A White House directive has NASA recalculating the route toward human exploration of the solar system, starting with returning humans to the Moon.

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Filed under: Special Features | Comments Off on Moonstruck

Tags: Aerospace, ASEE Prism magazine, manned missions, Mars, Mining, Moon, NASA, Public Policy, space exploration, spacecraft, Thomas K. Grose, Videos

Soft-drink bottlers worldwide depend on diminishing supplies of clean water. Here’s how Coke copes.

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Filed under: Special Features | Comments Off on Thirsty Giant

Tags: ASEE Prism magazine, Coca-Cola, Conservation, Environmental Engineering, Industrial engineering, Technology, Thomas K. Grose, Water Resources

The human body is an engineering marvel, but ligaments snap and organs fail. What if replacement parts could be grown in the lab – or by patients themselves? That’s the exciting frontier of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine that biomedical engineers, scientists, and physicians are exploring, with tantalizing results.

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Filed under: Special Features | Comments Off on Engineering Spare Body Parts

Tags: ASEE Prism magazine, biomechanical engineering, Biomedical Engineering, bioprinting, bioreactors, heart, organ transplant, regenerative medicine, STEM cell research, tissue engineering

Spatial visualization – the ability to imagine objects from different angles – is a key STEM problem-solving skill that varies widely by gender, race, and cultural background. Yet it’s rarely taught. The University of Colorado-Boulder’s College of Engineering developed an inexpensive training program that closed STEM performance gaps so well it’s required of all incoming engineering students. The curriculum is now available for free online so any school can advance STEM equity.

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Filed under: K-12 Outreach Programs, Special Features, Web Resources | Comments Off on STEM Equity? Teach This Key Skill

Tags: 3-D modeling, ASEE Prism magazine, Curriculum, Design, Engineering Plus, Internet Resources, Jacob Segil, Outreach, Research on Learning, Resources for Teachers, spatial visualization training workshops, STEM education, STEM equity, Technology for Learning, University of Colorado Boulder College of Engineering, Web Resources

Indoor ‘vertical farming’ could be an answer to urban food needs and shrinking agricultural space – if cost and energy obstacles can be overcome. Already, pioneers are sprouting up in places like Japan, Singapore, and in U.S. university “closed environment agriculture” labs.

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Filed under: Special Features | Comments Off on Room to Grow

Tags: Aerofarms, Agricultural Engineering, ASEE Prism magazine, botany, Controlled Environment Agriculture, Cornell School of Integrative Plant Science, Dickson Despommier, farm to table, food supply, green infrastructure, greenhouse, Murat Kacira, Neil Mattson, Plantagon, plants, Plenty, Public Policy, Sky Greens, Sustainability, Tom Gibson, University of Arizona, University of Wyoming, urban agriculture, urban farming, vegetables, vertical farms

When “The Victors” peals from the 55-bell carillon high inside the University of Michigan’s Burton Tower, many students below can hum the famous fight song as they stroll. One group, though, also understands the engineering and skilled labor behind the resonant tones, having sculpted and poured metal to make carillon bells that achieve a particular sound in a course called Shaping the Sound of Bronze.

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Filed under: Special Features | Comments Off on Heavy Metal Bell Engineers

Tags: Alice Daniel, Art, ASEE Prism magazine, bells, bronze, carillon, Engineering Design, engineering school, forge, makerspace, metallurgy, Shaping the sound of Bronze, STEAM, University of Michigan