Virgin Oceanic

This week, renowned entrepreneur and adventurer Richard Branson unveiled "Virgin Oceanic"; his mission to explore the depths of the oceans that have never been reached before. The submarine, designed by Graham Hawkes, uses a combination of various advanced materials and technology to enable 'full ocean depth' capability. The first dive, down the Marianna Trench (11km below sea level) in the Pacific Ocean, is scheduled for sometime later this year.

To find out more about the mission and the submarine technology, check out: http://www.virginoceanic.com

President Obama Unveils Energy Plan

In a speech earlier today (yesterday in the USA) at Georgetown University, President Obama unveiled a new energy plan for the nation.

In his speech, Obama cited the increasing uncertainty about the safety and security of energy, noting last year's Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, the recent turmoil in the Middle East around major oil producing nations, and the earthquakes and subsequent nuclear crisis in Japan.

As such, his administration today has released a "Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future", with an ultimate goal to reduce oil imports (currently 11 million barrels per day) by one-third by the end of the decade. This will be achieved with the blueprint aimed to:

• Develop and secure America's energy supplies
• Provide consumers with choices to reduce costs and save energy
• Innovate our way to a clean energy future

You can view his full speech below:

Or you can read a transcript of his speech here.

Also, click here to read the "Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future"

3D Printing

"3D Printing" is a process that can be used to produce three-dimensional objects using similar mechanics to traditional 2D inkjet printing. The field of 3D printing has seen many developments in the past decade; 3D printers are now commercially available and is being used in a number of areas.

The process uses a modern printer head to deposit or 'set' material onto a printing bed, which is lowered each pass such that the 3D object is built up layer by layer. This process can allow the production of almost any object designed using CAD (Computer-Aided Design).

Here is a video of a 3D printer:

Currently, 3D printing is commonly used as a method of prototyping, e.g. prototype aircraft components for wind tunnel testing, designing of new jewelery, production of art/sculpture.

A recent article in The Economist ("The Printed World" - 10 Feb 2011), however, pointed out that whilst the technology is still in its relative infancy, advancement in this area could also revolutionise manufacturing. For example, rather than products being mass manufactured at a factory and then distributed to retail stores, a product could be customised and "3D Printed" in the back of the shop. 3D printing could also open up new doors for inventors and entrepreneurs who now have a much lower cost of entry into manufacturing their new product.

Should 3D printing continue to grow in adoption, it could significantly change the way in which engineers work in the future.

If you'd like to know more about 3D printing, Z Corp., a manufacturer of 3D printers and related products, has a great website detailing some of their technology: http://www.zcorp.com

Radiation Exposure Levels Explained

I saw this excellent chart explaining radiation exposure levels. It seems particularly relevant given the current situation in Japan.

http://xkcd.com/radiation/

Fukushima

The future of nuclear power has once again come into question as the world waits anxiously to hear the latest developments from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in Japan.

Last night on the ABC's "7:30" program, Leigh Sales interviewed the CEO of General Electric (GE), Jeffrey Immelt. Three of the reactors used at the Fukushima plant were based on designs by GE. In the interview, the CEO discusses the safety of nuclear reactors and the future of the industry. You can view the full interview here: http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2011/s3165939.htm

With GE's close connection to the current nuclear crisis, they have created a site where you can keep up with the latest developments at Fukushima, and also learn more about GE's nuclear technology and reactor safety: http://www.gereports.com/facts-on-the-nuclear-energy-situation-in-japan/

Also, if you don't know the first thing about nuclear power, this article is a nice summary of how it all works:

http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/12/nuclear-energy-insid.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+boingboing%2FiBag+%28Boing+Boing%29

Japan Earthquake- Building Designs Save Lives

In the wake of the Japan earthquake, I read an interesting article about precautions that may have saved many lives. On top of earthquake and tsunami drills, which prepare the people that live in at-risk areas, hydraulic shock absorbers make Japanese buildings some of the sturdiest in the world.

From the article in the New York Times:
"The isolation devices are essentially giant rubber-and-steel pads that are installed at the very bottom of the excavation for a building, which then simply sits on top of the pads. The dissipation units are built into a building’s structural skeleton. They are hydraulic cylinders that elongate and contract as the building sways, sapping the motion of energy."


You can find the full article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/12/world/asia/12codes.html?_r=4&hp

Also, if you would like to make a donation to the Australian Red Cross' "Japan and Pacific Disaster Appeal 2011" to help those affected by the earthquake and tsunami, please follow the link below:

http://www.redcross.org.au/japan2011.htm

Discovery's last trip

Last week, the Space Shuttle Discovery took its last trip into space. In its 27 years of service, it flew 39 missions, deployed 31 satellites and spent almost exactly 1 year in space. Space Shuttles were a milestone in space flight and when the last flight is taken this year, NASA will have no replacement ready.

As a tribute, watch a Space Shuttle launch from a booster rocket's point of view:


For more information of space shuttles, see the great NASA website below:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html

Spying on Animals in their Natural Habitat

How would you go about recording animals in their natural habitat?



When faced with this problem, researchers at the Smithsonian Institute decided to use automated, motion sensing cameras. With 201 000 pictures of animals in their natural habitat, it was certainly the right approach.

Check out the photos at their website:
http://siwild.si.edu/index.cfm

Growth In China

China has just unveiled their 5 year economic plan. The plan lays out the path that the country's economy will take in the near future. As China's economy has a large impact on the world economy, this will affect people around the world, including Australians.

Interestingly, the plan calls for a slowing of growth in the next half decade. Thats right, LESS growth.

Read and listen to more about it at NPR's Planet Money.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/03/11/134457859/the-friday-podcast-chinas-growth-problem

I also highly recommend taking a look at the Planet Money website and subscribing to their podcast.

"Grand Challenges for Engineering" - National Academy of Engineering (USA)

Through the daily grind of calculating forces, balancing energy systems, solving ODEs and coding MATLAB, we engineering students usually find ourselves caught up in the "nitty-gritty" of engineering. As future engineering leaders, however, I think it's important that we keep the "big picture" in mind as well.

In 2008, the National Academy of Engineering, based in the United States, published its list of "Grand Challenges for Engineering". The list was created by a committee of leading engineers that considered a range of inputs from technical experts and the general public. The committee identified 14 grand challenges that engineers will engage with this century, namely:

• Make solar energy economical
• Provide energy from fusion
• Develop carbon sequestration methods
• Manage the nitrogen cycle
• Provide access to clean water
• Restore and improve urban infrastructure
• Advance health informatics
• Engineer better medicines
• Reverse-engineer the brain
• Prevent nuclear terror
• Secure cyberspace
• Enhance virtual reality
• Advance personalized learning
• Engineer the tools of scientific discovery

It certainly is a "grand" list of challenges, and definitely provides some food for thought, but by no means is it exhaustive. There may be many more challenges just waiting to appear that none of us have even thought to consider.

What are your thoughts? Do you agree? Any major challenges you think they've missed? Please leave a comment below.

Also, if you'd like to know more about each of the challenges, head to the website: http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/

Or, you can download a PDF booklet on all the challenges here

Machine Learning

The race to build a computer that can think like humans has been in the news recently, with IBM's computer "Watson" taking on the best human players in the American game show Jeopardy.

Since computers were invented, it has always been assumed that one day they will become smart enough to think like humans, but progress has been slow. In 1997, Deep Blue made history by defeating the world chess champion Gary Kasperov. Although mastering chess was a great feat, it only required programming the computer to understand the limited number of rules in chess. In Jeopardy, answers to questions often hide behind puns, double meanings and word play. As it was impossible to program a computer to understand all these subtleties, a different approach to computing needed to be applied.

Machine Learning is a process by which a computer learns by example. By showing computers a large number of examples, they are able to build their own rules, effectively learning now to deal with information. In Jeopardy, this involved loading all the past questions and answers from the show. When this was combined with a huge database of information from which to pull potential answers from, Watson was ready to play.

In terms of future applications, the idea that a computer can understand questions, interpret what is important in that question and return an answer from an extremely large database in seconds is very exciting. The creators of Watson are especially excited about its potential in the health care industry and have announced further research into that area (http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/33726.wss).

To learn more about Watson and how he performed on Jeopardy, take a look at this documentary which was made before the show went to air:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Gpaf6NaUEw&feature=related

There is also an interesting Q&A with some of the engineers that worked on Watson here:
http://blog.reddit.com/2011/02/ibm-watson-research-team-answers-your.html

You can see Watson play the final day (of 3) here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm8iUjzgPTg

Geoengineering

So, a few months ago I came across an interesting article in The Economist (November 4, 2010) describing the concept of "geoengineering"; a field of study that explores methods of actively manipulating the earth's climate to fix the problems of man-made global warming and climate change. This is a relatively new field that goes beyond most current initiatives to reduce emissions and mitigate further effects to climate.

The article describes several interesting ideas that are being explored, including:

• Filling the upper atmosphere with fine sulfate particles that can act to reflect sunlight (an effect that occurs naturally with a volcanic eruption)
• Chemical scrubbers that can "scrub" carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to be sequestered underground
• Adding calcium oxide into the oceans, forming carbonates from dissolved carbon dioxide, which in turn allows more carbon dioxide to dissolve in the ocean water
• Cloud whitening - using fine sea-salt mist to 'whiten' low ocean clouds to reduce absorption
• Refreezing meltwater underneath glaciers to stop glacial drift

Whist these radical yet plausible ideas will require much more work to refine into proper engineering solutions, I think the more interesting challenge, which the article also explores, is how we manage the development and testing process. Since even the smallest-scale experiment on the earth's climate may still have effects globally, it is imperative that experiments are carefully constructed and contingencies well considered.

In addition, who is then responsible for oversight of such experiments? National governments? International scientific organisations? Private corporations?

Whilst the potential benefits from successful geoengineering could solve our climate change problems and be one of the defining fields of this century, the risks could be downright detrimental in exacerbating the damage to our already strained environment.

It's definitely an important area for our generation to think about as there is, after all, but the one earth we have.

If you're interested in reading the full article, it is available online from The Economist website: http://www.economist.com/node/17414216?story_id=17414216 (subscription may be required)

There is also a pretty comprehensive Wikipedia page on geoengineering as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoengineering

Welcome to the Monash Engineering Leaders Blog!

Hi everybody!

We're just a couple of final year engineering students at Monash University who thought it'd be a good idea to start a blog about engineering. Simple enough, right?

Over the course of this year we hope to post blogs with our commentary on relevant news and current events, with an effort to keep you (our fellow students) up to date with latest developments and emerging trends in the industry. We'll try and keep our posts short, and give links to our sources if you should decide you want to know more. Hopefully this blog will help keep you filled in with what's going on in the wider world of engineering and the challenges we will face as leaders of tomorrow.

Of course, this blog is very much a work in progress. As such, we invite any comments or suggestions you may have - other relevant topic areas you'd like covered, interesting news sources we should look into, the types of posts we write, etc. Just email us at monashengineeringleaders@gmail.com

- Aaron and Michael