Maybe the only constant is change
Working at a university is, I think, good for my sense of perspective and a good antidote for the occasional work-a-day ennui.
Yesterday I was thinking of last fall, when I was hurrying through an Engineering building to catch a bus and I passed a student observing (not driving) a small, silent four-rotored helicopter. That's what they're doing these days. Autonomic helicoptors.
But I was thinking of that student yesterday, when I went to watch a bit of a competitive program the University has hosted for a number of years. On an indoor field I watched two teams of robots, oversized roombas sucking up soccer balls, bumping over barriers and each other, spitting them into goals. These weren't undergrad projects: they were designed, built, and driven by high-school teams. The round I watched, the red team had much more agile and powerful soccer-bots. They handily won 8-1. Spectators cheered and held up big signs saying "Go 1148!"
Yesterday was a symposium for the final projects of the inaugural graduating class of nanotechnology engineers on campus, a program which will soon get its Quantum Nano Building, considerably larger than the name might suggest. At this nanotech symposium, one particular project caught my eye: carbon nanotubes absorbing IR radiation. See, night-vision goggles are apparently foiled by nano-tube-embedded fibers. They demoed a cotton mitt, one side treated; the one side is invisible to night-vision goggles, and the other side you can see the hand inside the glove.
While this property of carbon nanotubes has apparently been known for a while, these undergrads came up with a way to use them... safely. The poster ended with a cheerful message: "SAFETY CONCERNS: though industry is still wary of using CNTs in commercial products, there are a number of experiments that show the safety of CNTs [...]" and I thought, oh swell.
They continue by saying that IF the nanotubes are tightly bound to a substrate (say, cotton, which they claim it binds to easily), it will be safe. So they won't go loose in the environment and cause cancer or who-knows-what reactions with materials. Because we don't know, yet, because they cause all sorts of unpredictable reactions at quantum levels.
I think this is a different realm of "not ready for prime-time" than autonomous helicopters.
The nano building is one of five large construction projects on campus at the moment. The Quantum Nano building will be the biggest addition, shiny reflective glass next to the 60's-era ugly brick Brutalist Math and Computer building, once upon a time the most exciting thing happening on campus. It contained one big IBM computer. The biggest in Canada, in '67.
Yesterday I mentioned the symposium to a coworker's son, who is writing a school report on nanotechnology. He enthusiastically went down with notebook and pencil to take notes. And five years from now, he might possibly be studying nanotechnology in that building.
Heaven knows what they will be demoing in the hallways.
Yesterday I was thinking of last fall, when I was hurrying through an Engineering building to catch a bus and I passed a student observing (not driving) a small, silent four-rotored helicopter. That's what they're doing these days. Autonomic helicoptors.
But I was thinking of that student yesterday, when I went to watch a bit of a competitive program the University has hosted for a number of years. On an indoor field I watched two teams of robots, oversized roombas sucking up soccer balls, bumping over barriers and each other, spitting them into goals. These weren't undergrad projects: they were designed, built, and driven by high-school teams. The round I watched, the red team had much more agile and powerful soccer-bots. They handily won 8-1. Spectators cheered and held up big signs saying "Go 1148!"
Yesterday was a symposium for the final projects of the inaugural graduating class of nanotechnology engineers on campus, a program which will soon get its Quantum Nano Building, considerably larger than the name might suggest. At this nanotech symposium, one particular project caught my eye: carbon nanotubes absorbing IR radiation. See, night-vision goggles are apparently foiled by nano-tube-embedded fibers. They demoed a cotton mitt, one side treated; the one side is invisible to night-vision goggles, and the other side you can see the hand inside the glove.
While this property of carbon nanotubes has apparently been known for a while, these undergrads came up with a way to use them... safely. The poster ended with a cheerful message: "SAFETY CONCERNS: though industry is still wary of using CNTs in commercial products, there are a number of experiments that show the safety of CNTs [...]" and I thought, oh swell.
They continue by saying that IF the nanotubes are tightly bound to a substrate (say, cotton, which they claim it binds to easily), it will be safe. So they won't go loose in the environment and cause cancer or who-knows-what reactions with materials. Because we don't know, yet, because they cause all sorts of unpredictable reactions at quantum levels.
I think this is a different realm of "not ready for prime-time" than autonomous helicopters.
The nano building is one of five large construction projects on campus at the moment. The Quantum Nano building will be the biggest addition, shiny reflective glass next to the 60's-era ugly brick Brutalist Math and Computer building, once upon a time the most exciting thing happening on campus. It contained one big IBM computer. The biggest in Canada, in '67.
Yesterday I mentioned the symposium to a coworker's son, who is writing a school report on nanotechnology. He enthusiastically went down with notebook and pencil to take notes. And five years from now, he might possibly be studying nanotechnology in that building.
Heaven knows what they will be demoing in the hallways.