Bill was a guest on The Engineering Commons podcast a little more than a year ago, in an episode titled STEM Education. In that interview, he told us about his work as a member of the Science Brothers.
Our guest got married during the past year, and managed to work a soldering iron into his wedding ceremony.
Bill and his fiancee, Mara, sent out wedding invitations that lit up (“twinkled”) and flashed a special message in Morse code.
A bit of EL wire and some LEDs allowed Bill’s suit and Mara’s dress to light up as well.
Mara and Bill also designed and built edge-lit acrylic centerpieces for the reception.
Bill works on submersible robots that search for mines in the ocean. The water’s attenuation of radio frequency (RF) signals requires these vehicles to be autonomous.
One of the vehicles Bill works on was used to search for the USS Alligator, the first submarine used by the US Navy.
A project that our guest recently worked on was the Modular Unmanned Surface Craft Littoral (MUSCL), a boat intended for surveillance and reconnaissance along rivers. In case you need to look it up, as your humble scribe did, a littoral zone is “the part of a sea, lake or river that is close to the shore.”
The SeaPerch program equips teachers and students with resources needed to build an underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV). Carmen got to build one of these vehicles as a high-school student.
Guest David E. Goldberg talks with us about shifting expectations for engineers, and reveals the crucial skills needed by tomorrow’s engineering professionals.
Listening and questioning are important skills for today’s engineer, but these subjects are rarely addressed in the engineering curriculum.
Our guest is David E. Goldberg, who is the Jerry S. Dobrovolny Distinguished Professor Emeritus at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), and the CEO of ThreeJoy Associates.
Dave obtained an amateur radio license as a teenager, allowing him to communicate around the world via a Model 15teletype machine.
A day spent shadowing a city engineer led Dave to enroll in civil engineering.
In 2010, Dr. Goldberg resigned his tenure at UICU, and undertook training as a leadership coach at Georgetown University.
Dave’s efforts with engineering reform started with iFoundry at UIUC. This project was influenced by the National Academy of Engineering report, The Engineer of 2020. Another influential report was Engineering for a Changing World, authored by James J. Duderstadt of the University of Michigan.
Making changes to the engineering curriculum is difficult, as it induces a log-rolling problem among the faculty.
It has been argued that technology and innovation are dominated by market-driven value judgments, rather than technical knowledge. This leads to engineering being a socially captive profession.
The rise and fall of engineers as business leaders may have resulted as a conflict between bureaucratic loyalty and professional independence, as outlined in The Revolt of the Engineers, a book by Edwin Layton.
Dave discusses the myth that science won World War II. Manufacturing engineers helped US factories and shipyards crank out planes, ships, and other war materiel, equaling the contributions of physicists.
After the war, “physics envy” caused changes in the engineering curriculum, as advised by the Grinter Report, issued in 1955.
While the pre-WWII engineering curriculum covered math and science at a fundamental level, the number of “hands-on” classes (drafting, shop, design, etc.) were far more prevalent than they are today.
Looking forward, innovation seems to be a crucial skill for engineers, as suggested by the following books:
When it comes to deciding whether software engineers are really “engineers,” Michael Davis of Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) points to the lack of a accredited engineering degree as a reason for disqualifying programmers from claiming “engineering” status. Our guest makes no such distinction.
Engineers need to move from being category “enhancers” to being category “creators.” Dr. Goldberg claims the primary difference between these functions is emotional, and not technical.
Whereas engineers of the past needed to be obedient in enhancing marketplace offerings, tomorrow’s engineers must be courageous in “unleashing” their creative talents to invent novel products and services.
Dave believes that engineering faculty must shift from an attitude of “I know” to “I trust” to successfully foster valiant young engineers.
In his consulting work with ThreeJoy Associates, our guest works to transform the organizational, cultural, and emotional norms of institutions committed to engineering education.
Big Beacon is a “social movement of the willing” formed to share best practices in reforming educational institutions. The project’s Twitter handle is @BigBeacon, and it has a Facebook page, as well.
Slated for release in early 2014, Dave and co-author Mark Somerville are working on a new book, titled “A Whole New Engineer: A Surprising Emotional Journey.”
Unfortunately, students entering the engineering program are subjected to an math-science death march. Alternative rites of passage may be available for aspiring engineers.
Coaching and collaborative skills may be useful for engineers who have completed a traditional engineering education. Google offers its employees a course on mindfullness.
Dave can be reached by email as “deg” at “threejoy.com.” His Twitter handle is @deg511. He can be found on Facebook as deg511.
We talk about amateur radio with Alan Wolke, W2AEW, in this episode of The Engineering Commons podcast.
Jeff got interested in amateur radio around the age of twelve or thirteen, while leafing through his father’s Heathkitcatalogs.
Amateur radio allows licensed enthusiasts to use allocated radio frequencies (RF) for non-commercial communications. The term “ham” was originally intended as a slur, but is now commonly used in referring to an amateur radio enthusiast.
Our guest is Alan Wolke, who is an applications engineer for Tektronix. Some of our listeners may remember Alan from his appearance on The Amp Hour podcast in October of 2012.
The largest association of ham radio operators in the United States is the American Radio Relay League (ARRL).
Those who teach others about amateur radio are known as “Elmers.”
Some hams enjoy using homebrew equipment, while others are quite happy to buy commercially available “rigs.”
Phased array antennas are not commonly used by hams, but are sometimes utilized in applications requiring large signal gain. One such application is “moonbounce,” or Earth-Moon-Earth (EME) communications.
It’s possible to get into amateur radio for $400 to $500, and be able to talk around the world. For local communications, a handheld radio could be had for less than $100.
Broadcast frequencies have differing propagation characteristics, depending on the signal wavelength.
Communication ranges at higher frequencies are often augmented through the use of repeaters that rebroadcast an incoming signal.
In the United States, there are currently three classes of operator privileges. This are known as “technician,” “general,” and “extra.”
Conversations on the amateur bands are often initiated by “calling CQ.”
Echolink and IRLP are systems that permit repeaters to connect to one another through the internet.
Technologies such as WSPR and PSK31 allow long-distance communications to be achieved with low power transmitters
Alan enjoys listening to the “Solder Smoke” podcast, which often discusses ham radio issues.
Some hams enjoy “foxhunting,” where a low-power transmitter is found using radio direction finding
“Copying code,” or translating Morse code, is a skill that is no longer required for an amateur license in the US.
Alan “relearned” Morse code using a program available from G4FON.
All questions that appear on license exams are freely available online.
Do you want to learn more about amateur radio? We can always have Alan back for part two of “Ham Nation!”
We talk with engineer Bill Porter about his work with underwater robots, electronics, and science education.
