Posted on September 21st, 2011 by axb
Amanda Crosby, right, and Belinda Dods of New Zealand celebrate placing the final screw on the deck of their house
What does it take to build a solar village, where homes not only are designed to create more energy than they use but are comfortable and cool to look at, too? Some 19 student teams from U.S. and international colleges found out this past weekend as they began installing their entries to the 2011 Solar Decathlon in Washington, D.C. The answer: lots of hands-on work involving hammers, wrenches, plumbing, and construction cranes.
The flurry of activity capped the students’ two-year effort to prepare for the competition (we covered the 2009 one here), which this year takes place from September 23 to October 2.
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Filed under: Architectural, Civil, Electrical, Environmental, e-News | 4 Comments »
Tags: Architectural, Civil, Electrical, Environmental
Posted on June 18th, 2011 by axb
Michigan State University, East Lansing
Civil Engineering
“As a young kid, I would spend hours playing with Legos. I loved having thousands of them at my disposal to design whatever I could dream up. In fifth grade, I was assigned a project to write about where I saw myself in 20 years. I explained to my teacher that I enjoyed playing with Legos, and she said that I should consider engineering.”
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Tags: Architectural, Civil, SMART
Posted on May 31st, 2011 by axb
Planning a road trip this summer? Whether en route to a beach, lake, or national park, there are plenty of engineering landmarks to admire along the way — including the interstate highway system along which most travelers must pass. Here are some designated engineering destinations worth braking for:
Hoover Dam: More than a million visitors a year tour this National Landmark (pictured at the top) that towers 725 above the Colorado River 30 miles southeast of Las Vegas, NV. Read ASEE’s Prism magazine columnist Henry Petroski on the dam’s 75th anniversary.
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Filed under: Architectural, Civil, Electrical, Environmental, Mechanical, Nuclear, Transportation, e-News | 1 Comment »
Tags: Architectural, Civil, Electrical, Environmental, Mechanical, Nuclear, Transportation
Posted on May 19th, 2011 by jxh
We have previously reported on many green initiatives related to building and roadway materials: smog-eating cement, concrete that can heal itself when it detects cracks, and pavement with solar-storing technology.
Now, civil engineers at Purdue University are working to design a cost-effective mixture for road construction and bridge support.
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Filed under: Civil, Environmental, Materials, Transportation, e-News | 4 Comments »
Tags: Civil, Environmental, Green Technology, Materials, Transportation
Posted on April 7th, 2011 by mxl
Ask most engineers what drew them to the discipline, and crunching equations in the classroom probably doesn’t top any list. Studying explosions, building things, saving the planet—that’s more like it. A growing number of programs now give undergraduates a crack at cutting-edge research—often on socially relevant projects. Want to save lives when tsunamis strike? How about landing a robot on Mars or designing bomb-proof embassies? Check out our continuing series of posts on the country’s coolest engineering classes, which demonstrate that the fundamentals can still be fun.
After Japan’s devastating tsunami, did you wonder about building safer shelters? Students at Oregon State University’s College of Engineering in Corvallis not only get to design such structures; they can test them against the forces of nature in the Tsunami Wave Basin, the world’s largest, most sophisticated facility for studying earthquake-generated monster swells.
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Tags: Architectural, Civil, Classes, Environmental, Ocean
