How? By working with top scientists and engineers to develop his training regiment into an exact science. Potts and his coaching staff monitor everything from his heart rate, his energy output, his breathing patterns and oxygen levels to his acceleration in order to insure he remains at the top of his game.
This is just one of many examples of how engineering can help an athlete perfect his/her game. Just think of the curvature on David Beckham’s free kicks, or consider Tiger Wood’s adjusting his stroke to chip out of a sand trap.

To read more about Pott’s engineered training, read Popular Science’s new article:

Popular Science: Potts

Please bear with me/us as I transition into the “real world” and we figure out the future of Technizzel.

Check back soon for even cooler engineering feats!

- Ben

Today is May 1, 2008. This is the Global Warming Era. Thanks to Al Gore, everyone seems to be familiar with the pressing issue of Global Warming and Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions, but in case you haven’t, allow me to recap.

Globally, we emit nearly 8 Billion tons of CO2 per year, a number that, until recent years, had been growing at about 1.5% annually. This staggering amount of CO2 has had numerous detrimental effects on our environment and rumors of legislation taxing CO2 emitting plants have never been stronger.

This sort of legislation exists in European countries like Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, yet on average, CO2 emissions in those countries has remained on the rise. Yes, despite these governments slapping businesses with millions and millions in taxes, they have continued emitting even more CO2 than ever before. Crazy? Not exactly.

As we all know, the threat of receiving a parking ticket will have little effect long term if no other parking alternative is provided (Think - college campuses). In a sense, this parking ticket example is a microcosm of the overarching CO2 tax issue. Despite the officials who believe that simply taxing CO2 emitters here in the USA will reduce annual emissions, we should look to our European friends as an example.

The cement manufacturing industry accounts for nearly 10% of the world’s CO2 emissions. Consider Markus Akermann, CEO of Holcim, one of the world’s largest cement suppliers. As CEO, Akermann has two choices. He can spend millions upon millions of dollars to set up an internal research and development team whose sole focus would be to alter their existing cement production process to rid CO2 emissions. Alternatively, he can continue supplying cement and accept a few million dollar decrease in revenue due to the proposed carbon tax. Considering an internal R&D team may amount to no process improvements with regards to CO2, which would you choose?

Until technologies for permanently sequestering CO2 become readily available, the government should spend its time investing in potential technologies rather than implementing a money-making carbon tax. Simply put, this resembles the ever old argument of which came first, the chicken or the egg. Without alternatives, CO2 emitters will not invest their own money into ddevloping cleaner technologies. And, without taxing companies, the government lacks the funds to invest in research. Essentially, this has resulted in a stand still, preventing any major improvements on the most important issue of our time: Global Warming.

By: Patryk Garlinski, Ben Jabbawy, Matt Gleason, and Yeounoh Chung

Imagine a world where instead of paying $40 or more to fill up your car with gas just to make it through the week, you could plug your car in overnight, get thousands of miles out of a full charge, and even help free the world from its heavy dependence on oil. Best of all, you could do it for less than what you’re paying to fill up your tank now. We’ve all thought about such a car, but how far are we from this ideal world?

Recently the answer to this question has started to take shape in the form of the Automotive X Prize (AXP). This competition, offered by the X Prize Foundation, challenges teams to design and build 100+ mile-per-gallon vehicles that could eventually be sold to the public. By organizing this competition, the X Prize Foundation says they hope “to inspire a new generation of viable, super-efficient vehicles that help break our addiction to oil and stem the effects of climate change.” Teams worldwide will compete to win the multi-million dollar prize and show that their vehicle has what it takes to become the future of the automotive industry. In order to qualify for the competition, teams will have to construct vehicles that meet the 100 mile-per-gallon mark and also must pass strict emissions and safety guidelines. In addition, each team must present a viable business plan for producing and selling their vehicle. Of the teams that meet these requirements, the winner will be determined by a series of race stages set to be held in 2010.

So far, over 50 teams have officially joined the competition. Though many of the ideas being developed are quite diverse, with competitors trying everything from super-efficient traditional engines to revolutionary hydraulics and air powered motors, the most popular source of energy for this competition is clearly electricity. Tesla Motors, a young, privately funded car company, has already proven that a purely electric vehicle is commercially viable with the release of their Roadster this past year. This environmentally friendly sports car reportedly gets 120 miles per gallon when using an electricity/gasoline equivalent conversion. However, the Roadster does not meet the emissions guidelines set forth by the X prize competition, which is why Tesla plans to enter a new model that will be more moderately priced and geared toward the mainstream auto market. Another California based company, Aptera Motors, has developed both electric and hybrid electric versions of their vehicle prototype, the Typ-1. The earliest two-seat model achieved a whopping 230 miles per gallon, well beyond today’s standards. Not only does the Typ-1 drive like a car of the future, it has the strikingly futuristic looks to go with it.

Building a Better Battery

While these examples may make it seem like the goal of the AXP competition has already been met, and with relative ease, pure efficiency is not the whole story. The greatest optimization challenges for developers of electric vehicles have been and will continue to be driving range and refueling time. When trying to improve vehicle efficiency, excess weight is usually one of the first things to go. In a vehicle powered by electricity, energy is typically stored in batteries, which tend to be very heavy and take up lots of space. Historically, small, light vehicles just don’t have the battery capacity necessary to travel long distances. Another problem lies in the time it takes to charge the batteries in an electric car. The most advanced batteries widely sold up until now take several hours to charge. Compare this with the several minutes it takes to fill up at a gas pump and it is easy to see the problem.

It is for this reason the automotive industry is shining a major spotlight on battery innovation as a segway into a new era of hybrid and electric cars. Thanks to many researchers and innovators, batteries are finally breaking new ground in meeting the demanding requirements of the automobile industry.

Dr. Cui, a researcher at Stanford University has found a way to inject silicon nanowires into lithium-ion batteries to improve their performance. This revolutionary technology expands on the energy storage of current lithium-ion batteries, increasing their capacity by up to 10 times; the nanowires prevent silicon placed in the battery from degrading over repeated charge/discharge cycles. Imagine a 120 MPG electric vehicle such as the Tesla Roadster coming out in 2008, packed with 6,800 Lithium-ion batteries. With Dr. Cui’s “revolutionary” nanowire-batteries, the Roadster could cruise the same distance while carrying only a tenth the number of batteries, reducing the weight of the car by 800 lbs! This would in turn help improve performance and increase fuel efficiency even further. However, instead of going for extreme weight reduction of the vehicle, a more likely route would be to increase the vehicle’s total driving range for practicality, giving consumers a blend of long driving range and weight reduction.

The prospects for the battery innovation sound tremendous, but it has yet to prove its ground in some aspects. One area of skepticism lies in the predicted lifespan of the battery. In an interview with Dr. Yi Cui from GM-VOLT.com, he stated that he is currently doing tests to see if his batteries will meet a target of 1000 cycles (better than most li-ion cells) without substantial depreciation, and that he expects to have results in the next couple of months. The implications of this kind of study are very important. So far, the only published results show that the batteries hold up very well when cycled 30 times. To bring this into perspective, the Tesla roadster has an estimated range of about 220 miles. With a range extension of 10 times, the carbon nanowire battery could bring this range up to 2200 miles on one charge. A thousand cycle lifespan would mean that the car’s battery would be able to take the car 2.2 million miles without needing to be replaced, and that’s quite a bit.

But what about charging the whole battery pack, which holds as much electricity as 6800 standard lithium-ion batteries do? If a laptop with 12 lithium-ion battery cells takes about 2 hours to fully charge, then could fully charging an electric vehicle with 6800 cells take as long as 13,600 hours?! Well, you would not be relying on a regular home appliance adaptor (100 – 240 V, 1.5 Amps) to charge such battery. For commercial electric vehicles that are available in the very near future, the average charging time, given a special charging station that runs on 70 Amps of current at 100 – 240 V, projects to be about 3.5 hours, which is not terrible, but not great either. Fortunately, MIT researchers are coming up with a better solution to the problem. By inserting a layer of metal (manganese and nickel) separated from the lithium by oxygen and organizing the crystalline structure of the material, the flow of lithium-ions within the battery can increase up to 10 times faster than that of an unmodified battery. Another positive aspect of this improvement is that by using manganese and nickel rather than currently accepted cobalt in lithium-ion cells, the cost of production can be much cheaper and the capacity of the battery can be much higher. ^*1*

A Competitive Edge

So how much of an impact will this new battery technology have on the teams competing for the X Prize? Looking at the vehicles engineered by Tesla and Aptera, they are only able to cover 220 and 120 miles per charge respectively, before needing to charge for several hours. While this is not terrible, limitations of this kind may cause many consumers to doubt the utility of such a vehicle. It is this perspective that has encouraged many teams to pursue some form of hybrid electric vehicle. The inclusion of an engine running on liquid fuel provides the advantage of quick refueling during long periods of driving. At the same time, if the ability to plug the vehicle in and recharge off the grid exists, shorter trips may be completed on only electric power. This is the strategy of several teams, including a team from Cornell University, the first student team to register for the contest. Cornell AXP is working on designing a super-efficient plug in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) that will focus on utilizing electrical power as much as possible. While using a standard battery pack will necessitate a considerable reliance on the engine to power the vehicle, the Cornell team plans to use the best batteries they can get their hands on. If Dr. Cui’s research turns out to be as promising as it sounds, a nanowire battery pack could prove invaluable to teams taking this approach.

Looking Ahead

While many teams will likely be able to achieve the necessary efficiency, performance could be a more significant issue. Though the specifics of the race stages of the contest have not been officially announced, it is likely that a variety of driving scenarios will be required in the competition. Slower driving over short distances, consistent with urban driving, might not put much separation between competitors. Rather, it is the longer “highway” courses that may decide the outcome. Any team employing electricity as a main source of energy will need every bit of help possible to extend the driving range of their vehicles. This is why the development of new lithium-ion batteries with ten times the capacity of their predecessors offers such an advantage for both AXP, and the industry as a whole.

However, the new battery technology does raise some concerns. One issue that will arise if a move to electric vehicles occurs is where all needed electricity to charge them will come from. Just plugging into the grid means you will be using electricity produced mainly by burning fossil fuels. So, might a decrease in vehicles powered by gas or other fuels just mean an increase in power plants and a continued dependence on fossil fuels? As Cornell AXP’s team leader Terence Davidovits points out, not quite: “Electric cars are more efficient and would likely result in a reduction in CO2 emissions, even taking into account the fact that we burn fossil fuels to supply electricity. We also then have a vehicle fleet in place that can then be charged with sources like wind, solar or nuclear, that do not require the consumption of fossil fuels.” This concern with where the power will come from will undoubtedly be important to eco-friendly car buyers.

In fact, a lot of people are talking about solar power these days. You might have heard about how entire communities out in California are buying up solar cells to power up their homes and don’t have to pay any more energy bills. If they get more solar energy for a given month than they need, the power companies are forced to buy off the excess energy. The main issue is that in order to implement this technology, these families are also spending over fifty thousand dollars on some of the larger installations to power their houses. So, how much would it cost to power your car with one of these solar cells?

Rising car companies like Tesla Motors plan on co-marketing sustainable energy products from other companies along with the car. They claim such a solar panel to be modestly sized and priced, and that the system can generate about 50 miles per day of electricity. That adds up to 350 miles a week, which is a great starting point considering most people drive an average of 230 miles per week, yet this will still leave a lot of people short. The more important solar panel detail is that it will cost an estimated five to six thousand dollars to purchase. While the prospects of everyday individuals helping the world go green by buying up solar cells to reduce their carbon emissions sounds great, it is just not economical for everyone. It is even inefficient for those who have little access to sun exposure. It is expected that most people will not want to make that kind of investment. This again brings us to the topic of fossil fuels. Now instead of the original intent of having a zero emission vehicle, because most Americans get over 50% of their electricity from coal burning, we’re back to the predicament that burning fossil fuels is just downright cheaper than the alternatives.

Like all automotive innovations, one has to wonder whether these concepts will actually become a reality. Are these new batteries economically viable options for automobiles or are they the work of science fiction? In the GM-Volt interview with Dr. Cui, he addresses the following concerns and shares his thoughts on where these batteries are headed in the near future. Since cost is so relevant to developing batteries for cars, are silicon nanowires more expensive? Furthermore, would they increase the cost of the cells?

“Silicon is the second most abundant element in the world. For battery applications it doesn’t have to be high purity silicon. Unlike silicon solar cells which require high purity. The silicon industry is also big, people know everything about silicon. The infrastructure is there, the supply source is there. With the excitement of use of silicon for batteries, the cost will be reduced dramatically.”
What timeline do you think it would take before your technology could be incorporated into a commercial product?
“I am working on it. As a rough timeline, I would say perhaps 5 years.”

Dr. Cui has mentioned the possibility of starting his own company to develop these batteries, but is also thinking of working with an existing battery company. Five years just seems like too long to wait for this type of technology advancement. Cui needs to start thinking about some serious growth. With the AXP competition set to begin in 2010, we can only hope that the innovations springing from the challenge will aid in minimizing the time in attaining such batteries. The consumer basis for these batteries is practically limitless, and no one wants to wait around for new technology. High demand is going to push mass production to come soon. Be ready.

_{*1* Nickel: 8$/lb, Cobalt: 15$/lb, Manganese: 1$/lb, from 2007 Material database by Granta Design Limited.}

The PLOrk Biography

Musical instruments have long been on the cutting edge of technology, often spurring new research and development. At Princeton, we have been exploring ways in which the computer can be integrated into conventional music-making contexts (chamber ensembles, jam sessions, etc…) while also radically transforming those contexts. This has involved developing new speaker systems that have a more instrument-like presence, human-computer interfacing designs that involve performers physically the way musical instruments do, and software [1|2|3] to link the performer’s bodies to sound. In the past, we have explored these ideas with small groups of people (2-3), and in the Fall of 2005 we initiated the Princeton Laptop Orchestra to extend these ideas to larger groups (15), using the orchestra (in a very general sense) as a model.

This is definitely an innovative way of thinking of music. In case you want to see video footage, check out this youtube clip!

The Princeton Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk) is a newly established ensemble of computer-based musical meta-instruments. Each instrument consists of a laptop, a multi-channel hemispherical speaker, and a variety of control devices (keyboards, graphics tablets, sensors, etc…). The students who make up the ensemble act as performers, researchers, composers, and software developers. The challenges are many: what kinds of sounds can we create? how can we physically control these sounds? how do we compose with these sounds? There are also social questions with musical and technical ramifications: how do we organize a dozen players in this context? with a conductor? via a wireless network?

The following image is a view of the orchestra set up before their debut concert:

Science and Engineering REALLY ARE COOL. Over the next few months, I will introduce different career paths within these fields. Since I am majoring in Operations Research (OR) Engineering, I figure its a great place to start.

Q: So what is OR anyways?

A: Today, business managers make many decisions involving time, money, labor, and materials. Because of the size and span of current manufacturing and delivery systems, there is a major need for very sophisticated methods of increasing efficiency in the combination of those crucial factors that make up many businesses. OR engineers use a combination of mathematical techniques and specialized computing tools to develop and apply the appropriate techniques.

Q: What real world applications does OR have?

A: There are infinite applications of OR in the real world. Take, for example, an automobile manufacturer. If they can figure out what process is slowing down their manufacturing line, they could save millions of dollars by adjusting that method of production. If airlines could better predict shifts in passenger demand during different seasons, they could fill more seats.

Q: What kind of classes do you take as an OR major?

A: Despite variations in different engineering programs, most OR majors require knowledge of calculus, computer programming, probability and statistics. OR also requires the understanding of the business side of manufacturing through classes such as financial and managerial accounting.

Q: What might be a typical career path for an OR major?

A: OR majors go off to work in companies like UPS managing delivery methods, managing projects at Microsoft, working as consultants and financial analysts or financial planners. The OR skill sets are also very valuable for entrepreneurs.

Let me give you an example that a professor showed my class on the first day. I present you with the following problem, also known as the Transportation problem:

You own a grand piano company with warehouses A, B, C all on the west coast. Customers want to purchase some of your pianos at points X, Y all on the east coast. Because you have been in the business for quite some time, you know the cost per piano (in thousands of dollars) associated with transporting them from…

A >> X = $4 / piano A >> Y = $7 / piano
B >> X = $6 / piano B >> Y = $8 / piano
C >> X = $8 / piano C >> Y = $9 / piano

You also know how many pianos you have stored at each warehouse:

A = 2 pianos
B = 3 pianos
C = 5 pianos

And how many pianos are demanded at each site:

X = 4 pianos
Y = 6 pianos

The problem then becomes fully satisfying the demand sites on the east coast while maximizing your profit (i.e. minimizing total transportation costs). At first glance, you’re probably thinking, ok that’s a joke. Just try out the different combinations in order to satisfy the demand at each site. But consider the same problem at a more realistic scale. Say you had to deliver 1000 pianos to 50 sites all over the world.

In this case, the plug and chug technique could take forever to figure out. OR engineers use a technique called linear programming, which involves manipulations of simple, linear equations to obtain simplified problems which are then easier to solve and still follow the restrictions of the original problem.

Oh yea, for those of you are still trying to figure out the best solution to the above problem: Send 2 pianos from A >> X, 2 pianos from B >> X, 1 piano from B >> Y, 5 pianos from C >>Y. This gives a total transportation cost of $73,000, which is the lowest possible cost while satisfying all the demand sites!

This, and similar problems and skill sets are very common for OR engineers. These techniques are highly applicable to the business world as well. Think about it, every company wants to maximize profit by minimizing costs, right!?!

Interested in how to solve this problem using linear programming?
Email me for the full explanation!

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Note: Publishing process may take up to 24 hours from time of submission

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What is one food product where no one ever asks for it and is most likely to be pushed aside, but might be the most talked about technological acronym in today’s computer driven world? You guessed it, SPAM. Who would have thought America’s first canned meat product created over 81 years ago by Jay C. Hormel, son of Hormel food products founder George A. Hormel would be associated with 130,000 complaints filed with the Federal Trade Commission per day in the Twenty First Century (www.ftc.gov)? Spam, also known as “junk mail”, can be best defined as unsolicited electronic messages sent to recipients who would not otherwise have chosen to receive it. Most forms of spam are sent as a form of commercial advertising promoting illegal or offensive content. With more and more consumers and business’s relying on the electronic form of mail everyday, we have all experienced first hand the growing problem of spam and how it affects our daily lives both at home and at the workplace.

You might be wondering what the various techniques spammers use to send out millions of spam messages per day without getting caught. There is approximately 20 different methods spammers use but I will only touch on the top five most relevant methods used today.

1. Use of offshore ISP (Internet Service Providers) – Spammers use offshore ISP’s to transmit their spam or host spam websites because these operators usually charge less money and are usually harder to trace back to because they are often hosted in third world countries

2. Transfer of mail via open proxies or what is known as “Zombies”- What spammers do is implant proxy software on computers and mail servers that use this software to send spam via remote control. This method is popular because they can take advantage of the victim’s existing infrastructure to transmit spam without paying for these services. This method is also extremely difficult to trace back to the sender. In most cases, when the spam is traced, the results the investigators receive show that the spam is being sent from the individual or company that had their infrastructure taken over remotely.

3. Fake “to” and “from” addresses – Spammers use fictitious or stolen e-mail addresses in the visible headers of their messages. To the recipient, the message looks legitimate and the user is more apt to open the message they received.

4. Embedding recipients e-mail address in hyperlinks or “web bugs” – They put your e-mail address into a URL contained within the message body of the e-mail. The result is that the spammers get a signal back that you personally opened the message. It is useless to send mail to non-functioning e-mail addresses because it is a waste of bandwidth and resources. E-mails that are sent to non-functioning addresses that get bounced back to the sender can also be a path back to the originator of the message creating additional problems to the individual who sent the message.

5. Dictionary Attacks – Dictionary attacks a domain’s mail exchanger by continuously sending messages that may or may not be delivered. What this does is, it collects a list of working e-mail addresses within a particular domain. Spammers use this trick to verify the existence of e-mail addresses. This method also allows spammers to develop a list of targeted addresses allowing visiting mail-sending servers to send thousands of messages in a very short amount of time

The originators of these spam marketing campaigns do sometimes get caught. On May 30, 2007, a 27 year old man who has been labeled as one of the worlds most prolific spammers was arrested on charges of using networks comprised of “zombie” computers to send out millions of spam e-mail messages. According to MSNBC.com, a federal grand jury returned a 35 count indictment against Robert Soloway charging him with mail fraud, wire fraud, e-mail fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering. The impact Soloway has made on businesses, individuals, and local, state and federal government institutions has been extensive. Many business owners and individuals face the impact of their reputations being damaged when it appeared spam was originating from their organizations computers or mail servers. Soloway’s main objective with sending out these spam messages were to get the recipients to use his internet marketing company to advertise their products. People who clicked on a link in the e-mail were directed to his website. Soloway would then advertise his ability to send out as many as 20 million advertisements over a 15 day period for $495.00. But please, if you are the type who hacks away at code all day long, don’t get involved in this SPAM business, unless, of course, you want to share your fate with Soloway!

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Tom, a friend of mine who recently graduated as a Materials Science major, is very excited about his work at Intel.

What triggered your interest in applying to engineering programs?

The story you’ll hear from a lot of engineers is that they were simply good at math and science and it only seemed natural to apply to engineering schools. However for me, it was more about wanting to understand how and why things around me worked, from something as simple as an alarm clock to something much more complex like an automobile or even a computer.

Which class stands out most for you? Why?

The classes I enjoyed most were the ones that opened my eyes to amazing new technologies that could revolutionize the way we live our lives. The most impressive of these was a class focused on organic electronics. When thinking of electronics you normally imagine copper wires, lead batteries, silicon computer chips, and other inorganic materials. This class taught me about a whole new class of plastics and other organic materials which performed the functions of normal inorganic materials. What was even better about these materials is that they could be printed onto flexible plastic sheets to form futuristic devices like electronic newspapers and solar energy producing windows.

What was your major?

My major was Materials Science which focuses on the physics and theory of why materials behave the way they do. So for example we learned why metals when bent will keep their form, why plastics when bent will return to their original form, and why ceramics when bent will shatter. This major also included some revolutionary laboratory research like the organic electronics I mentioned above. This gave undergraduates the ability to apply their classroom learning in a real world situation in a cutting edge laboratory environment.

Were you apart of any cool student groups or project teams related to science?

I was part of an amazing research group which eventually became some of my best friends at Cornell. We all worked extremely hard in the lab and then loved to celebrate after successfully publishing a scientific paper or discovering something previously unknown to the scientific community.

What does Intel do?

Intel is the world’s largest computer chip producer. Chances are the computer you use daily has an Intel computer chip inside. We make computer chips for desktops, laptops, and even super powerful server computers which process the huge amounts of information that travels through the internet on a daily basis.

Where do you fit in at Intel?

Making a computer chip takes hundreds and even thousands of process steps. My position is called a Process Engineer, which basically means that I am in charge of a particular step, or process, required in making a computer chip. This involves running silicon wafers through large, highly complicated equipment capable of adding or removing extremely thin layers of material, which create billions of transistors. These transistors act as on/off switches and form the basis all computer chips.

What kind of cutting edge work are you involved in?

I currently work in Intel’s newest and most advanced computer chip manufacturing plant. This plant has equipment which is capable of creating features as small as 65 nanometers. This is 150,000 times smaller than a centimeter and far smaller than what the human eye can see. Because we can create such tiny features, we are able to cram more transistors and therefore more computing power into a computer chip. 

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“Don’t Forget to memorize the Krebs Cycle for this week’s exam…”

What’s so funny about this quote, which I’m sure all of you will hear from your science teachers at some point, is that everyone in the class, myself included, was too busy packing up our bags and shuffling our folders, just aching to escape our dreadful biology class. Why should I care about how to convert carbs into usable energy? Once I make it back to the cafeteria to hang out with my friends and listen to Snoop, I’ll finally thank Mr. Krebs, whoever he is…

If you’re anything like us at Technizzel, you’re probably sick of learning science through boring, smelly text books, with images of scientists and experiments older than America itself. What about the cool stuff? What’s inside an ipod? Who is responsible for designing new cell phones? What the heck is a carbon nanotube? How does an MRI actually work?

These are issues we all find interesting, yet we never seem to learn about them. Although you all probably assume engineers wear big, dorky, thick glasses and have pocket protectors for all their pens, We assure you you are wrong. Only 90% of engineers do (chuckle). Today, engineers are so much more than what your physics text books illustrates. Learn with us as we explore the companies and individuals working on the science and technologies of tomorrow.

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