ENGR 096
Professor Martinez
DISCOVER ENGINEERING:
LECTURE #1
ENGR 096: DISCOVER ENGINEERING
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Course Syllabus
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Name Game
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Lecture #1
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Distance Measurements Lab
NAME GAME
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Goal:
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Everybody will know each other’s name by the end of the
third week
Purpose: academic, social, psychological support
Groups of two or three
Each student introduces themselves (name, major,
hometown, and favorite hobby)
Identify at least three things that you have in common
with your new “buddy”
What’s the most important engineering invention??
Report back to the class
INTRODUCTION TO ENGINEERING
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Engineering and engineers exist everywhere
 From
buildings to iPods, automobiles to High
Definition Televisions, engineering is an integral
part of our daily lives
 Some critics argue that engineering has made our
society lazy, uncommunicative, and less personal
 On the contrary, I argue that engineering breeds
innovation and that engineers have made our
society more efficient and more open to
technological advances
EXAMPLES OF ENGINEERING
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Communication
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We can send instant messages/video/photos via cellular
phones, email, internet.
This has rapidly enhanced our ability to communicate with
each other
Space Exploration
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NASA is landing larger and heavier robots on the surface of
Mars to search for signs of extraterrestrial life
Astronauts are performing medical tests on the effects of zero
gravity on the human body to eventually determine whether
humans can one day live outside earth’s atmosphere
DO YOU KNOW ANY ENGINEERS??
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These famous people actually studied to be an
engineer:
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Neil Armstrong, aeronautical engineering
Claim to fame: First man on the moon, of
course!
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THESE FAMOUS PEOPLE ACTUALLY STUDIED TO BE
AN ENGINEER
Jimmy Carter, Mechanical Engineering
 39th President of United States
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THESE FAMOUS PEOPLE ACTUALLY STUDIED TO BE
AN ENGINEER
Last Supper
Mona Lisa
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Leonardo Da Vinci, Mechanical Engineering
Painted the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper
Designed a flying machine
Flying
Machine
THESE FAMOUS PEOPLE ACTUALLY STUDIED TO BE
AN ENGINEER
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Montel Williams, Naval Engineering
Host of the day-time talk show, The Montel Williams
Show
THESE FAMOUS PEOPLE ACTUALLY STUDIED TO BE
AN ENGINEER
Ellen Ochoa, Electrical Engineering
 Native of San Diego, CA. 1st Hispanic woman
in space.
 Went to space aboard Discovery in 1993.
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THESE FAMOUS PEOPLE ACTUALLY STUDIED TO
BE AN ENGINEER
Ashton Kutcher, Biochemical Engineering
 Attended the University of Iowa
 Dropped out to pursue modeling (Bad move,
dude)
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WHAT’S THE POINT!?
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A couple of points to be made
 Engineering
is a wide field of study with lots
of options
 With hard work and persistence, ANYBODY
can become an engineer
 Engineering provides an excellent starting
point for future careers
 Presidents,
astronauts, lawyers, doctors,
business people have started as engineers
 Talk show host may be a little far-fetched, but
anything is possible!!
 The majority of engineering students actually go
on to become actual engineers (duh!)
SWITCHING GEARS (NO PUN INTENDED)
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Let’s talk about how engineering is relevant to our
daily lives
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A great source of engineering information that is readily
accessible is the news
Engineering disasters, new technological gadgets, new
buildings are all newsworthy because they cost on the
order of millions of dollars
Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look
at it, much of the money for new building projects and
disaster repair in our state comes from taxpayer dollars.
ENGINEERING IN THE NEWS
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2008 Summer Olympic Games (Beijing, China)
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Advances in pool design and swimsuit technology have contributed to
the increases in speed for swimmers.
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The corset-like Speedo LZR Racer suit is made by ultrasonic welding
instead of stitching and can require a half-hour to put on and shoehorns
the body into a more streamlined position
The Beijing pool eliminates wave action against swimmers by being
deeper, wider, and uses a sophisticated outside lane buffer system.
SUMMER 2008: ENGINEERING LOWLIGHT
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The Great Sichaun Earthquake(May 12, 2008)
Magnitude 8.0 earthquake left more than 50,000 people dead
GREAT SICHAUN EARTHQUAKE
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What is an 8.0 earthquake?
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How many people is 50,000?
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Richter Scale magnitude 8.0 earthquake is equivalent to 33 times the
force of the atomic bomb dropped over Nagasaki during WWII
Los Angeles Coliseum holds 92,516 people
Imagine going to a USC football game and just under half the people
in attendance are allowed to go home. I think I’ll watch the game at
home!!
Would the same thing happen if Los Angeles experienced an 8.0
earthquake?
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Probably not, since the Chinese earthquake occurred in rural China
where buildings and structures were not built to withstand such an
earthquake (and possibly built without earthquakes in mind!)
Buildings and infrastructure in the Los Angeles area have to meet
strict building codes or the builders face serious fines and penalties.
There will more than likely be less damage if an 8.0 earthquake hit
the Los Angeles region.
MORE ENGINEERING HEADLINES
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New technology to ease traffic woes
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Yucca Mountain safety plan doomed
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One concept is to gather information about vehicle speeds and
traffic levels from drivers' GPS-enabled cellphones. The Mobile
Millennium project blends encrypted location data with traffic
information from other sources before broadcasting the resulting
travel information back to users' phones. (UC Berkeley)
Yucca Mountain, Nevada is the proposed storage location for all of
the nuclear waste produced by U.S. nuclear power plants.
In an earthquake, casks of radioactive waste could bounce and
roll in a 'chaotic melee,' Holtec International says of the Energy
Department proposal. (Los Angeles Times)
Supercomputer performs 1,000 trillion calculations a second
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Scientists unveiled the world's fastest supercomputer on Monday,
a $100 million machine that for the first time has performed
1,000 trillion calculations per second in a sustained exercise.
(USA Today)
SUMMER 2007: ENGINEERING HIGHLIGHTS
(…AND LOWLIGHTS)
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Space Shuttle Endeavour lifted off Cape Canaveral,
Florida on Aug. 8, 2007 to continue space station
construction by delivering a third starboard truss
segment.
SUMMER 2007: ENGINEERING HIGHLIGHTS
(…AND LOWLIGHTS)
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During take-off, foam loss from the liquid oxygen
feedline brackets on the external tank during launch
caused thermal tile damage to Endeavour.
SUMMER 2007: ENGINEERING HIGHLIGHTS
(…AND LOWLIGHTS)
Space shuttle
Endeavour is safe to fly
home as is
 Space Shuttle
Endeavour glided to a
perfect landing at
NASA's Kennedy Space
Center in Florida on
August 21, 2007.
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SUMMER 2007: ENGINEERING HIGHLIGHTS
(…AND LOWLIGHTS)
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The iPhone has arrived!! (8GB Retail price = $599)
SUMMER 2007: ENGINEERING HIGHLIGHTS
(…AND LOWLIGHTS)
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The iPhone gets hacked by teenager!!
A New Jersey teenager has figured out how to make
Apple's iPhone available on other wireless services
besides AT&T, removing a major frustration for thousands
of consumers.
George Hotz, SUPERBAD!!
SUMMER 2007: ENGINEERING LOWLIGHTS
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The Interstate-35 bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota
collapses. Official death toll is 13 with over 100
injured.
SUMMER 2007: ENGINEERING LOWLIGHTS
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U.S. highway bridges are, on average, 40 years
old. The typical interstate bridge was built in the
late 1960s (the I-35 bridge was finished in
1967).
Most bridges are inspected and rated every two
years.
In 2005, engineers rated the I-35 bridge in
Minnesota as "structurally deficient" and
possibly in need of replacement.
Overall, about 20 percent of interstate bridges
(nearly 12,000 bridges) were rated as deficient
in one way or another in 2004.
SUMMER 2007: ENGINEERING HIGHLIGHTS
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The $100 laptop: for use in developing
countries
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Engineers scaled down the common laptop and
focused on features that developing nations need
(internet, word processing, video call)
YEAH…SO WHAT…WHAT’S THE POINT?
If everything worked perfectly, we wouldn’t
need engineers
 Engineering is mainly about improving current
designs and functions to make things more
efficient, useful, cheaper, and safer.
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EXTRA CREDIT IF YOU CAN GUESS WHO THE
GENTLEMAN STANDING NEXT TO ME IS…
Me
Extra Credit
INTRO TO DISTANCE MEASUREMENTS
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Have you seen these people before??
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What are they doing? Why?
DISTANCE LAB
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How do engineers measure short distances?
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How do engineers measure long distances?
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Pythagorean Theorem & Creativity
ENGINEERING PROJECTS
In groups of two or three, use a yardstick to find
the distance from one corner of the classroom
to the opposite diagonal corner in feet.
 Use Pythagorean Theorem
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HW ASSIGNMENT
Read Chapter 1: Historical Beginnings of
Engineering
 Discussion on Ch. 1 next Monday
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