Nerd is typically not a highly sought after title, but there are a group of female engineers from Tufts University out to prove they live up to the name.

The Nerd Girls are a group of 16 female engineering students who are featured in a reality series of the same name that’s out to prove that engineering can make a difference in everyone’s lives and that women can play an important role in the field.

Tufts engineering professor and IEEE Women in Engineering Committee Chair Karen Panetta founded the Nerd Girls group...Read More

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Sometimes students who have very specific career goals and industries in mind have to get general degrees then work their way into their field and be trained on the job. But if your industry is motor sports, one school is offering a specific degree program to prepare you for your career.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), located in what is known as the home of open-wheel racing, seems the perfect place to offer the nation’s first bachelor’s degree program in motor sports engineering.

Starting in the fall of 2008, the program will prepare students for various careers in the motor sports industry, from working in a NASCAR or IndyCar series pit crew, to resear...Read More

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Although dominos are intended to be pieces of a board game, setting them up and knocking them down is arguably a great deal more fun.

Despite the simplicity of it, some people go to great lengths to set up elaborate designs that often put on quite a display of clever engineering and design. 

After years of collecting and a full year of careful planning, 16-year-old Max Poser’s design was finally ready to be destroyed on August 8, 2008 and 8:08 p.m. in Berlin, Germany.

The team of 10 young people from Germany and Holland spent three days painstakingly setting up 55,555 dominos, each 0.7 cm apart, to his exact specifications in the sports hall of the Gottfried-Kinkel High School.

The result was an awesome 15-minute dis...Read More

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In another step to bring engineering into elementary education, National Instruments and Lego Education have introduced the WeDo classroom robotics platform. The software is powered by NI LabView and is a drag-and-drop, icon-based program aimed at students from ages 7 to 11.

The announcement was part of NI Week, which was held this week in Austin, TX. 

Students will be able to use the program to build a Lego model and program its movements. The programmers will see immediate results and be able to make instant changes, as their models remain attached to the computer. The easy-to-use program will help teach students how to solve problems through buildin...Read More

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If you think getting your music from an iPod nano is the cutting edge of compact audio devices, you haven’t heard about the radio smaller than a grain of sand.

Researchers at the University of Illinois and electronics engineers from Northrop Grumman Electronics Systems in Linthicum, MD used microscopic carbon nanotube technology to create a tiny, functional, all-nanotube transistor radio. During testing at Norththrup, the radio was able to receive a traffic report from WBAL-AM (1090), a Baltimore radio station.

The researchers intended to create nanotubes that ...Read More

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Evan Souliere knew what he wanted to do and that he’d be one of relatively few in the engineering field to do it, so he’s worked hard to make his own breaks. He designs roller coasters.

As a senior finishing up his civil engineering degree at Northeastern University, he has used his co-op opportunities to his advantage.

On his first co-op in 2006, Souliere worked in building technology at Simpson, Gumpertz, and Heger (SGH), a consulting engineering firm in Waltham, MA. Though he already had his mind set on roller coaster design, he elected to gain some engineering experience and had the chance to do work on some pretty important projects.

“One project that sticks out, though ...Read More

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As the popularity of the Internet continues to grow through many non-academic sites and programs, one state is looking to capitalize on the power of the Web to expand education.

New Mexico has recently announced its partnership with Blackboard, a provider of online platforms and resources for various communities, with a focus on education. Through Blackboard, the state will launch a statewide e-learning platform to support the education of K-20, adult education and government communities.

With the platform, all levels of educators can offer online courses and tutoring to provide a wider audience with more accessible educational opportunities. The education initiative will feature a cyber academy that includes high school, college, and university courses from instituti...Read More

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Everyone has different expectations for their internships. While some students' experience is more like a summer job, where they are well aware they sit at the bottom of a company's hierarchy, others find a valuable position with a company that is willing to teach and depend on students as a part of their workforce.

Frank Houston has been lucky enough to find work with the better of those two options. Now a senior, majoring in civil engineering at Northeastern University, Houston has worked for the Natgun Corporation for three six-month co-op terms.

“The company designs and builds precast, prestressed, concrete ground water storag...Read More

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In underdeveloped parts of the world, even basic engineering skills can go a long way in areas where there isn’t easy access to necessities like water.

With this in mind, a student activist group at Curry College, ONE Curry, is using as much engineering skill and funds as it can muster to bring water to a village in the Southern Sudan of Africa.

John Abdulla was inspired to start ONE Curry by the efforts of the ONE campaign to end poverty. (See more about Abdulla on pages 14-15 of the Spring Curry College Magazine) Th...Read More

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When looking for an internship, the experience you’ll get is the most important factor, but the benefits, support and career options it offers are important too.

Considering those factors, some of the better opportunities for internships are with the government. What programs like SMART (Science, Mathematics, & Research for Transformation) and WISE (Washington Internships for Students in Engineering) offer students make them logical options, as their names suggest.

The SMART program offers scholarships and internships t...Read More

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As engineering programs report low retention rates and baby boomers reach the retirement age, companies like Lockheed Martin are being forced to take notice.

As a company that employs more than 70,000 engineers, technologists and scientists, Lockheed Martin decided to get involved in their own future. Their response was to help improve engineering education below the college level.

To this end, Lockheed has partnered with Project Lead The Way, a nonprofit group that has previously worked with large corporations like Northrop Grumman, local government and foundations to ...Read More

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The day where robotic capabilities rival T2’s T-1000, may be closer than you think.

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has issued Tufts University professors a $3.3 million contract for research to create chemical robots that will have the ability to squeeze through spaces as small as 1 centimeter, grow to 10 times that size, and biodegrade.

Called “chembots,” the devices will be able to enter complex and dangerous environments, where they will use features such as landmine detection, the ability to cli...Read More

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