Will Someone Snuggie With Me?

George Lucas is probably hiring lawyers right now. At least I hope so. That is of course if he patented his costume design for the Jedi in his Star Wars movies. The reason I say this is because I can’t stop seeing one certain item revealed on just about every other commercial break in a rather humorous infomercial. What I’m talking about is the recently made infamous Snuggie. (see figure 1.1 below)

Whoever designed this thing must be a cult leader or something, right? I can just see it now...I come home for the Thanksgiving holiday and there are my Mom and Dad, along with their little schnoodle as they call it (schnauzer poodle mix), all sporting their Snuggies, “raising the roof” just like the guy on the infomercial. What’s even better is that they most likely will have one for me to wear as well, and being the good sport that I am, and only for that reason alone, I will put the Snuggie on and begin raising the roof appropriately. At least buy me the solid blue Snuggie and not the Cheetah print please Mom!

Regardless of what scene will unfold in front of my eyes when I return home for the holiday, I will be glad to be there I’m sure…I hope. I was unable to spend thanksgiving with my family last year, so I’m especially looking forward to my trip back to my place of birth, St. Louis, MO.

As we drive under the arch into the city, I’m sure my mind will be thinking of the less fortunate bunch that is unable to spend the holiday with their family. I know how it is, I was there last year. But instead of sitting at home on the couch sulking, I decided to throw a Thanksgiving party with some of my friends.

I like to think that I can cook, but I’m starting to accept the fact that this is not the case. When I had my Thanksgiving party last year I knew that I would need some food, right? Cause that’s what Thanksgiving is all about; football, food, and, friends…and not particularly in that order.

I found a quick solution to my lack of cooking skills in UNT’s Thanksgiving Dinner to-go. For about 60$, I was able to pick up enough food for 8-10 of my friends. UNT is offering the same deal this year for those of you who want to have a thanksgiving shin-dig. Contact 940-565-3804 for more details.

A Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Enjoy the holidays. Be safe. And then get ready to come back and finish out the semester strong!

Solar Powered Speedway

This December freshman in the Mechanical and Energy Engineering Program will compete in the Second Annual Solar Powered Winch and Cart Race. Students are given a maximum of $40 for their Bill of Materials. The price cap is imposed to prevent the kids who have easier access to funds from gaining an advantage.


The interesting thing about this project is that students are provided with their own solar panel, a halogen light, and a DC motor. See it goes like this. The halogen light is plugged into the wall and is used to send photons to the solar panel. The solar panel converts these photons to power for the motor. This is accomplished by pointing the halogen light directly at the solar panel at a distance previously determined as ideal in an experiment conducted earlier in the semester. In this case ideal means the best distance away from the solar panel so that the largest amount of light will hit the solar panel.

This is how the power gets transferred to the motor. The solar panel has wires on the back of it…one red, one black. Coincidentally, there are two prongs on the DC motor…red wire goes on one prong, black wire goes on the other. Your engine is now turning. Students are then responsible for assembling a gear system housed inside of a winch apparatus in order to pull a cart. The future engineers must then determine the optimum gear ratio in order to have a chance of winning the race, because the proper calculation of the gear ratio will result in the cart reaching its highest possible velocity

Overall, the students new to the MEE program will gain greater knowledge about concepts such as engineering design, working as part of a design team, and alternative energy sources. The only thing left to say is may the best nerd win.

Advisory Board 2009

Last week I had the privilege of attending a College of Engineering Advisory Board Luncheon, or C.E.A.B.L. if you’re into acronyms. I was armed with a Nikon 12 Megapixel camera…it’s considered illegal in almost 12 states, due to its x-ray capability. I kind of felt like the donkey being led by the carrot hanging from the stick; the carrot in this case being a fully catered lunch from Carinos, which is a fine establishment in my opinion. Freshly cut salad, piping hot eggplant parmesan, and all the bread I could stomach. They really had to twist my arm to get me to this event.


But aside from the obvious perks, I quickly realized the potential of this event to strengthen the College of Engineering’s relationships with leading representatives from industry. Leaders from TDIndustries, Cisco Systems, and Siemens were in attendance...just to name a few. Also making their appearances were representatives from UNT’s student body. The students had the opportunity to present their research projects on large poster boards in the hall outside of where we were eating lunch.

So after my last piece of key lime pie, I headed out to the hall where several posters were on display. The students were already into deep conversations with the industry leaders as I walked around and took photos. I couldn’t help but think, “Sir, are those boxers really appropriate?” My x-ray camera was acting up again. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a title on one of the posters. It was, Wireless Sensors for Energy Monitoring and Conservation in Re-tasked Buildings. This was obviously the Mechanical and Energy Engineering’s research project.

As I moved down the line of posters, another title caught my eye. It was System and Data Fusion Algorithms for Civilian Vehicle Recognition and Tracking. This had to be Electrical Engineering. After some detective work, I was sure that it was. Overall the event was going very well.

Being an engineering student myself, I realized the value of networking with several of the industry leaders. I , along with the other students attending the luncheon, picked up several tips from our visitors, and I’m sure they learned a few things they didn’t know when the day began. To sum it all up, the event was a mutually beneficial event for all parties involved. I look forward to continuing to build my network via UNT’s many professional engineering events.

Mechanical and Energy Engineering Ups the Ante

The Mechanical and Energy Engineering program at UNT has just recently added fuel to the fire that is undergraduate research. You might be wondering just what that ‘fuel’ is specifically, but I’m not going to tell you yet. I’m going to make you wait. I can’t give up all the goods right away. First, let me tell you what I do for undergraduate research, and then I’ll tell you what you want to know, that way you don’t fall asleep while I’m explaining my research.

A.E.M.S. An acronym. An all too familiar sight in the world of engineering. If I had a dime for every time I’ve seen a new acronym…well, you know how the rest goes. But this acronym is a special one, because it abbreviates my research project, and it stands for:

Ambient

Energy

Monitoring

Station


Now yes, as you can see I am a humble man, but enough about me, let’s get serious. The reason I’m doing this project is because alternative energy is an important, necessary, and hot topic of the near future. The future is now really. Write that down.

I want to give a shout out to the man responsible for enabling this project; Dr. Matthew J. Traum, Assistant Professor in the UNT MEE program, and virtual rockstar in the College of Engineering. I approached him in the spring semester of 2008 during the annual Career Fair held at Discovery Park, you guessed it, once every year. (I know about 99.9% of you can make that connection, but we can’t neglect that special .1%.) After speaking with the Graduate Programs at UNT’s booth (don’t quote me on that booth name), I learned that undergraduate research is a great resume builder, as well as a way to better ensure acceptance into a graduate program. Upon gaining this knowledge, I approached Dr. Traum and expressed my new found interest in Undergraduate research, specifically in the topic of wind power generation, one of the more interesting forms of alternative energy in my opinion.

He told me that some grant money was available to build a weather station, and I asked if I would like to take roughly 20 grand, which comes with leadership of an undergraduate research team, and the keys to a brand new 2009 Cadillac Escalade. Okay the very last part is a lie, but it’s okay to dream.

Regardless of the last part being a farce, I was already interested enough by the first two offers. With this grant money, over the summer of 2008 I ordered all the parts and built a fully functioning weather station (see below), capable of providing useful wind data.

My goal is to now monitor several ambient environment conditions such as air temp, solar radiation, wind speed and direction, etc. Officially, the plan is to present this topic at a conference in the near future. Ultimately by monitoring wind conditions over the next couple of years, we can convince the university to install wind turbines at the Discovery Park campus. Several other conditions may be monitored in the meantime for other possible areas of energy generation.

So now that you have brute forced it through my story of how the A.E.M.S. came to be, I can tell you what the ‘fuel’ is. Recently, the Mechanical and Energy Engineering department received a grant from UNT to support undergraduate researchers. Obviously this makes me giddy, because there is now potential for me, as well as other undergraduate researchers, to get paid for their work. Now as much as I enjoy the research without being paid, the fact remains, time is money, and rent is always due.

Above all, things are definitely looking up for the College of Engineering, as opportunities such as this continue to sprout up at an alarming rate. So to all you high school students out there, while I can’t ensure that opportunities like this will happen for you, one thing I can promise is that by attending the College of Engineering at UNT, you are putting yourself in an environment to succeed, and maybe one day you too can participate in a project that will uncover some cutting edge technology. Like I said earlier, it’s okay to dream.