the world except for a few astronauts on the International Space Station. Quite stunning. I can’t wait until we can take trips to edge of our atmosphere. It’s not far off my fellow engineers and space enthusiasts. Read the rest of this entry »
Scientific American has created a ridiculously interesting infographic on sustainable energy sources. The article outlines a plan to get the world off of fossil fuels in 20 years. That’s 100% clean, sustainable energy by 2030. Although not feasible for a number of economic and political reasons, it is still damn interesting to see how the authors (Mark Z. Jacobson and Mark A. Delucchi) plan this out. Give it a good read, there are a few surprises in there, particularly re: wind vs. solar.
Let’s face it — engineers see a lot of numbers in their everyday jobs. While generally comfortable with math and numbers, I doubt many of us take the time to actually visualize what those numbers actually mean.
The speed of light is a great example. Every engineer knows that it’s 299,792,486 m/s^2. In more common (for us Americans) terms, it’s about 186,000 miles per second. But how fast is that, exactly?
Well, the moon is a good example. While really close to Earth in astronomical units, it would be a pretty long walk to reach there, if such a journey were possible. But humans have been to the moon and around the far side. It’s as far as we’ve ever managed to travel in one journey. So how far is it, in relation to the speed of light?
Demolition City Game: Strategically place dynamite to bring buildings down.