Frontiers of Engineering Reports on Leading-Edge Engineering from the 2007 Symposium (2008) / Chapter Skim
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Breakout Sessions
Breakout Sessions
Pages 157-174
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From page 157... ...
For instance, the gasoline produced today is said to be more sustainable compared to 10 years ago because of improved efficiencies and decreased energy consumption during the whole production cycle. Also, energy-saving compact fluorescent light bulbs might be considered more sustainable than incandescent ones.
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From page 158... ...
, ozone layer depletion, and land use. Various examples of sustainable practices at corporations represented by the breakout session participants were discussed, including water conservation during aluminum refining and the use of bio-based and biodegradable plastics.
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From page 159... ...
This includes everything in the production cycle from gathering the raw materials used in the device to methods of disposal. The questions raised go far beyond technical solutions such as developing energy-efficient devices or renewable energy sources.
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From page 160... ...
Nuclear energy production has a smaller environmental footprint than other forms of energy production. Yet, nuclear energy has a bad public image in the United States because no one wants a power plant or a nuclear waste repository near his home.
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From page 161... ...
The group agreed that academia provides significantly more flexibility. It was noted that the generation of women at the Frontiers of Engineering meeting is probably the first that had children before establishing tenure security and that more senior faculty members are adjusting to this new situation.
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From page 162... ...
These included: • Computational modeling of the human role in engineered systems, specifically to explain and predict human performance in complex systems. • The importance of human performance modeling for the armed services, where human physical and cognitive abilities are often stretched to the limit.
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From page 163... ...
• Collaborative social environments and, in particular, HCI techniques to inform engineering processes and products. • The difficulties of valuing social aspects of engineering, including economic barriers.
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From page 164... ...
Should exposure to physical, artificial, and engineering sciences be part of the process of developing social scientists? Some effort is being made at Princeton University at the undergraduate level to encourage engineering students to investigate educational opportunities in other domains in order to broaden their perspectives.
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From page 165... ...
Some academics expressed dismay that engineering was not considered by prospective students to involve much creativity, despite the constructive and creative nature of the engineering enterprise. There was a related sentiment expressed among faculty that engineering-declared students might actually be driven away from engineering and science, in part from the lack of preparation that was expected at the college level and also as a result of "bait and switch." For example, playing video games and seeing the results of a creative process without the requisite rigor made explicit can lead to faulty expectations for those without suitable preparation.
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From page 166... ...
Another participant told of having graduate students prepare as their final class project a National Science Foundation (NSF) -style proposal that is reviewed by the instructor according to NSF criteria of intellectual merit and broader impacts, rather than turning in a finished project.
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From page 167... ...
This in turn nourishes engineering with new perspectives that further support discipline-based integration as well as integration between engineering and its broader impacts. It was noted that the symposium talks on computer and data security and privacy wove together technical discussion and societal implications in a very fluid manner.
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From page 168... ...
The typical marketing approach is to claim something is both rigorous and creative. • In defining rigor and creativity, engineering and basic science approaches are different because engineers commonly work on a product.
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From page 169... ...
BREAKOUT SESSIONS 169 • Rigor is not necessarily valued in industry unless it helps with a problem or it leads to some improvement. How does innovation intersect with creativity and rigor?
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From page 170... ...
The balance between rigor and creativity is industry specific. In typical civil engineering projects such as bridge building, a premium is put on eliminating risk, which demands rigor.
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From page 171... ...
At the University of Illinois some undergraduate students are involved with organization such as Engineers Without Borders that conduct international engineering projects in developing countries. At Carnegie Mellon University an engineering course called Tech Bridge is taught simultaneously to students in the United States, Greece, and Portugal, and students are encouraged to cross-exchange for a couple of weeks among these countries.
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From page 172... ...
Frequently, domestic undergraduate students in engineering do graduate work in business management, medicine, or law, and exposing students earlier to contextual issues in engineering may help retain them in the engineering profession. Innovative skills are required to be globally competitive.
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From page 173... ...
; energy transport, such as room temperature superconductors, energy dense materials (gallium/aluminum, synthetic fuels) , fuel cells, new batteries (better lithium, organic, etc.)
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From page 174... ...
For example, help establish engineering education curricula that include engineering public relations beyond the usual engineering communications classes where engineers learn how to write a technical paper.
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