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Bark. It’s what’s for dinner.
FREAKY FORK: Engineering News found these two
metal objects stuck in the bark of a eucalyptus tree growing
behind Foothill dorms. One looks like a homemade Japanese
shuriken or ninja star (left), but the other is a plain old
fork. We wonder how many times the fork was thrown until
it stuck. What was the angle and force at which it was thrown?
The velocity it was traveling? No doubt there were formulas
and calculations involved in there somewhere.
RACHEL SHAFER PHOTO
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For John Breneman (B.S.’06 EECS), a self-described
radio-controlled car (R/C) hobbyist, nothing was better than taking
EE 192, Mechatronics Design Lab, in his senior year. “I went
to Berkeley specifically to take that class,” he says. “How
could I resist making an R/C car that could drive itself?”
In the capstone lab, student teams develop small-scale electric cars that drive
themselves smoothly around a preset, wired path that curves, jogs horizontally
and loops back on itself. Teams then compete in the NATCAR competition, which
is held each May at UC Davis and is sponsored by National Semiconductor. The
fastest car wins. For five years running, Berkeley Engineering has won the
competition, and this year swept first through third. [FULL STORY]
“If someone told me a year ago that I was going to
be a professor, I would’ve just laughed,” says Michelle Khine
(B.S.’99 ME, M.S.’01 ME, Ph.D.’05 BioE). “As a
student, being a professor was probably the last thing I thought I would
do, mostly because I thought professors were crazy smart, and I didn’t
think I was.”
But crazy smart she is. Khine develops microsystems for single-cell analyses,
researching tools to understand how cells respond to various stimuli so doctors
and drug manufacturers will one day have better methods to cure diseases. She
even spun off a company based on her research while in graduate school. Now,
she’s a new assistant professor at the new School of Engineering on the
new UC Merced campus and in a career that never occurred to her.[FULL STORY]
Over the upcoming break, give your brain a rest by curling up with one
of the books from the following list. Engineering News asked four faculty
and staff members to recommend a book for fun as well as a must-read
book on engineering. Enjoy!
Kafka on the Shore
By Haruki Murakami
A Japanese coming-of-age story with infusions of magical realism and Greek tragedy. “Wonderful
language and stories within,” writes Kresge librarian Jean McKenzie. “Explores
personal and societal identities.” [FULL STORY]
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