Bottled water being poured onto a Fujitsu tablet.

Fujitsu showed off a whole new lineup of durable, waterproof Android devices.  Check out the video below!

MakerBot Industries designed this inexpensive machine to bring 3D printing into the home.

MakerBot Industries was a nominee for the CES Best In Show award from CNet for their inexpensive 3D Printer. Check out the printer in the video below!

Here’s a sneak peak of the One Laptop Per Child XO-3 Tablet.  Enjoy!

By Valeriy Vislobokov

Wernher Von Braun, the Nazi rocket scientist turned NASA mastermind, was the original precept of making a shuttle system as part of his “Von Braun Paradigm”: a shuttle system between the Earth and a space station would provide opportunities for frequent access to the moon via a space station-moon shuttle, which would provide frequent access to Mars via a Mars-Moon shuttle. The Space Shuttle would then have been the first leg of this journey. But a major bullet in Von Braun’s plan was that the moon and Mars must have been the ultimate goal, lest there be no drive for the Shuttle’s use.

Most will agree that Mars is a goal for humanity for no other reason than that it seems the obvious next step, but no one seems to have the political capital to step forward and declare it an official national goal in the same way President John F. Kennedy did, or perhaps it’s because JFK had the most bipartisan effort in the history of the United States behind him: the Cold War. With the Shuttle, it’s not so certain what the goal is; there are no landing strips on Mars, after all. From these beginnings, the scope of the STS program became cut from all directions, reducing both it’s versatility and ability. Few people know that the US Air Force had to step in to save the program by establishing criteria that would allow for military uses of the STS program in exchange for Department of Defense funding, further deteriorating the Space Shuttle’s to excel in specific areas.

In the end, because of these developments, the Shuttle fell far short of it’s goals in the most important areas, cost and safety, coincidentally the two areas most noticed by the public and the government officials that appropriate NASA. With the first leg of a very long journey costing billions per flight, who would want to invest in a moon base, or a second space station, or a footprint on Mars? So to make our next step forward, we need to take two steps back first, i.e. scrap the Shuttle. This year marked the last flight of the program, but it 30 years for us to finally make that step back. NASA gets both bipartisan support and apathy from it’s Congressional leadership, unless a Congressman’s home state happens to manufacture the parts for a particular NASA project. Since nobody’s home state is developing a new rocket and some home states are manufacturing the old rocket, only the old rocket gets support. It is very likely that if the 2003 Columbia accident didn’t occur, President George Bush would not have taken the initiative to end the program and take our next step, even if that next step is the Space Launch System (SLS), a rocket built almost completely out of old Shuttle parts.

By Valeriy Vislobokov

When’s the last time any of you have taken a look at your phone bill? Many of us are riding on family plans still tied to that of our parents’. Others typically ignore the cost of having access to everyone and everything at light speed and consider the convenience well worth the price. But regardless of the reason, as engineers and other masters of the technical sciences, we should take a closer look at the efficiency of paying for the different aspects of our cell phone services.

Let’s take a look at texting. When it boils down, texting, otherwise known as SMS, is a protocol from the 1990s no different from any other Instant Messaging (IM) protocol. The single discrepancy is that SMS was universally adopted by all the world’s wireless carriers. So why is the unlimited transmission of text, the simplest kind of data, costing us upwards of $20 a month?

The truth is that it shouldn’t. Simply transferring the use of your SMS plan to your data plan would eliminate that monthly fee, saving you hundreds of dollars a year. As many of you know, free texting services are widely available on the Internet, although many of them are riddled with advertising. Thankfully, Google has come to the rescue.

In a few easy steps, you can configure a Google Voice account to handle all of your unlimited texting needs. Please keep in mind that for this to work, you will need a smartphone that supports the Google Voice app, such as an iPhone, an Android phone, or a Blackberry. Additionally, to use texting from your phone, you will have to have access to either a wireless network (Wi-Fi) or a mobile 3G or 4G data plan. Even if you do not meet these criteria, you can still use all of your Google Voice features by using any computer with internet access.

The November issue is here, make sure to check it out! You can get your copy at our racks in Torgerson, Randolph, Patton, Squires (second floor), Owens dining hall, and Norris breezeway.

VT FIRE, or the Virginia Tech Foundry Institute for Research and Education, is a new program in the Materials Science Engineering Department.  The facilities, including a foundry room and two smaller labs, are housed at the Kroehling Advanced Materials Foundry off of Plantation Road.  Dr. Alan Druschitz is the capable, experienced director of the program.
At the foundry, which welcomes students of all majors and offers unique creative and technical opportunities for many, visitors can find an impressive array of equipment and artwork.  Along with a 3-D printer, an overhead crane, three state-of-the-art furnaces, a versatile spectrometer, and an enormous bonded sand mixer, the  foundry can boast excellent safety procedures, environmentally smart materials and practices, and an extremely effective air filtration system.
Already, VT FIRE has set and met many high standards, and the new program is still developing.  A minor in metallurgy is one of the more immediate goals at the moment.

A faculty member helps a student put on his safety equipment.

Find out more at www.mse.vt.edu/vtfire.

Molten aluminum in a lift- swing induction furnace.

By Joseph Pucci

One might think that ethics only applies to the medical professions, philosophical questions, or ironically, politicians. However, all professions, even engineers, have to deal with ethical dilemmas. Let us begin with the definition of ethics:  ”moral principles that govern a person’s or group’s behavior” (Oxford Dictionary, online). From this definition, one can assume that moral principles can be applied wherever a person or group is, and whatever that person or group does. However, as we all know, moral principles are not always applied.

Read more in our November issue!

By Kristin Sorenson

CEED has been working to fulfill its goals of promoting diversity in engineering, as well as providing support for all students in the field. The Center regularly hosts special learning programs and camps for future engineers, hosting students ranging from middle schoolers up to incoming college freshmen.

Virginia Tech and engineering go hand in hand. Nationally ranked, the university accommodates over 8,000 students in its prestigious engineering programs. Thanks to Tech’s rigorous academics and supportive student organizations, its engineers are properly equipped to achieve success in all their endeavors. CEED, the Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Diversity, is an organization at Tech which focuses on underrepresented groups in engineering. The Dean of the College of Engineering in 1992 came up with the idea of implementing such a program, and commissioned Dr. Bevlee Watford, now Director of CEED, to jumpstart it. A generous grant from the National Science Foundation provided the funding that has supported many of the programs that are now a part of this organization. Since then, CEED has been working to fulfill its goals of promoting diversity in engineering, as well as providing support for all students in the field. The Center regularly hosts special learning programs and camps for future engineers, hosting students ranging from middle schoolers up to incoming college freshmen. Sponsored by CEED are student-run organizations at Virginia Tech including the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, the National Society of Black Engineers, and the Society of Women Engineers. Each of these groups on campus also has a national presence, as they participate in nationwide conferences and events.

Read more in our November issue!