Engineering Orientation Lectures 14:440:100

There are two main sections in this page: information and assignment

Information

We have compiled a number of links to give you a bit of the taste of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Life. Our hope is that the information provided here will help you in reaching an informed decision about your major, but more importantly, about your future professional career as an engineer.

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at glance

• What is Mechanical Engineering?
• Profiles of Mechanical Engineers
• About Mechanical Engineering
• Overview of the Field
• Getting Started
• Day in the Life
• Careers in Mechanical Engineering
• Careers in Aerospace Engineering
• Career Building
• ASME Professional Practice
• Professional Societies for M&AE Students at Rutgers
  • American Society of Mechanical Engineers
  • Society of Women Engineers
  • Society of Hispanic Engineers
  • Minority Engineering Educational Task
  • Tau Beta Pi (National Engineering Honors Society)
• The Real Deal: Salary Information

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering @RUTGERS

The Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering @RUTGERS is a vigorous and vibrant department with more than 30 faculty members, nearly 100 graduate students and more than 300 undergraduate students, focused on preparing the future technical leaders in mechanical and aerospace engineering.

At undergraduate level, the department offers both a standard Mechanical Engineering curriculum leading to a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering, and an Aerospace or Biomechanics Option. The department also has a long tradition of undergraduate involvement in research and independent projects. In addition the department hosts several extra-curricular activities such as professional organization student chapters including the the Society of Automotive Engineers (Rutgers SAE Student Chapter) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (Rutgers ASME Student Chapter).

The graduate program in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering offers the degrees of M.S. and Ph.D. in an intellectually and academically stimulating environment. Our program takes pride in the collegial student-faculty relationship it provides and in its preparation of students for successful careers in industry, government and academia.

Assignment

The assignment for this part of the course consists in a) selecting and reading a general engineering article from the list below and b) answering the questionnaire. Please take one minute to read through the list to select the article that best suits your interests. The average reading time of these articles is 15 minutes.

Please follow these DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS

1. Choose one of the following articles
2. Read the PDF file or html documents
3. Answer the questions with the online form
4. You will receive an email with your answers
5. Print out that email and bring it to class
6. Only one printout will be accepted from each individual in the classroom

Articles

These articles have been selected with the purpose of giving you a representative picture of the wide range of activities related to Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering:

1. No Small Risk
   As nanotech products race to the marketplace, researchers are still trying to determine if they could endanger human health.
   
2. Nano-scale Armor
   Molecular hinges, electrorheological fluids—will they protect tomorrow's infantry?
   
3. Pros and Cons of CAD
   Computer-aided design is far from perfect, but still pretty great, these experts say.
   
4. Finding More Water
   A desalination roadmap seeks technological solutions to make brackish water drinkable.
   
5. Fluid Motion
   Engineers are playing with the hulls to generate more speed for Olympic rowers.
   
6. Easy on the Gas
   Research aims to make the land of the automobile run more efficiently.
   
7. Get With the Plan
   How do projects get from point A to the end? Consult the blueprint.
   
8. Talking Back
   When bosses don't, or won't, communicate openly, what can we do? Try this—at your own risk.
   
9. Heading Off Premature Failure
   New software can help you unearth design and manufacturing issues before they snowball into big warranty problems.
   
10. Tearing Down the Nearly Invisible
    What happens when simply lifting the lid can destroy the very thing you want to inspect? Reverse engineering in the silicon world presents all sorts of unique challenges.
    
11. The Teardown Artist
    An engineer keeps his clients one step ahead by taking a deep look into their competitors' products.
    
12. Juiced Up
    The next stage in the evolution of the hybrid car may involve an electrical outlet.
    
13. Like Life
    Proponents say it's the next step in rapid prototyping: systems that reproduce their own kind and evolve.
    
14. It's in the Timing
    Clean, fast, and compact, a means of destroying dangerous medical waste went years without takers. That may be changing now.
    
15. Searching Deeper
    After more than four decades investigating the ocean floor, the U.S. Navy's deepest-diving submersible is about to be replaced.
    
16. Storm Warning
    Katrina and Rita pummeled the Gulf of Mexico's oil and gas producers. What can they do to keep it from happening again?
    
17. Wind Out of Their Sails
    Opposition to a project off Cape Cod poses big questions for offshore wind farms in the U.S.
    
18. It's What You Know
    Data acquisition goes well beyond engineering—just ask a piano maker or an entomologist.
    
19. Fair Game
    The spirit of play, business, or both make a destination of one of the world's technological showplaces.
    
20. Maglev Goes to Work
    A mixer taking advantage of high-temperature superconductors enters the pharmaceutical market.