Category Archives: Engineering

Night of the Trifid, the Virgo, and so much more to come: First Light at the Vera Rubin Observatory

The eagerly-anticipated Vera Rubin Observatory has come online and the First Light images are stunning.  A 3+ gigapixel camera behind an 8-m combined primary/tertiary mirror will survey the full southern sky every three nights for ten years.  It will see broadly, it will see deeply, and detect changes subtle and dramatic for other telescopes to zoom onto.  This is a revolution.  Dr. Rubin must be smiling!

Excerpts from Trifid and Lagoon Nebulae. Credit: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory

 

Annotated Virgo Cluster. Credit: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory

Get in, get out, get back to work: Wes Bos on the McMaster-Carr website

I was introduced to McMaster-Carr corporation early in my postdoctoral career, now well over thirty years ago.  The firm is renowned for stocking all sorts of parts and equipment and getting them to customers fast.  I went up one floor to the rapid orders room, checked the massive catalog, filled out a simple slip, and had electrical, mechanical, and/or vacuum parts the next day.  Sometimes they came the same day if I got the slip in early.  The paper catalog is not easy to get but I managed when I started my research position at UCLA after that postdoc.  The warehouse in Santa Fe Springs enabled California McMaster-Carr to meet the responsiveness of the New Jersey operation.

Fast forward to the era of e-commerce and the firm inspires affection even from the cynical, world-weary souls of HackerNews.  mcmaster.com is simple, well-organized, cruftless, and faster than any of its competitors in the Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul market.  Consumer websites aren’t even in the discussion.  I’ve even ordered from them for my personal needs when the slightly higher prices are more than offset by the speed from order to delivery.  Youtuber Wes Bos dives into why the website is so fast, marvels at the developer team that enables it, and the management team that maintains focus on the customer’s desire to search, order, and get back to business.

Youtube Channel: Wes Bos

But to what end?: Branch Education on GPUs

Branch Education produces stunning videos comprehensively explaining aspects of modern technology for the interested layperson.  Whether it is a simple 3 way switch or a wafer fab, each video contains deep research, exquisite 3D animations, and honest narration.  It is one of the few sites I’ve whitelisted on SponsorBlock.  The recent release on GPUs is up to their usual Gold medal standard.  I knew the gizmos were powerful but I did not know that they were running at 36×1012 operations per second or that they had so many specialized subcores for raytracing and matrix processing.

Youtube Channel: Branch Education

These chips are based on years of R&D in physics, chemistry, materials science, chip design, fabrication engineering, algorithms, and 137 other developments to do it at a large scale to create reliable products at a price that at least some consumers can afford.  The performance gains are what basic researchers dream about when they invent some small piece of that puzzle with some vague hope of making the world a little better.

Where does it actually go?  Videogames, cryptocurrency, and now AI – whatever that is.

Youtube Channel: 3dfxhistory

 

 

Fly-by-ear: The SIMONA flight simulator and the LN-3 INS

FlyByMax presents two terrific videos on how real and perceived forces play into flight simulator and inertial guidance systems.  Simulators don’t just mimic the motions of their vehicles.  Designers have to use the human vestibular and visual systems to mix the physical movements and scene projections to maximize realism.

Youtube Channel: FlyByMax

Exploded Views: Animagraffs on the SR-71

Jake O’Neal’s meticulously researched and lovingly rendered engineering animations are one of the highlights of modern-day Youtube.  He’s outdone himself with his recent masterpiece on the SR-71’s innards and outards.  The Blackbird is one of the last century’s artistic triumphs and has inspired admirers all over the world.  O’Neal dove deeply into the literature and pulls back the covers from beak to tailfeathers.  The section on the inlet and J58 powerplant is as accurate as the 2015 benchmark from “Tech Adams.”

O’Neal goes beyond the “glamorous bits.”  Pay close attention to the “mixer” that translated pilot stick inputs into precise actuator motions to control a plane flying at Mach 3+.  I’ve been following the Blackbird family for decades and I never knew about this.

On top of that, he has just released a behind-the-scenes film on how he created the model and animations using the free Blender program.

Youtube Channel: Animagraffs

LAX Maintenance: Stig Aviation

SpeedbirdHD has dramatically cut back on his insider views of LAX.  Stig Aviation is a new channel that fills that gap.  SpeedbirdHD focused on insane closeups of takeoffs and landings thanks to his unparalleled access.  Stig is a maintenance technician for a major airline who documents interesting aspects of the job through sixteen hour shifts which he nevertheless enjoys.  Tires, engines, cockpits, or fluids, he’s got the scoop.  He optimizes for mobile phones so the videos are all in portrait mode but other than that, There’s a lot of good stuff for the aviation curious.

Youtube Channel: Stig Aviation

 

Stop! It’s Hammack Time: The Engineer Guy returns

Bill Hammack of UIUC built and built-up the “Engineer Guy” Youtube channel into one of the most popular and respected technology-focused sites on the platform.

Then, he disappeared for four years.  His audience checked in periodically in the comments section but there was not much information to be had other than hints that he was still with us and might someday return.

In years past he had brilliantly explained the unsung inventions enabling coffee makers, microwave ovens, and injection molding.   His explanation of the prosaic aluminum beverage can and the 16-mm film projector are masterpieces – short stories as fine as any in written literature.  He also did longer-form works including a book on the history of British airships.

But now, he has returned and one hopes to stay, examining the “engineering method” as he describes it.  A complement to the much better-known scientific method.

In addition to the steam turbine below, he looks at cathedrals, turbulence, and revisits the microwave magnetron.

Welcome back, Professor.

Youtube Channel: The Engineer Guy

 

Virtue of Reality: Peter Dibble on Modulex

The pendulum of modern engineering has swung to asserting that digital models can always represent reality faster, cheaper, and better than any physical manifestation of it.  Mockups, prototypes, and test articles are out, “Digital twins” and augmented reality are in.  More’s the pity.  While much can be represented in CAD/CAM, the compute horsepower required to mimic the real world drains budgets as fast as it drains the power grid.  Very few have the savvy to accurately represent the range of physical phenomena in bits and then know when the model can be trusted.  The craftsmen who enabled the preceding revolutions are in retreat and in exchange we get ever increasing development times and costs despite the glowing promises of hype men and the C-suites that golf with them.

In that spirit, Oregonian Peter Dibble looks back fondly at Modulex, a Lego spinoff for architects to present concepts to their clients.  An ingenious change in dimension yielded bricks ideally suited to metric and Imperial drawing scales.  Sliceable parts, slopes, ridges, and custom colors yielded a system that grew well beyond its original intent into project management and signage.  A Mark-1 eyeball can look at, around, and  into such a physical representation and get some idea of its strengths and weaknesses.  Digital design software and Lego’s surprising hostility to the product line unfortunately sealed Modulex’s fate as a modeling tool.  The company lives on for signmaking.

Dibble’s channel is a trove of meticulously researched and well-presented histories emphasizing  the Pacific Northwest.  The Spruce Goose’s move from Long Beach to McMinnville is eye-opening.

Youtube Channel: Peter Dibble

 

A Shaft of Gold When All Around is Dark: JWST is operational

One last glorious gasp from a decayed and dead civilization.  JWST’s Mid Infrared Instrument observes Stephan’s Quintet.   What else will it be allowed to do before the American Taliban takeover?

JWST’s MIRI looks at Stephan’s Quintet. Courtesy NASA and the Space Telescope Science Institute