India launches its first (reusable) space shuttle


24 May, 2016
India has successfully launched its first mini space shuttle. The shuttle is known as the Reusable Launch Vehicle - Technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD) which is an unmanned vehicle that the Indian space Research Organization (ISRO) successfully ascended to 41 miles after it had separated from the rocket.  It is a winged body vehicle...Read More

Beamforming camera could lead to quieter vehicles


24 May, 2016
The Hannover Fair 2016 was quite the occasion, as we've reported before, but it seems like a distant memory. We saw industrial automation take the centre stage at the event, however, there were other engineering feats that weren't reported on as much. One eye-catching innovation was from a company called Sorama which...Read More

Industrial robotics will grow to $79.58 billion by 2022


24 May, 2016
A new report made available by MarketsandMarkets has estimated the amount of money the industrial robotics industry will make from now till 2022 is US$79.58 billion. That would mean a growth rate of 11.92 percent combined annual growth rate from this very second until we reach 2022. The report was titled Industrial...Read More

A flexible, wearable, ‘Star Trek tricorder’ health monitor is here


23 May, 2016
Wearable technology is slowly making its way into the world of today thanks to the engineers in the research and development centers all around the world. Engineers at the University of California San Diego are now announcing that they have the world's first, flexible, wearable device that can monitor "both...Read More

Universities ramp up efforts to encourage young women to explore engineering industries


23 May, 2016
Universities in the United States are going to great lengths to prove that their engineering courses are female-friendly. The University of Wyoming recently held an event called Women in STEM, that saw 500 young women from grades 7 to 12 interact with fields that in recent history have been overrun by...Read More

Autodesk embraces IoT, improves engineering designs


23 May, 2016
What software do you use to make incredible, engaging engineering designs? Are the products you're designing ready to connect to the Internet of Things? Autodesk Fusion 360 looks to be a mechanical engineer's dream software and they have now updated it to include something they call  Fusion Lifecycle and Fusion Connect. Yes,...Read More

Young engineers look to the future


23 May, 2016
The University of California, Davis and Santa Cruz branches, have accepted a twelve-year-old student who already has three degrees behind his name. He might be enrolling for biomedical engineering but doesn't know which university he wants to attend.  What he does know is that he has aspirations to become a...Read More

Canadian trestle bridge burned down and rebuilt in 20 days


20 May, 2016
Civil engineering at its finest. Mayerthorpe in Canda experienced a series of arson attacks that saw a railway trestle bridge engulfed in flames. A crew went straight to work on the bridge after the fire of April 26th and was completed by May 15th. It took a record 20 days to...Read More

China’s five-hundred-meter aperture spherical telescope will be operational soon


20 May, 2016
China has just about completed the world's largest radio telescope named the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST). The telescope has been built by the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NOAC) with the assistance of Australian CSIRO engineering. Don't question the rationale behind building it, because you...Read More

MIT’s origami robot can retrieve swallowed items in the stomach


20 May, 2016
Electrical, mechanical and biomedical engineering come together once again. Researchers from MIT, the University of Sheffield and the Tokyo Institute of Technology have been working on a robot that you could soon be ingesting. You read that right. They're calling it an origami robot, in the sense that after swallowing...Read More