In this episode we talk about engineering pranks through the years.
We seem to have a new focus for this podcast; as we will apparently be talking about “Tar Roads!”
Tar is a black, thermoplastic material produced by the destructive distillation of coal, and was widely used in the early and mid 20th century for binding together aggregates, such as gravel, in road construction.
While tar comes from coal, asphalt is derived from crude oil, and has a higher softening point than tar. A highly viscous liquid that is similar in appearance to tar, asphalt is widely used to bind aggregate particles together into asphalt concrete.
This episode marks the two-year anniversary of The Tar Road The Engineering Commons podcast!
Many pranks have been carried out through the years at MIT and Caltech.
One of the earliest pranks at MIT (in the 1870’s) involved sprinkling iodide of nitrogen, a mild contact explosive, across a military drill field, thus causing small fireworks to erupt as students carried out their marching exercises.
The Great Dome, situated atop Building 10 at MIT and approximately 100 feet in diameter, has been the sight of many pranks.
In 1999, the Great Dome at MIT was transformed into a giant version of the Star Wars character, R2-D2.
MIT students stole the Fleming Cannon from Caltech in 2006, shipping the 3 ton device all the way across the United States to be displayed on their Boston campus. Cost of the hack: around $7,000.
A hollowed out pumpkin was placed atop a tall spire on the Cornell campus in 1997. The pranksters who pulled off this feat have never been identified.
Caltech students pulled off the Great Rose Bowl Hoax during the 1961 Rose Bowl football game, causing the University of Washington’s card section to display messages that were altered from their intended configuration. In the final display, captured by network television, the card section spelled out “Caltech,” leaving little doubt as to who had pulled off the prank.
In a similar prank, carried out at the 1984 Rose Bowl game, the Rose Bowl scoreboard was hacked to display the message, “Caltech 38, MIT 9.” This stunt gained one of the perpetrators credit in the course, “Experimental Projects in Electrical Circuits.”
Brian references the movie Real Genius, in which a car was disassembled in the parking lot and reassembled inside a dorm room.
MIT students inflated a balloon in the middle of the football field during a game between Harvard and Yale in 1982.
Engineering students from the University of British Columbia have been hanging Volkswagen Beetles from every imaginable structure over the past thirty years. This includes a library (1996), a bridge (1999), a train bridge (2000), the Golden Gate Bridge (2001), the Lions Gate Bridge (2008), and a clock tower (2014).
Jeff gripes about a Michigan Left intersection recently built in his area, which differs somewhat from the Jughandle intersection that Carmen has encountered.
Carmen describes a prank involving the addition and removal of gasoline to mess with an engineer’s fuel mileage calculations.
Brian notes the hacking activities of phone phreaks, referencing a radio broadcast from the late 1980’s. (The operator connecting segment mentioned by Brian starts at about the 34:25 mark of Part 1.)
A mysterious appearance on Chicago television of someone wearing a Max Headroom mask in 1987 is still a matter of conversation, as the instigator has never been identified.
In 2007, Boston officials thought they were dealing with improvised explosive devices when they discovered battery powered circuit boards with LEDs displaying a pattern that resembled characters from the Adult Swim animated television series.
Thanks to Keri Garel for the photo of Caltech’s Fleming cannon, titled “04-06-06MIT2.” Thanks also to Wit Suphamungmee for the photograph of MIT’s Great Dome. Podcast theme music (for both The Engineering Commons and The Amp Hour) generously provided by Paul Stevenson. Our thanks to Chris Gammell and Dave Jones of The Amp Hour for permission to use their theme music in this April Fool’s Day edition of The Engineering Commons..
In this episode we talk about product development with electrical engineer Dave Young, who is an author, educator, and small business owner.
Brian has been fortunate enough to be involved in new product development for much of his career.
Many firms try to avoid a technology push, in which a novel technology is introduced to the market. However, some authors claim that technology push can be a winning market strategy.
An alternate marketing approach, known as “market pull” or “product pull,” is to wait for consumers to request a particular product and allow that demand to “pull” the product into the marketplace.
Our guest is Dave Young, who previously joined us on The Engineering Commons for an episode about STEM Education.
We learn from Dave why it is always important to turn off one’s soldering iron when suspending work for the evening.
Carmen and Dave share a common view on writing code; they would prefer if someone else was doing it!
Dave is a co-founder of Blue Stamp Engineering, a summer program which encourages high school students to build projects about which they are truly passionate. Programs are currently active in New York, Houston, San Fransisco and Denver.
In addition to articles about entrepreneurship, Dave likes to write about Cadsoft Eagle, an electronic design automation program.
According to Dave, element 14 is the place to go to ask questions about the credit card-sized computer board known as Raspberry Pi.
First-time engineering entrepreneurs often fall into the trap of believing that building a “better mousetrap” will automatically lead to economic success.
The term complex sales refers to the process of dealing with the many requirements of selling to a large enterprise.
To get product development started, Dave enjoys sitting down with a client and having a “fun conversation,” in which all manner of product ideas are considered, without regard to practicality.
Dave will return to the client with a “menu” of between 2 and 10 product concepts that he thinks merit further consideration.
It’s hard to guess which ideas will take off in the marketplace; Dave says he would have never guessed that the Snuggie would become a great success.
Clients of our guest’s consultancy are located across the United States, and have come from as far away as Nairobi.
One of Dave’s clients is BrewJacket, the company bringing the Kickstarter-funded Lager Jacket product to market for home-brewers who can’t keep their lagers cool enough during the fermentation process.
The Peltier effect can be used to move heat across an electrified junction of two dissimilar conductors.
Carmen expresses his concern over worts being put to waste while testing the Lager Jacket product.
We talk with systems engineer Mike Parks about the intersection of art and engineering in this episode of The Engineering Commons podcast.
Adam finds that his beer brewing talents exceed his drawing and singing skills.
Our guest for this episode is Mike Parks, a systems engineer, Navy veteran, and licensed professional engineer with over 16 years of experience in solving a wide range of technical and engineering challenges.
Mike developed an early fascination with technology while in Boy Scouts, then had a chance to serve as an intern with the U.S. Naval Academy’s engineering school as a high school student.
During college, Mike enlisted in the Civil Engineering Corps Collegiate Program, where he was able to apply his skills toward automating buildings and infrastructure facilities.
Mike was involved in assessing the damage caused by hurricanes Katrina and Wilma.
These days, Mike works a civil servant for the Naval Air Systems Command in Patuxent River, Maryland.
In his off hours, our guest runs Green Shoe Garage, an electronics design business and technology consultancy. The name derives from Mike’s childhood passion for Chuck Taylor All Star sneakers.
Mike still wire wraps his prototype circuit boards.
In recent weeks, Mike has been recording his podcast on Google Hangouts to produce a video version.
A quirky story, recently covered on the S.T.E.A.M. Power Podcast, was a mathematical proof showing that the sum of all the numbers from 1 to infinity is equal to -1/12. Carmen is a fan of the Numberphile website that produced the video showing this result.
Mike is working on a book for technical leaders, tentatively titled “Don’t Let the Bits Byte!” He’s hoping to self-publish the book before year’s end.
A hackerspace that recently opened near Mike’s home is the PaxSpace facility.
To provide some perspective on career opportunities in engineering, Mike has produced a few YouTube videos on the subject. These include:
In this episode we talk about engineering pranks through the years.
