Kids and Science - Yesterday and Today

Ok, so everyone talks about how more kids need to take more science and engineering disciplines. Indeed I agree. It must have been the shift from science and engineering to into legal careers that somehow caused the following shift.

Above is one example from the 50's, an atomic energy lab! Below, a chemistry set from the 40's.



Times have changed, today's sets are an OLPC laptop and Python, a bunch of 74xx logic and 555 timers, or perhaps a LEGO robotics set. But still, for a future scientist trying some hands on chemistry and nuclear science on their own is not a such a bad idea. However, with all the litigation out there, this it came to the chemistry set below. Perhaps its time to add liability waivers to some of the toys - or better call them science education tools.

I'll prop Martin's site here, he's a former colleague and principal toy master at sci toys.

‎3000 lumens, that's a lot of photons

Waiting for darkness to set to test the new torch. It draws 2.8 amps from the Lithium batteries. Perfect for night navigation in tight quarters.

"The LEDs are being driven direct drive, from 14.4v, using four 18650 batteries. The brightness is fairly constant until the batteries are fully discharged. This flashlight does get very warm, but not so hot you cannot hold it. The head is massive, and the body is also massive, being 1/4" thick (.75 ID, 1.25" OD). Both the head and body are integral part of the heat sinking, and also your hand (if ungloved)."

"On max power, it is almost too bright to be usable!"

I have it on max power, the only way to use it at home is to bounce it off the ceiling at which point it lights the whole room in very bright light (mine is 20 ft., regular ones could work but don't look at the ceiling). Its real use is for the outside, I did tests last night after warning neighbors that its not an alien landing. Its perfect for the outdoors. I'll mod the torch so I have an outside power toggle, the jumper inside the head is less than ideal for a field situation.

"So how long can they run and what is the Voltage for us Americans?"

This is a hand held flashlight: http://elektrolumens.com/FireSword-V/FireSword-V.html
Runs on 4 rechargeable Lithium ion cells. It'll work for an hour on the high power setting, or 3 hours on the 1000 lumen setting.

National Engineers Week

Here's a piece for the week from some of my colleagues...

My favorite thing about being an engineer is...
always thinking about how to make things better
improving people's lives
beautifully coded useful applications
The ability to build things that affect the lives of millions
being able to problem-solve all day long
creating useful things
the pay
Building things and the joy of seeing them work.
The 'aha!' moments of understanding when I discover how an elaborate software architecture works, its parts and their interactions. The opportunity to unbreak things, repurpose, tweak and construct new ones; especially when they are useful to *other* people too, and they make a difference in their lives.
Creating things but also breaking things in spectacular ways.
taking apart things, understanding how things work, fixing things, building machines that help people
Solving problems to make the world a better place
making things out of thought-stuff
the feeling when stuff actually works.
doing something I would be doing for free while being paid for it :-)
constant tinkering and discovery
They give me all of these wonder toys AND they pay me to play with them! (I work on mobile development)
I get to build things that help people
Taking stuff apart and making something new from the pieces.
Making things that other people can use
creating new things
working with other engineers
putting power in the hands of the people
using my problem solving skills in my everyday life.
Making things work.
discovering elegant solutions to difficult problems
being able to create beautiful things.
Building stuff!
Designing and making things that are useful to people
solving problems
building things that people will use.
I get to work with smart people.
Building things that did not exist before

I first knew I was an engineer when...
I stayed up all night playing video games
i enjoyed learning calculus
i made a game
I played with legos as a child
I fell in love with Capsela
I got my first computer at age 4
i figured out how to decode paper tape by hand, to learn how a computer game was written
I loved working on the computer and building computer games.
I started taking things apart to see what's inside. My father's alarm clock was the first 'convenient victim'.
My parents knew it when as a kid I took apart an expensive watch which did not belong to me...
When people started referring to me as one
I connected a battery to light up a bulb, must have been in 6th grade
I took apart my remote-controlled car as a kid
I realised I loved making software
I nearly killed myself with 230v
I decided to exchange my precious collection of Marvel Hero magazines by an electronic kit still at middle school.
I was 8 years old and got a TI-99 4A
I built a dollhouse out of legos
I made my first LED blink. It was red.
I started coding at age 10
I was able to solve problems others weren't
i spent a lot of time programming a calculator
I had to know how everything worked.
I realized I'd read the 18 volume "how it works" encyclopedia from cover to cover.
I took apart my first hard drive with my father
I saw a video game and wondered how they drew 3D like that.
I took apart a digital scale to see how it worked.
I decided I liked concrete coding more than abstract math
I realized I liked computer programming better than physics.
The first person who has never heard of me played around with something I built

You might be an engineer if...
you are constantly trying to fix things
you like math and you like building things
are engaged with computers
You have a strong, quantitative mind, attention to detail, and a knack for understanding how machines work and why
you love putting science and math into use in the real world
you think pi is more interesting than pie
you'd rather sit and do puzzles than play sports
Love tinkering with things and have an urge to automate things.
You feel the need to trace, document, understand 'stuff' and are driven by the imperative to talk to other engineers about it
If you look at a theatre or concert stage and a good fraction of the time you look where the lights are, and what patterns are used to light the set.
You can manage to follow instructions and follow some basic rules.
you like to build things
you are driven to take things apart or figure out how they work
you love mathematical/algorithmic problem solving
"how does it work" is more than a rap line.
you are passionate about turning ideas for gadget, devices or softwares into something that can transform peoples lives and you don't stop when you find a technical obstacle.
you're counting physical things and get to 'A'
you like to build things to help people
You are not satisfied with thinking of technology as magic.
You take things apart (and put them back together)!
computer code makes you smile
you enjoy taking things apart
if you like solving problems
The first thing you want to do with a new toy is rip off the cover and see what makes it go.
you enjoy figuring out the details of how things work
you like make things work by putting things together.
You like to understand how things work.
You're fascinated by how things work
you find puzzles fun
you enjoy puzzle solving.
You also have "engineer" in your job title? I'm not sure I understand the question.
You like seeing things tick together

This video/image shows what I like most about engineering (insert link)...

Images:
http://omega-onsite.com/plugs.jpg
http://i.annihil.us/u/prod/marvel/i/mg/3/b0/4c3657b81e770/detail.jpg
http://toki-woki.net/blog/p2242-hey-lego-table
https://picasaweb.google.com/boris.debic/Xmass2010#5555641303209867522
http://xkcd.com/303/
http://www.impactlab.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/google-switzerland-1.jpg
http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/thermite/docs/thermite_demo_s.jpg
http://www.gwb3.com/GWBIII/Blog/Entries/2009/5/24_Are_you_smarter_than_a_Freshman_files/2%3D1.jpg
http://scientificproofmagazine.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/picture-4.png
[the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows bridge]

Videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL2Gf1qDfBs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOtoujYOWw0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw8WRBq1Qxw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pM6uD8nePo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qs_5EVH8O0o

CA DMV Driver Licenses

So I checked today with the DMV Press office on the driver license production delays.

If you have a paper license, and are still waiting on the the plastic card. The safe thing to do is to go to the DMV and get a new paper document. Obviously this has the potential to create more problems at the DMV as people out of the queue reenter it. The DMV press contact did add one more thing. Police departments are telling their officers to be elastic on the paper documents for another month. You should check with the Police in your area wether they are doing so.

===

And I just called my local police department. And the officer there checked the database. The DMV actually did update the records, and their systems show the new expiration date. The officer said, to keep the expired paper extension nevertheless but as far as they are concerned - they have good data.

Eleven Days Cruising the US Southwest

So here we are back home after 11 days on the road. When I say on the road I mean 5546.4 kilometers or 3 446.4 miles of road. This travel started with an early abort. Last year we went to Kauai, and this I have reserved a flight to Cancun, Mexico. Then the TSA started with more through pat down and scanner schemes. In protest to the potential harassment I called off the reservations and we agreed to take the travel car out for a spin of the southwest and divert the airfare ransom into gas on our own and the nicest hotels we could find. Our daughter wanted to play in snow anyway. We've been to New Mexico before but missed many spots in a different kind of tour. It was time to give New Mexico the time it deserves. Myself, I wanted to see a couple of 'rocket science' things there, including the notorious place called Roswell :) I am happy to report all objectives of this mission were accomplished, including finding the alien - to Filip's horror. The pictures linked above tell the story of the journey. As Seneca said, "Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind."

Here's a few engineering notes. It took 628 liters (166 gallons) of gasoline to complete the trip. About 22 Tera Joules of energy, enough to power a color TV 24x7 for 17 years, lifting a million apples to a height of 1000 meters, or typing 4.3 million 100,000 word novels on a typewriter. On the green side we emitted 1.47 tons of CO2, but I am sleeping well, as I can offset this by planting 14 trees next summer in our family's forest back in Croatia - feel free to ask me about the tree planting party.

We have seen scenes and places, colors, skies, snow blizzards and primeval rock, lava, mesas and sand in abundance. But we have also seen the work of humans. Ancient and contemporary, constructive and destructive, the modern space oriented, the contemporary art, and the old, symbolic and quizzing. The flash of Vegas and the erie remoteness of the Jornada del Muerto. The spicy food of New Mexico the Americana fare on route 66. Most of all, we filled our neurons with new memories that will not fade easily.

Enjoy.

Neal Stephenson - Snow Crash

So after reading Cryptonomicon and Anathem I finally found the time to read Snow Crash. Out of order, but hey, better than never. Neal's writing is rich, full of surprises. The prism he uses to look at the world is intricate and well polished, playing with humor and always cutting through our times. Here's a taste of it.

"Since then, he's been putting a lot more emphasis on his auxiliary emergency backup job: freelance stringer for the CIC, the Central Intelligence Corporation of Langley, Virginia.

The business is a simple one. Hiro gets information. It may be gossip, videotape, audiotape, a fragment of a computer disk, a xerox of a document. It can even be a joke based on the latest highly publicized disaster.

He uploads it to the CIC database -- the Library, formerly the Library of Congress, but no one calls it that anymore. Most people are not entirely clear on what the word "congress" means.

And even the word "library" is getting hazy. It used to be a place full of books, mostly old ones. Then they began to include videotapes, records, and magazines. Then all of the information got converted into machine-readable form, which is to say, ones and zeroes. And as the number of media grew, the material became more up to date, and the methods for searching the Library became more and more sophisticated, it approached the point where there was no substantive difference between the Library of Congress and the Central Intelligence Agency. Fortuitously, this happened just as the government was falling apart anyway. So they merged and kicked out a big fat stock offering."

Pixel Overlord

Home Page Overload. Wednesday, June 9th, 2010. An instant centithread has emerged on eng-misc following the radical insurgent change of our home page.

"Oh, wow. That's hideous."
"The tech blogs are going to lose their sh*t over this, but the regular users are going to love it."
"I don't like it."
"Shut up, nerd!"
"It kind of feels like the 90s called, and they want their website back."
"WTF?"

New Coke didn't last long, this won't either...

Update: Indeed gone fast... phew... good ridance.