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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Clockwise from center: Erika Soto, Trisha Miller, Rafael Goldstein, Cassandra Marie Murphy. Photo by Craig Schwartz, courtesy A Noise Within Theatre and Lucy Pollak Public Relations
ANW’s tribute to myth, art, and engineering is both visually dazzling and a chutzponic choice for this temporary breather from the pandemic. Water is everywhere – onstage and on the audience – as a gifted cast seamlessly weaves eight stories and a coda from Ovid to impressive stagecraft. The play is sufficiently well-known that there’s no point in recapping the fables-for-grownups by Mary Zimmerman, a brand unto herself. Locally, Stephen Legawiec’s long-departed and much lamented Ziggurat Theatre Ensemble did exceptional service to myth. The Sacred Fools and Coeurage also deliver technical miracles on a budget. Zimmerman ups the ante requiring an onstage pool central to her theme. ANW has built the resources over the years to afford the rights, the engineering, and the resident ensemble to pull it all off. The costs must be astronomical especially for a barely four week run, an oddly appropriate leap-of-faith in art over economics.
Nicole Javier (top) and Rafael Goldstein (bottom). Photo by Craig Schwartz, courtesy A Noise Within Theatre and Lucy Pollak Public Relations
On top of the usual artistic concerns and choices, director Julia Rodriguez-Elliott has to see to the safety of her performers who are feet, knees, and backs in the water as much as they are out of it. This is no mean feat given costumes (Garry Lennon), props (Shen Heckel), walking continuously on a wet stage, and a disease spread by droplets. The company has hewn to its resident artist model (six of the nine performers) although it seems to have gone away from its roots in repertory. It is interesting to note the changing of the guard having followed the company closely in the 90s to mid 2000s and sporadically thereafter. Geoff Elliott remains a constant of the motion with Rafael Goldstein and Erika Soto now regular members along with unfamiliar faces with extensive company and classical credits. That Shakesperean training pays off handsomely with uniformly rich, resonant, and nuanced voices inhabiting instead of reciting the text. It’s a heady mix of comedy, drama, pathos, and bathos. Trisha Miller is excellent as Alcyone, Sydney A. Mason as a nasty Aphrodite, and DeJuan Christopher as Ceyx. Elliott is all the fathers; Pythonesque as Helios negotiating with Phaeton (Kasey Mahaffy) as well as Midas and Cinyras navigating daughter problems. The physical demands are great as the cast have to carry one another in and out of the water throughout the piece where one slip could end many careers. The level of trust engendered by long and close collaboration must be off the charts and hard to conceive with a team assembled for one production.
But, oh, that engineering – Francois-Pierre Couture (design), Ken Booth (lighting), and Robert Oriol (sound) – deserves a loud, two-syllable, “Damn!” Even if we take the pool for granted, electricity, water, and people don’t mix. This constrains the high powered lights to surround the stage and there again from safe a distance – yet nothing essential is in shadow. Glowing orbs are undoubtedly enabled by LEDs. Their collective play off the water and onto the walls are a splendid touch – carrying the audience along waves of action floating on Oriol’s effective yet unobtrusive soundscape. And we should not take any of this for granted. Going from page to stage is a tough artistic job but no easier than taking a technical concept through design, build, test, and delivery. ANW’s timelapse shows the large uncredited crew that made it happen and glimpses the kind of backstage preparation area accessible to very few of the city’s theatremakers. Yes, there are a couple of songs but … what are you going to do? Barring extension, only five performances remain so act accordingly.
Note bene: While there are no bad seats at ANW, the raised stage does obscure the water’s surface from the front rows. There is a benefit (and certainly no harm) in going to the middle or even the back of the house. Those up front will get splashed.
Metamorphoses
Based on the Myths of Ovid
Written and originally directed by Mary Zimmerman
Directed by Julia Rodriguez-Elliott
for A Noise Within Theatre Company 3352 E Foothill Blvd.
Pasadena, CA 91107
Thursdays through Sundays, closing 5 June 2022
Two performances Saturdays
Running time: Ninety minutes without intermission
Performance times vary, see the theatre’s website for details
Proof of vaccination/booster required, Masks must be worn inside the theatre
Sports Illustrated quoted this Japanese proverb back in 1975 in conjunction with Cal’s championship men’s gymnastic team of that era. The adage abides with the James Webb Space Telescope now in its halo orbit around the Sun-Earth L2 point, its optics and instruments slowly cooling to their ultimate cryogenic temperatures, the better to collect the faint signs of heat from the early universe. Little has been said to the public about the instruments nestled in the big box behind the 6.5-m primary mirror. This is perhaps not surprising. There are no secrets here, just that the real science goals and the optical engineering to meet them are fiendishly complex. Friendly Neighborhood Astronomer Christian Ready tackles the challenge, explaining where the precious photons will go and what will happen to them once they arrive. The comment section clamors for more detail on the MIRI cryocooler which will take the mid-Infrared Instrument’s focal plane array below 7K. Here’s to hoping for a full video on this beast, built across the hall from me, and on which I spent a couple of weeks when the team was shorthanded.
