Gerry Burrows has taken a childhood interest in Legos to an extreme. His current Lego creation, based on ‘The Lord of the Rings’, stands 28 feet long with a depth ranging between 24 inches and 59 inches and rises 12 feet tall. He estimates between 200,000 and 250,000 Lego bricks have .Read more...
Archive for the ‘Engineering’ Category
Extreme Lego Engineering
Friday, June 3rd, 2011Giving Expert Testimony Before Congress
Thursday, June 2nd, 2011Guest Post by Eve Hinman, Hinman Consulting Engineers
Sometime in 2009 I decided that I wanted to have a greater impact on influencing policy at a high governmental level. I wrote down my thoughts and did some planning around it. I had no idea how it was going to manifest itself .Read more...
Debating the future for the Alaskan Way Viaduct
Thursday, May 12th, 2011William Yardley and the New York Times examines the common themes of politics, development, city planning, the environment, traffic, and how to move forward. The issue at hand: the Alaskan Way Viaduct:
For a decade, since a 2001 earthquake exposed the viaduct’s vulnerability, this ambitious but frequently indecisive city has been .Read more...
The Art of Getting Out of an Airport
Friday, May 6th, 2011Patrick Smith at Salon.com examines that treacherous trek from your seat on the plane to where you want to be.
In a way, choosing a favorite airport is akin to choosing a favorite hospital: Conveniences and accouterments aside, nobody really wants to be there in the first place, and the easier and faster .Read more...
EOBRs: Regulations, Safety, and Concerns
Friday, April 29th, 2011Guest Post by William Messerschmidt, Messerschmidt Safety Consultants
In April 2010, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) announced a proposed rule that would require trucking companies with repeated violations of Hours of Service (HOS) rules to install electronic onboard recorders (EOBRs). These EOBRs would replace paper “log books,” ensuring compliance .Read more...
Engineering and the Cirque du Soleil
Monday, April 25th, 2011The Cirque du Soleil entertainment company is famous for some of the world’s best performers, musicians, and stage productions. They also have a legacy for some of the world’s most remarkable engineering projects. Take for example, the 150-ton hydraulic stage they commissioned for the MGM Grand Show ‘KA‘. The marvel was .Read more...
The Evolving Captcha
Thursday, April 21st, 2011The New York Times looks at Captchas, those annoying security features you must defeat before Ticketmaster will release your Justin Bieber tickets. The technology is now being used to reverse decipher Old World fonts. Captchas is short for “completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart”.
The set of software .Read more...
iPad in the Cockpit?
Monday, April 11th, 2011Wired magazine reports on the latest developments regarding tablet devices in cockpits of America’s planes:
The Federal Aviation Administration is allowing charter company Executive Jet Management to use Apple’s tablet as an approved alternative to paper charts. The authorization follows three months of rigorous testing and evaluation of .Read more...
Growing School Spirit with Carbon Molecules
Friday, April 8th, 2011Our previous reporting on small-scale school spirit focused on using lithium-beam lithography to etch a school logo. Nanoweek.com reports on a team at Brigham Young University growing tiny BYU logos from carbon molecules.
Here is how BYU physics professor Robert Davis and his student Taylor Wood do it: They start by patterning .Read more...
Competition Heats Up for Retired Space Shuttles
Thursday, April 7th, 2011We first reported on NASA’s eBay moment over a year ago, but the competition to land (or launch?) one of the remaining space shuttles is reaching a fever pitch leading up to an April 12 announcement.
The shuttles Endeavour, Atlantis, and Discovery are still up for grabs as 21 museums want .Read more...
Smithsonian.com: Secrets of the Colosseum
Tuesday, March 29th, 2011Smithsonian.com examines the Colosseum:
The guesswork ends when you meet Heinz-Jürgen Beste of the German Archaeological Institute in Rome, the leading authority on the hypogeum, the extraordinary, long-neglected ruins beneath the Colosseum floor. Beste has spent much of the past 14 years deciphering the hypogeum—from the Greek .Read more...
