Watch the video from the Center for Plasma-Material Interaction at the University of Illinois in which liquid lithium wets a porous molybdenum sponge at 450C as part of the Study of Lithium Infusion in Porous media experiment (SLIP).

For more information about CPMI go to the website (here) or the YouTube channel (here).

A new volume Engineering in Context edited by Steen Hyldgaard Christensen, Bernard Delahousse, and Martin Meganck was launched 2-3 July 2009 at Engineers Ireland in Dublin, Ireland at workshop by the same name (more here).  iFoundry was represented at the meeting by co-director David E. Goldberg who presented a talk: The Missing Basics: What Engineers Don’t Learn and Why They Don’t Learn Them (here).

Engineering in Context

In moving from qualitative models to quantitative models, it pays to start small.  In module 11 of Creative Modeling for Tech Vision, the topic of little quantitative models is explored with applications to evolutionary computation and organziational theory:

See more presentations here.

One of iFoundry’s themes is the importance of both qualitative and quantitative thinking skills, a theme emphasized in the powerpoint presentation shown in the viewer below:

or in on the Slideshare page here.

NUS visitors wishing to view the talk on The Missing Basics by David E. Goldberg can do so in the viewer below

or they may view it on the iFoundry slideshare page (here).  iFoundry YouTube videos are available here and other presentations by Professor Goldberg are available on the slideshare page here.

The video below doesn’t have anything directly to do with engineering education, but it goes to show the possibilities of creativity, modern digital media, and social sharing:

The Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education (iFoundry) will receive an HP Innovations in Education award package of HP technology, cash, and professional services valued at more than $260,000. Technologies such as wireless HP Tablet PCs, wide-format HP DesignJet printers, and remote access to high-power HP Blade Workstations from anywhere on campus, will be used in innovative ways to fundamentally redesign the undergraduate learning experience.

“The HP award is recognition of the systems approach iFoundry is taking to transform engineering education,” says iFoundry co-director David E. Goldberg. “Conceptual, organization, and curricular change must work together, and today they must work together in the context of great technology, both in- and outside the classroom.”

iFoundry seeks to transform the undergraduate engineering experience at a time when the demands of a creative era raise the need to develop engineers who are category creators, not just category enhancers. To help students practice engineering in an increasingly complex world, the pilot initiative maintains that engineers need increased exposure to design and increased attention to the objects of engineering, who they are made for and by whom they are made, as well as a larger picture of how engineers bring solutions to life.

iFoundry plans to deploy the HP technology, work stations, and tablet PC’s to create digital design hubs where students can explore these kinds of educational experiments and innovations conducted under the iFoundry rubric. The equipment generously provided by the grant will support collaboration in pilot courses in CAD/ID, between students in the learning community of a new freshman orientation course, and between the University of Illinois and faculty members and students at partner schools dedicated to transformative efforts in engineering education. iFoundry will also work closely with its Math, Science, Technology, and Education (MSTE) Office in the College of Education to support student volunteer efforts to educate local K-12 students on design artifacts and “how things work.”

More information about the 2009 HP Innovations in Education initiative and other global social investments is available at www.hp.com/go/grants.

iFoundry co-director David E. Goldberg will speak at the National University of Singapore on Monday, 29 June 2009 at 3pm in LT1, FoE on What Engineers Don’t Learn and Why They Don’t Learn It. Download a full seminar announcement here.

iFoundry fellow Jim Leake gave a talk at Autodesk’s Global Colloquium at the ASEE Conference in Austin, TX last week.  The presentation is available in the viewer below

or on the iFoundry Slideshare page here.  Autodesk is sponsoring an iFoundry project that brings industrial design and engineering students and faculty together in and outside the classroom.

UPDATE:

See examples of student work from the above presentation in the video below:

or on the iFoundry Youtube channel here.

Illinois’s Technology Entrepreneur Center announces a Startup Bootcamp 8-11 September (here). For more information email Stephanie Larson (here).