Top Engineering Innovations of 2022

Since COVID-19 hit, most of us have been focusing on the adverse events of the two years that followed, so it is understandable that many of us have missed out on some of the fantastic engineering innovations that have taken place since the pandemic started.

Although it may not have seemed like it at the time — with social distancing, handwashing, and those suffocating face masks taking up all your attention — engineers have been hard at work changing our world as we know it.

While scientists and their fancy ideas often get most of the attention, engineers put those ideas into practice for real-world applications. So, as an homage to all engineers, including the Engineering Institute of Technology’s future innovators, here are some examples of how engineering has changed the way we do things in 2022 and beyond:

In what promises to be a new age of the stars and space exploration, the James Webb Space Telescope lit up 2022 with breathtaking images of the early universe after the Big Bang. The telescope has heralded a new era of astronomy and untold revelations about the cosmos in years to come.

And while lost in space, some other “out there” achievements included: NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) asteroid attack project, which may one day save Earth from collisions with world-ending space rocks, which took place in September 2022.

Also, since you may have missed the news because of the FIFA World Cup matches, one of the grand scientific projects of the 21st Century began its construction phase on Monday, 5 December.

AI art platform DALL•E2 is flipping the art world by creating images from text descriptions in seconds. The trending text-to-art platform allows anyone to generate pictures with a keyboard instead of a brush. Is it a coincidence that the platform name sounds like Salvadore Dali? One thing is for sure, DALL•E2 is one for the art world’s history books.

And if that’s not enough, the past year also witnessed artificial intelligence created by Facebook’s parent company Meta become the first to achieve “human-level performance” in an online strategy game. The Diplomacy game emphasizes natural language negotiation and tactical coordination among players.

The Candela P-12 Shuttle hydrofoil electric ferry will be the world’s fastest electric boat, with a speed of 30 knots. The boat rides on hydrofoils that lift it out of the water and consume less energy than typical boats. The City of Stockholm will take delivery of the first 30-passenger shuttle in 2023. The company is in talks with over 100 municipalities about water transportation solutions.

From space travel to flying cars, the latest mobile technology, and hydrogen innovation, engineers continue to lead the way in how our world adapts to current issues and moves into the future. And if the past year’s creations are anything to go by, we are ecstatic about what 2023 will bring!