Students in grades 6 to 11 explore the practical, scientific, ethical, and environmental issues that emerge in creating “smart” buildings that meld environmentally responsible design with cutting-edge computing technology known as the Internet of Things (IoT). Working in teams, they design and perhaps later implement smart-building solutions to make their school a better place to inhabit.

Read More

Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Lesson Plans | Comments Off on Smart School Building

Tags: careers, civil and environmental engineering, cool, electrical and computer engineering, environment, heat, IEEE, intelligent infrastructure, Internet of Things, LED, light, NGSS, sensors, smart buildings, teachengineering, TryComputing

Light-emitting diodes illuminate everything from traffic signals to shimmering sculptures like this one by Makoto Tojiki. But the researchers whose early 1990s breakthrough – a blue-light LED – made today’s energy-saving white lamps possible toiled mostly in the shadows… until they won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2014.

No longer. In September, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in physics to Isamu Akasaki of Meijo University in Nagoya, Japan, Hiroshi Amano of Nagoya University, and Shuji Nakamura, a professor of materials and co-director of the Solid State Lighting and Energy Electronics Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Read More

Filed under: Special Features | Comments Off on Blue LED Beams Nobel Fame

Tags: blue LED, discovery, Electrical, electricity, Hiroshi Amano, Innovation, invention, Isamu Akasaki, light, Nobel Prize, Physics, Shuji Nakamura