Think big picture (and help your career) in new course called "Public Policy for Engineers"

You've just created the most beautiful piece of technology in the world: Do you patent or open source it? What are your obligations to customers versus your obligations to society? How do economics drive and affect innovation? How does public perception affect it? Explore these questions and discover ways to be a better engineer in a new upper-division course, "Public Policy for Engineers," jointly offered this spring by the College and the Goldman School of Public Policy.

"Engineers seem to end up in marketing or management where they have to interact with the social system," says course instructor Stephen Maurer, a public policy professor. "To succeed at whatever they're doing, they need to be shrewd about how economic, political, government and legal mechanisms work."

The course will cover intellectual property and the New Economy, innovation incentives such as open source, public support for science, antitrust, public perception and regulation of risk, homeland security, and pharmaceutical research and development. [FULL STORY]

Senior Gift Campaign is off and running! Have you donated, yet?

Seniors: Graduation is just 15 weeks away, and it's time to get nostalgic. Think of the friends you've made, the experiences you've had, the classes and professors you've loved. Honor that nostalgia by saying "thanks" to Berkeley Engineering. The perfect way is by donating to the Senior Class Gift Campaign.

Throughout Berkeley Engineering's history, seniors have made donations to the College in order to give engineers who follow in their footsteps the same quality experience. Seniors who are long gone once donated their hard-earned money so your student clubs, your professors, your research opportunities, even Kresge Library, remained top-notch. Now, it's your turn to give back and leave a little bit of yourself behind.

"I've had so many memorable experiences with the College of Engineering," says BioE senior Kimberly Nguyen, a Senior Gift Committee member. "I want to help ensure that other students will be able to enjoy their years here, too." [FULL STORY]

The practical and the imaginative come to life during the December ME 102 Design Expo

Once again, ME 102 students outdid themselves during the ME Design Expo, which took place in December. Twenty-three teams proudly demonstrated their projects to a crowd of student, staff, and faculty visitors who crowded into the basement of Etcheverry Hall. Here are a few of our favorites:

S'more, please
"We wanted to make something fun, something with food," said ME senior Kelly Jung. The result: "S'More Maker," an automated answer to that campfire favorite. "It's hands-free, convenient, and you don't need a fire to use it," says Jung.

The S'More Maker is an arm that rotates, grabbing graham cracker, chocolate, and marshmallow goo from individual stations. The arm holds the s'more under a heat lamp for 15 seconds until it melts into a ready-to-eat snack. Visitors quickly snatched up samples. It took the team one month to construct the machine and one week to debug it (you wouldn't want the arm to go haywire and wildly fling marshmallow goo). Team members were ME seniors Han Hwu, Kimberly Lau, Cheng Wang, Eric Hou and Kelly Jung. [FULL STORY]

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