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“Science In Fiction” Video Contest

Do you love the idea of time travel, teleportation, brain-powered computers, cyborgs or other far-fetched technology that has appeared in fantasy literature and movies?

Today’s scientists and engineers are discovering ways to make these ideas become reality.

And you can help them imagine how to do that – and win cash awards! The Kavli “Science in Fiction” video contest asks middle and high school students to investigate how science is portrayed in TV, films, and games, and then make a 30- to 90-second video about how current or emerging technologies could help realize those science fiction concept.

Or describe what science needs to discover to make it really happen!

The entry period runs from NOV. 1, 2013 – MARCH 21, 2014

Go to Contest Entry Form
Contest open to Grades 6-12, International and U.S. Students
PRIZES:
1st- $2000 and travel to the USA Science and Engineering Festival in Washington, D.C., April 26-27, 2014
2nd- $750
3rd- $500
People’s Choice $250

Talk to the Hand

Guest author Felix Tang is an engineering student at the University of British Columbia. He created this post for senior instructor Annette Berndt’s technical writing class.

People always imagine Stephen Hawking’s monotone voice when they talk about speech synthesizers. I could never finish watching or listening any of the famous physicist’s speeches because I cannot stay focused on his emotionless voice. Most traditional text-to-speech synthesizers receive commands from keyboards and generate monotone voices through speakers.

Professor Sidney Fels and his team from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada have developed a gesture-to-voice synthesizer that recognizes the user’s hand gestures and generates emotional voices based on them. The team predicts it will only take users about 100 hours to learn all the programmed gestures, which is faster than other communication systems require. “It’s like playing a musical instrument that plays voice,” explains Fels.

The synthesizer uses 3-D position sensors that recognize hand gestures and positions, and converts them into voices. If this synthesizer is commercially produced, we might one day literally hear a mute person talking. You could even talk with your mouth full!

Engineers should not only create marvelous devices but apply their knowledge to make our world better. Professor Fels suggests using the synthesizer as a musical instrument. I dream of using the synthesizer as an animal-human translator with animals like Koko, the gorilla (see the Video of the gorilla Koko) who can communicate with humans using basic gestures.  What would your engineering dream be?

See and hear the gesture-to-voice synthesizer in action:

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Student’s Gel Could Prevent Concussions

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Combining nanotechnology with foam, Brigham Young University engineering student Jake Merrell has created a “smart foam” that could be placed inside the helmets of football players to measure the impact of hits to the head, according to the BYU news release.

When the foam compresses, it transmits electrical signals wirelessly to a tablet or computer, and could help prevent concussions and head injuries while players are in the game.

 

In America, football is the sport with the highest concussion risk. Merrell’s working prototype was among the top three at BYU’s Student Innovator of the Year competition. According to Mashable, Merrell will submit his invention to the Head Health Challenge, an innovation contest sponsored by the NFL that will award up to $10 million for new products that can help protect football players’ brains and track collision impacts in real time.

Computer Science Rocks!

Rapper will.i.am with NASA astronaut Leland Melvin

Who says science and engineering is for nerds? Not rapper will.i.am. He’s keen to study computer science and has enrolled in a course at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles this fall. You could take an Introduction to Programming for Musicians and Digital Artists with him  – it’s a free online class known as a MOOC (massive open online course).

“Code writers, they are my idols,” the Black Eyed Peas star told Britain’s Mirror. “Songwriters are cool – I can write songs, too – and bloggers are cool but code writers? Those are the coolest in the world.”

Will.i.am has long been known as a tech fan. He became the first person on Earth to have a hit tune beamed from another planet when the Mars Curiosity Rover played his “Reach For The Stars” in August, 2012. [See NASA’s video of him talking to students with NASA astronaut Leland Melvin.] He also has a foundation and blog to promote science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM) education, and has urged inner-city kids to change their lives and their ‘hoods by learning science and being like Facebook inventor Mark Zuckerberg.

Lately, will.i.am has become “fascinated” by quantum physics, he told Canadian TV. He also has teamed up with Discovery Education on a new STEAM program and has a comic coming out in July called Wizards & Robots. It tells the tale of time-traveling robots that journey through space in search of ancient wizards, with the fate of the Earth hanging in the balance.

Will.i.am went to a science magnet school an hour away from his home, and might have studied quantum physics had music not become his passion. He says computer scientists are rock stars in a tech-driven industry like entertainment. In fact, he employs hundreds of engineers and technicians. An artist writing his own computer code? Call it the Boom Boom Pow app!

Sustainable U

Guest author Steve Hillier is an engineering student at the University of British Columbia. He created this post for senior instructor Annette Berndt’s technical writing class.

Want to help save the planet? A career in engineering might be just what you’re looking for.

Engineers don’t just build bridges and design spaceships all day.  We’ve got some of our best minds assigned to another important job: Protecting the environment.

The University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, recently opened a new building called the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability or CIRS (pronounced “sirs”) for short. Engineers have designed it to help the university reduce its carbon footprint and it’s reported to be North America’s “greenest” building.

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mountain pine beetle damageSustainable buildings usually try to balance their negative effects on the environment with positive effects. Much of the wood used to build CIRS came from forests that had already been destroyed by the mountain pine beetle, like the tree in the photograph, meaning that fewer living trees needed to be cut down for its construction.

But what makes this $37 million “living laboratory” different from other sustainable buildings is that it is also a regenerative building.  This means that the building doesn’t just make things “less bad” but it actually improves the environment and working/living conditions for human beings.  The building collects rainwater for use in the building, such as for drinking water. It also stores heat from the sun and converts it into energy, and even provides extra energy for nearby buildings.

Some students wondered whether the building’s design also would influence human behavior. So they conducted an experiment comparing two lunch rooms with identical recycling bins.  About 84 percent of the students who ate in the light-filled CIRS cafeteria sorted their trash, compared with only about half  for the dingy traditional dining hall. Conclusion: Green engineering can change behavior.

Professor John Robinson, executive director of UBC’s Sustainability Initiative, explains the building’s features:

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Other examples of sustainable buildings at the University’s Okanagan campus use geothermal energy.  Geothermal energy comes from the earth and is environmentally friendly because it provides heat without burning fossil fuels.  The campus happens to be located above an aquifer, which is a large supply of underground water. Engineers came up with a plan to dig down and collect heat from the water and distribute it to different buildings. This has reduced the amount of natural gas that needs to be burned to keep the buildings warm in the winter.

Think you could come up with a few ideas to help the environment and improve life?  Engineering companies and government agencies are always looking for creative minds to bring fresh thinking to their organizations.  Don’t assume that engineering is just about pocket protectors and math problems—you could make a real difference in our world!