Readers Select Test Engineer of the Year

Test Product of the Year and Test of Time Product also announced

-- Test & Measurement World, 2/23/2005 7:46:00 AM

On February 22, at a ceremony held during the 2005 APEX conference in Anaheim, CA, Test & Measurement World honored the recipients of our annual test industry awards. Publisher Russ Pratt presided over the ceremony and began the evening by recognizing the 12 products that won a 2005 Best in Test Award. Rick Nelson, T&MW's chief editor, presented an award plaque to a representative of each product's manufacturer.

Pratt then announced which of the 12 products had been selected the 2005 Test Product of the Year by T&MW's readers: the WaveSurfer  oscilloscope from LeCroy. The WaveSurfer is especially notable for its unusual dimensions: Its 10.4-in. display fits into a box that is only 6-in. deep. In addition, the scope captures 250,000 samples on four channels. Dr. Mike Lauterbach, director of product management for LeCroy, accepted the Test Product of the Year award plaque from Nelson.

Next, Nelson addressed the crowd to introduce the Test Engineer of the Year. This year, our readers selected Anthony Levandowski, to receive the honor. Levandowski (pictured), who is based at Berkeley, is building a motorcycle that will compete in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge, a competition that requires autonomous vehicles to traverse up to 175 miles of terrain in the southwestern US in less than 10 hours. Our readers selected Levandowski from a group of six nominees who we announced in our September  2004 issue. As part of his award, Levandowski will designate an engineering school to receive a $20,000 education grant, courtesy of National Instruments, the award sponsor.

To conclude the evening, Nelson introduced a new industry award: the Test of Time Award. Created to recognize product lines that provide state-of-the-art performance for at least five years after their introduction, the inaugural award was presented to the 93000 SOC Tester from Agilent Technologies. The 93K debuted in 1999 and has continued to evolve to provide high-performance analog and high-speed serial I/O test capabilities. Jack Trautman, president of the Automated Test Group at Agilent, accepted the award from Nelson.

For complete information about the Best in Test Awards program, go to www.tmworld.com/bit. For profiles of the winners, see our March 2005 issue, scheduled to go online on March 1. www.tmworld.com/archives.