STEAM AHEAD

To the Editor: I was pleased to read a letter to the editor in the August issue by Erin MacDonald, a Ph.D. mechanical engineer. She expressed that she felt it would be a good idea to encourage young students to pursue a career in engineering by inspiring them with Steampunk-themed projects.

I couldn't agree more. In fact, about three months ago, I began a program to do just that.

I'm a Ph.D. engineer (metallurgist), working for a finite element modeling software company that provides software for the metal forming industry. In my spare time, I'm interested in starting a camp or workshop for students young and old to learn about engineering, computers, practical fabrication, and art and design.

Toward that end, I rent an studio in an artist's community in Columbus, Ohio, where I run a workshop where students can come to learn how to build interesting projects that encompass those talents. Currently, we're converting an old-fashioned pupil's desk into a computer workstation, and blogging about it here: http://steampunklaboratory.com/lab-journal.

Children working on a project in the Steampunk Lab to turn a classic student’s desk into a computer workstation.

This encapsulates not just design, engineering, and fabrication, but equally critical skills of time management, project management, and financial management. We write proposals to our investors (the parents of the students), asking them to provide funding for our components and raw materials. We then build the devices, keeping close records of our financial expenditures and time-budgeting on different tasks.

Once we're finished, we intend to sell our projects, reimburse our investors, and split the profits proportional to the time each of us spent working on the project. Additionally, by blogging about our efforts, we hope to engage with the creative and collaborative idea-sharing potential of the online community.

In this manner, I hope to teach not only the technical skills necessary to design and build a mechatronic device, but also to imbue in the students a sense of innovation, entrepreneurship, communication, management, and self-empowerment. I feel that in the coming globally competitive environment, it's necessary not just to have the technical talents to compete, but to understand something about value-added content to novel engineering projects as well.

And, because the projects we build look cool, we're having fun doing it.

Alexander Bandar
Columbus, Ohio

GENERATING QUESTIONS

To The Editor: “Heat to Power Directly” (August 2008) was very enlightening. However, two aspects of thermoelectric generation appear to be missing.

First, there is no mention of the thermoelectric voltage property of materials used or being developed, or of the temperature range over which desirable properties apply. I would think that volts per degree would be an important component of the figure of merit spoken of, and not just the ratio of electrical to thermal conductivity. And the temperature range over which such figure of merit would apply would tell a lot about limits of applicability of available materials.

Second, there is no mention of physical configuration. What can be said about the old idea of a thermal battery? That was bounced around in General Electric in 1957 and is obvious as a way to pack thermoelectrics to get high power. The idea is to stack a cube of thermoelements interspersed with heating and cooling pathways at the junctions, so that heat is provided via the x coordinate of the cube, cooling via the y coordinate, and force and electricity via the z coordinate. As I recall from my GE days, we figured if 10 percent efficient thermoelements had been available, we could get 100 megawatts of electricity from a 10-foot cube.

I can’t help but wonder whether applying force to thermoelements as in the thermal battery configuration—that is, put them under compression—might enhance temperature range and other properties, and make direct conversion useful for applications other than deep space.

Clinton P. Ashworth
Orem, Utah

BACK TO THE DRAWING

To the Editor: I am a senior at the United States Coast Guard Academy, where I am working on earning a degree in mechanical engineering. After reading Jean Thilmany’s “Design Futures” piece (September), a lot of ideas and comments came to mind. Throughout my years at the Academy, I have noticed that my peers and I have become dependent on computer programs such as SolidWorks to create our designs.

It seems as if in today’s culture kids are raised with a pacifier in one hand and a laptop in the other. Most children grow up learning that the computer presents the answer to most questions.

Even at the Academy, I have noticed that my ability to present my designs and proposals through hand-drawn sketches has deteriorated. My peers and I attend courses learning the rudiments of SolidWorks, but rarely have to test our ability in hand drawing.

I believe that with Mr. Kara’s pen, the “traditional skills” will indeed be put back into focus and will bring back the artisan component of engineering, which I believe will be beneficial to our field. It makes us more well-rounded professionals.

Cadet Chrisy Chantarasopak
New London, Conn.

Editor’s note: Jean Thilmany’s article discussed efforts by Leven Burak Kara of Carnegie Mellon University to develop an electronic pen that would render 3-D CAD drawings with the experience of drawing by hand instead of by computer commands. 

PLENTY TO BE DONE

To the Editor: I think the attitude that Douglas L. Marriott ("World Weary," August Letters) carries is part of the reason why "it is humanity that is in danger." A pretty clear picture has been painted that the planet is definitely not "fine."

Simply turning one's back on an obvious global problem such as the energy and environmental crisis we are facing certainly would be an effective way of allowing the problem to get out of hand. Stating that there is nothing that mechanical engineers or anybody else, including Al Gore, can do about it is insulting to the human race.

If I'm not mistaken, I'm pretty sure that mechanical engineers might play some kind of role in efficiency, development, and infrastructure, all of which are essential to contributing to green energy solutions. To imply that mankind wasn't made to engineer more than plastic is beyond me. We could have stopped at the cotton gin, but we didn't. The whole industrial revolution was fueled by innovation, ambition, and hard work, and we can keep going.

Mechanical Engineering magazine has been doing a great job raising perfectly legitimate environmental concerns, as well as what mechanical engineers are doing and ought to look into. And, in defense of Al Gore, he is trying to get the nation to rise up, take responsibility for what goes on around us, and act so that posterity has the opportunity to live in the safe and healthy world that they deserve.

To some degree, George Carlin might have been right that humanity is part of the problem, but only because people hold the attitude that we are incapable of progress. To eliminate this danger, we have to discard this negative attitude and come together to work not only toward a sustainable future but for a better tomorrow in general.

Timothy W. Coull
Hazlet, N.J.

INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE

To the Editor: "Atomic Forces Interpreted" in the October 2008 issue (page 14) used the expression "billionths of a meter." The word "billion" can have different values for readers in different parts of the world. The expression "nanometer" can always be properly understood.

Mechanical Engineering is read all over our globe, so using standard SI prefixes would be good practice.

Dudley M. Jones
Princeton, N.J.