For three weeks in January, 30 University of Wisconsin-Madison engineering students explored the city and met the people of Cape Town, South Africa. And during the 2008 LeaderShape Institute, held on the University of Cape Town (UCT) campus, they learned to change the world one goal at a time.
The Wisconsin students were paired with […]

Power is blowing in the wind

Associate Professor Giri Venkataramanan (center) and a team of workers built a wind turbine in the Scottish Highlands. The community there is not connected to the electrical grid. (Large image)

The rolling hills of the Scottish highlands are dotted with small stone houses. Their residents, mostly farmers and craftsmen, enjoy a […]

An artistic rendition of a smart liquid microlens where a stimuli-responsive hydrogel (dark circular ring) regulates the shape of the liquid lens (center). The liquid microlens autonomously adapts to local environmental stimuli (denoted by small spheres and yellow plasma rays outside the hydrogel) in microfluidics. The stimuli can be biological and chemical agents, and physical […]

Electrical and Computer Engineering Graduate Student Hao-Chih Yuan holds a sample of a semiconductor film on plastic. (Large image)

New thin-film semiconductor techniques invented by UW-Madison engineers promise to add sensing, computing and imaging capability to an amazing array of materials.
Historically, the semiconductor industry has relied on flat, two-dimensional chips upon which to […]

In roughly four minutes, the UW-Madison Steel Bridge Team can construct an 18-foot-long bridge that easily holds 2,500 pounds.
That lightning-fast time is the product of hundreds of hours of preparation and hard work by a group that, for more than a decade, has been a regular National Student Steel Bridge Competition regional winner […]