Engineering - Blog Posts

Our Boxes Are Much More Than Science Supplies What problems have you solved today? Every day we are challenged with solving problems, and as adults, we don’t think about the process that goes into finding a solution because we have years of practice. We learned at an early age to be problem solvers. Groovy Lab in a Box wants to help children be problem solvers too. We foster creative innovation of children, beginning in their early informative years, by enticing their innate curiosity and determination through the engineering design process. What is the Engineering Design Process? @NASA’s example of the Engineering Design Process “involves a series of steps that lead to the development of a new product or system.” In fact, all engineering design processes start with the identification of a problem, or asking of a question to a solution or conclusion. Thinking Outside of the Box Our lessons don’t stop with the box. All #STEMists continue learning through access to “Beyond…in a Box,” a unique web portal containing videos, interactive activities, #STEM library and much, much more which work in tandem with the box projects. Groovy Lab in a Box challenges children to create their own designs by using the #engineering design process and to think outside the box. This is how they learn to be successful creative problem solvers. We are excited to play a part in STEMists’ creativity and learning. Start your subscription today, or check out our Single Box Order options, to get Groovy Lab in a Box for your #STEMist! #NationOfMakers #STEMforKids #STEMEducation #STEMEd #ProjectBasedLearning #EWeek2016 #PBL #EngineeringIsFun #BeAnEngineer #EngineersWeek #engineeringeducation #STEMtastic #unschooling #ElemEd #EdChat #EngineeringWeek2016 #homeschoolscience #instascience #STEMChallenge #MakerEd #MakerSpace #EngineeringDesignProcess #homeschool #Homeschooling #futureengineer #futurescientist

What is STEM, exactly? If you have followed Groovy Lab in a Box for a while, you may have noticed that we reference “STEM” a lot. However, you may be wondering: “What is STEM, exactly?” Let’s take a look at what STEM is and why it is so important to the United States. STEM is an acronym for “#Science, #Technology, #Engineering and #Mathematics.” It’s an acronym to describe a type of curriculum in school – from kindergarten through college. The idea behind STEM is to make the United States more competitive in technology development by bringing up generations of students who can excel in high-tech jobs (we call this generation, #STEMists.) Right now, only 16% of children graduating from American high schools are proficient in math and interested in a STEM career. However, jobs such as systems software developers, medical scientists and biomedical engineers will have the most career opportunities by 2020. Emphasizing STEM is critical in our schools, and it has not gone unnoticed by our federal government. In May 2013, the National Science and Technology Council issued a five-year strategic plan to respond to the lack of STEM education in our country’s schools. Other organizations, such as the STEM Education Coalition, are working hard to tell policymakers about STEM and how preparing our students is critical to the future of the U.S. We are doing our part, too. Each month, our subscription service focuses on delivering STEM education to your doorstep and computer. At Groovy Lab in a Box, we believe that children are natural STEMists with an innate sense of curiosity and inquiry that can flourish under the right conditions. We also believe that learning can be fun. We created Groovy Lab in a Box to encourage children to channel their natural STEMists. Whether they are building rockets or creating an electrical circuit, children are enjoying the learning process, and applying analytical skills that will transfer to the classroom, and later, their careers. Want to bring STEM learning right to your door step? Check out our monthly subscription programs! Your #STEMist will love our monthly themed STEM investigations & engineering design challenge. #homeschool #NGSS

It's #ThrowBackThursday! Atomic Energy Lab by Gilbert! | #STEM #STEMEd #TBT #STEMEducation#STEMists#STEMist#Science#Tech#Engineering#Math#KidActivities#kidscience#HomeSchool#Teacher#StayCurious#TeachersofInstagram#ScienceRocks#DIY#FutureScientist#Scienceisfun#Scienceiscool#education#homeschoolscience#handsonlearning

TRIP IN TIME: Pioneering Pilots

Patricia Kendall’s journey into aviation began as a clerk for the United States forest patrol. From the local office in Alameda, she directed pilots to fires around California and gathered data.

One day in 1931, with a student’s license in hand, Pat went for her first solo flight around the bay and soon after joined the pilot staff of the San Francisco Bay Airdrome in Alameda in September of that year.

At the Airdrome, Pat became aide to Douglas Warren, head of the division of air traffic law enforcement.

Appointed by Alameda Police Chief Vernon Smith after the passing of Warren, Pat became the country’s first official female air cop, according to newspaper reports.

Pat and her pet poodle, Goofus, kept the air and homes of Alameda safe from daredevil fliers long before the days of commercial airfare.

Voyager: The Spacecraft

The twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft are exploring where nothing from Earth has flown before. Continuing their more-than-40-year journey since their 1977 launches, they each are much farther away from Earth and the Sun than Pluto.

The primary mission was the exploration of Jupiter and Saturn. After making a string of discoveries there – such as active volcanoes on Jupiter’s moon Io and intricacies of Saturn’s rings – the mission was extended. 

Voyager 2 went on to explore Uranus and Neptune, and is still the only spacecraft to have visited those outer planets. The adventurers’ current mission, the Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM), will explore the outermost edge of the Sun’s domain. And beyond.

Spacecraft Instruments

‘BUS’ Housing Electronics

The basic structure of the spacecraft is called the “bus,” which carries the various engineering subsystems and scientific instruments. It is like a large ten-sided box. Each of the ten sides of the bus contains a compartment (a bay) that houses various electronic assemblies.

Cosmic Ray Subsystem (CRS)

The Cosmic Ray Subsystem (CRS) looks only for very energetic particles in plasma, and has the highest sensitivity of the three particle detectors on the spacecraft. Very energetic particles can often be found in the intense radiation fields surrounding some planets (like Jupiter). Particles with the highest-known energies come from other stars. The CRS looks for both.

High-Gain Antenna (HGA)

The High-Gain Antenna (HGA) transmits data to Earth on two frequency channels (the downlink). One at about 8.4 gigahertz, is the X-band channel and contains science and engineering data. For comparison, the FM radio band is centered around 100 megahertz.

Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS)

The Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) is a modified version of the slow scan vidicon camera designed that were used in the earlier Mariner flights. The ISS consists of two television-type cameras, each with eight filters in a commandable Filter Wheel mounted in front of the vidicons. One has a low resolution 200 mm wide-angle lens, while the other uses a higher resolution 1500 mm narrow-angle lens.

Infrared Interferometer Spectrometer and Radiometer (IRIS)

The Infrared Interferometer Spectrometer and Radiometer (IRIS) actually acts as three separate instruments. First, it is a very sophisticated thermometer. It can determine the distribution of heat energy a body is emitting, allowing scientists to determine the temperature of that body or substance.

Second, the IRIS is a device that can determine when certain types of elements or compounds are present in an atmosphere or on a surface.

Third, it uses a separate radiometer to measure the total amount of sunlight reflected by a body at ultraviolet, visible and infrared frequencies.

Low-Energy Charged Particles (LECP)

The Low-Energy Charged Particles (LECP) looks for particles of higher energy than the Plasma Science instrument, and it overlaps with the Cosmic Ray Subsystem (CRS). It has the broadest energy range of the three sets of particle sensors. 

The LECP can be imagined as a piece of wood, with the particles of interest playing the role of the bullets. The faster a bullet moves, the deeper it will penetrate the wood. Thus, the depth of penetration measures the speed of the particles. The number of “bullet holes” over time indicates how many particles there are in various places in the solar wind, and at the various outer planets. The orientation of the wood indicates the direction from which the particles came.

Magnetometer (MAG)

Although the Magnetometer (MAG) can detect some of the effects of the solar wind on the outer planets and moons, its primary job is to measure changes in the Sun’s magnetic field with distance and time, to determine if each of the outer planets has a magnetic field, and how the moons and rings of the outer planets interact with those magnetic fields.

Optical Calibration Target The target plate is a flat rectangle of known color and brightness, fixed to the spacecraft so the instruments on the movable scan platform (cameras, infrared instrument, etc.) can point to a predictable target for calibration purposes.

Photopolarimeter Subsystem (PPS)

The Photopolarimeter Subsystem (PPS) uses a 0.2 m telescope fitted with filters and polarization analyzers. The experiment is designed to determine the physical properties of particulate matter in the atmospheres of Jupiter, Saturn and the rings of Saturn by measuring the intensity and linear polarization of scattered sunlight at eight wavelengths. 

The experiment also provided information on the texture and probable composition of the surfaces of the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn.

Planetary Radio Astronomy (PRA) and Plasma Wave Subsystem (PWS)

Two separate experiments, The Plasma Wave Subsystem and the Planetary Radio Astronomy experiment, share the two long antennas which stretch at right-angles to one another, forming a “V”.

Plasma Science (PLS)

The Plasma Science (PLS) instrument looks for the lowest-energy particles in plasma. It also has the ability to look for particles moving at particular speeds and, to a limited extent, to determine the direction from which they come. 

The Plasma Subsystem studies the properties of very hot ionized gases that exist in interplanetary regions. One plasma detector points in the direction of the Earth and the other points at a right angle to the first.

Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTG)

Three RTG units, electrically parallel-connected, are the central power sources for the mission module. The RTGs are mounted in tandem (end-to-end) on a deployable boom. The heat source radioisotopic fuel is Plutonium-238 in the form of the oxide Pu02. In the isotopic decay process, alpha particles are released which bombard the inner surface of the container. The energy released is converted to heat and is the source of heat to the thermoelectric converter.

Ultraviolet Spectrometer (UVS)

The Ultraviolet Spectrometer (UVS) is a very specialized type of light meter that is sensitive to ultraviolet light. It determines when certain atoms or ions are present, or when certain physical processes are going on. 

The instrument looks for specific colors of ultraviolet light that certain elements and compounds are known to emit.

Learn more about the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft HERE.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

In a recent video, Practical Engineering tackles an important and often-overlooked challenge in civil engineering: dam failure. At its simplest, a levee or dam is a wall built to hold back water, and the higher that water is, the greater the pressure at its base. That pressure can drive water to seep between the grains of soil beneath the dam. As you can see in the demo below, seeping water can take a curving path through the soil beneath a dam in order to get to the other side. When too much water makes it into the soil, it pushes grains apart and makes them slip easily; this is known as liquefaction. As the name suggests, the sediment begins behaving like a fluid, quickly leading to a complete failure of the dam as its foundation flows away. With older infrastructure and increased flooding from extreme weather events, this is a serious problem facing many communities. (Video and image credit: Practical Engineering)

It’s easy:  Form a triangle, then a hexagon, then a bicycle wheel

This is the general mechanism on how a spider spins its web (talk about engineering, right?). When an insect gets caught in its web, the vibrations caused by the insect is felt by the spider which then rushes to engulf its prey.

Now here is the trippy part ; This is the effect of drugs on the pattern of the web.

Hope you are having a great week. Have a good one!

* Spider spinning a web (video) (if you find a better full video let us know)

** Spiders on drugs -  NASA article ; Video

Computer Science/Engineering Masterpost

Online lectures:

Discrete Mathematics (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

Data Structures (x) (x) (x) (x) (and Object Oriented Programming (x) )

Software Engineering (x)

Database (x)

Operating Systems (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (x)

Computer Architecture (x)

Programming (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

Linear Algebra (x) (x) (x)

Artificial Intelligence (x) (x)

Algorithms (x)

Calculus (x) (x) (x)

Tutorials (programming) and other online resources:

Programming languages online tutorials and Computer Science/Engineering online courses

Java tutorial

Java, C, C++ tutorials

Memory Management in C

Pointers in C/C++

Algorithms

Genetic Algorithms

Websites for learning and tools:

Stack Overflow

Khan Academy

Mathway

Recommended books:

Computer organization and design: the hardware/software interface. David A.Patterson & John L. Hennessy.

Artificial intelligence: a modern approac. Stuart J. Russel & Peter Norvig.

Database systems: the complete book. Hector Garcia-Molina, Jeffrey D. Ullman, Jennifer Widom.

Algorithms: a functional programming approach. Fethi Rabbi & Guy Lapalme.

Data Structures & Algorithms in Java: Michael T. Goodrich & Roberto Tamassia.

The C programming language: Kernighan, D. & Ritchie.

Operating System Concepts: Avi Silberschatz, Peter Baer Galvin, Greg Gagne.

Study Tips:

How to Study

Exam Tips for Computer Science

Top 10 Tips For Computer Science Students

Study Skills: Ace Your Computing Science Courses

How to study for Computer Science exams

How to be a successful Computer Science student

Writing in Sciences, Mathematics and Engineering:

Writing a Technical Report

Writing in the Sciences (Stanford online course)

Writing in Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Courses 

The code that took America's Apollo 11  to the moon in the 1960's has been published

When programmers at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory set out to develop the flight software for the Apollo 11 space program in the mid-1960s, the necessary technology did not exist. They had to invent it.

They came up with a new way to store computer programs, called “rope memory,” and created a special version of the assembly programming language. Assembly itself is obscure to many of today’s programmers—it’s very difficult to read, intended to be easily understood by computers, not humans. For the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC), MIT programmers wrote thousands of lines of that esoteric code.

Here’s a very 1960s data visualization of just how much code they wrote—this is Margaret Hamilton, director of software engineering for the project, standing next to a stack of paper containing the software:

The AGC code has been available to the public for quite a while–it was first uploaded by tech researcher Ron Burkey in 2003, after he’d transcribed it from scanned images of the original hardcopies MIT had put online. That is, he manually typed out each line, one by one.

“It was scanned by an airplane pilot named Gary Neff in Colorado,” Burkey said in an email. “MIT got hold of the scans and put them online in the form of page images, which unfortunately had been mutilated in the process to the point of being unreadable in places.” Burkey reconstructed the unreadable parts, he said, using his engineering skills to fill in the blanks.

  “Quite a bit later, I managed to get some replacement scans from Gary Neff for the unreadable parts and fortunately found out that the parts I filled in were 100% correct!” he said.

As enormous and successful as Burkey’s project has been, however, the code itself remained somewhat obscure to many of today’s software developers. That was until last Thursday (July 7), when former NASA intern Chris Garry uploaded the software in its entirety to GitHub, the code-sharing site where millions of programmers hang out these days.

Within hours, coders began dissecting the software, particularly looking at the code comments the AGC’s original programmers had written. In programming, comments are plain-English descriptions of what task is being performed at a given point. But as the always-sharp joke detectives in Reddit’s r/ProgrammerHumor section found, many of the comments in the AGC code go beyond boring explanations of the software itself. They’re full of light-hearted jokes and messages, and very 1960s references.

One of the source code files, for example, is called BURN_BABY_BURN--MASTER_IGNITION_ROUTINE, and the opening comments explain why:

About 900 lines into that subroutine, a reader can see the playfulness of the original programming team come through, in the first and last comments in this block of code:

In the file called LUNAR_LANDING_GUIDANCE_EQUATIONS.s, it appears that two lines of code were  meant to be temporary ended up being permanent, against the hopes of one programmer:

In the same file, there’s also code that appears to instruct an astronaut to “crank the silly thing around.”

“That code is all about positioning the antenna for the LR (landing radar),” Burkey explained. “I presume that it’s displaying a code to warn the astronaut to reposition it.”

And in the PINBALL_GAME_BUTTONS_AND_LIGHTS.s file, which is described as “the keyboard and display system program … exchanged between the AGC and the computer operator,” there’s a peculiar Shakespeare quote:

This is likely a reference to the AGC programming language itself, as one Reddit user . The language used predetermined “nouns” and “verbs” to execute operations. The verb pointed out 37, for example, means “Run program,” while the noun 33 means “Time to ignition.”

Now that the code is on GitHub, programmers can actually suggest changes and file issues. And, of course, they have

STEM fields all mapped out!

Physicist and science writer Dominic Walliman produces the YouTube channel Domain of Science where he shares fantastic animations that map out different STEM fields.

These videos are perfect to share with students to give them a comprehensive view with information about different types of sub-disciplines within fields and how they relate to each other.

I've embedded the Map of Mathematics video below for you but if you click on it and watch the video on YouTube you'll find the playlist which shares other videos on the topics of engineering, biology, physics, chemistry, and more.

And of course he has shared a lot of other great content on his channel. You should view, subscribe, and share ASAP!

Dominic has made the images of maps available via Flickr for educational use and you can purchase Domain of Science posters as well.

Watch on YouTube to view the whole playlist

We’ve all faced rejection. Here’s a list of CS professionals who didn’t let rejection stop them! Go get it! 

I went to Parc Guell to see a bit of Gaudi and I think my favorite parts of mosaic were done by his collaborator, Josep Maria Jujol. I want to look at more of his work to see if I can tease out which bits he did. The terrace benches are decorated with patterned broken tile that is really beautiful and subtle in a way that much of the other trencadis in the park isn't. The aspect of Gaudi's work I'd not known about was his engineering. The park is full of slanted columns that look decorative but are canted that way to support the load. I'd no idea, until I got up close, how practical his work was. #barcelona #modernisme #artnouveau #architectural #engineering #drawntoadventure ps. On the topic of creative collaboration, this World's Most Fashionable Paper Doll was cut and colored by Tiny Tiki Papier. She is dressed for an apres-touristing picnic. #kidsart #tikidolls #bespoke

Making Light With Electricity

According to WHO, indoor air pollution and related diseases kill more than 3 million people a year in developing nations. Much of this is due to open cooking fires, but a significant portion is caused by the of burning fuels in order to make light. 

As much as we take it for granted, lots of people on this planet don’t have access to consistent electricity. Just think about that for a second. It might be more than a century old, that electric lighting in your house, but you’re very lucky to have it.

Children exposed to the smoke from burning fuels might as well be smoking 2 packs of cigarettes per day, in terms of the chemicals and smoke they’re exposed to. It’s a serious health concern. This is why I was doubly amazed by this video from Smarter Every Day (@smartereveryday).

A company called Gravitylight has invented a lamp that runs on gravity! Through an ingenious application of old science to a new problem, they’ve been able to harness a truly renewable power source to make people’s lives better. 

Hey Gravitylight, here’s my message for you:

Coating Makes Steel Tougher, Keeps Microbes From Sticking

More and more objects are getting superhydrophobic coatings that make liquids bounce right off. Surfaces with complex nanoscopic structures that prevent wetting will soon be deployed on wind turbine blades and aircraft wings to prevent ice from sticking, and even concrete is being doped with superhydrophobic compounds to help it last decades longer.

Much still needs to be done, though, to strengthen these coatings because any damage can remove the ability to repel liquids. Such an advance is hugely important since there are potentially life-saving healthcare applications if this hurdle could be overcome with a stable, nontoxic coating for steel. Just imagine if implants, scalpels and other tools used on patients had a surface impossible for infection-causing microbes to cling to.

Now, Joanna Aizenberg and her colleagues at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering have demonstrated a possible solution. They’ve been able to coat stainless steel with nanoporous tungsten oxide, which repels all liquids. What’s more, the surface is extremely tough, maintaining superhydrophobicity even after being scratched with sharp steel objects and diamond.

Keep reading