While taking an iPhone application course last fall, two computer engineering students, Sunny Dhillon and Fei Li, created UC Davis Mobile, a smartphone app designed for University of California Davis students and staff.

Among other things, using the app, students and staff can access the school’s email portal, find out when their team is playing, read the school paper and check when the next Unitrans bus will arrive.

According to Ken Joy, one of two professors who teach the iPhone application course on campus, the app has already been downloaded 2,000 times and plans to add more features are in the works this semester.

Read the complete article: http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2010/02/01/daily65.html

Learn more about computer engineering at www.GraduatingEngineer.com

Through their solar suitcases, the We Care Solar Club of Elk Grove, California is reaching out to the developing world.

Hal Aronson and his wife, Dr. Laura Stachel launched the solar suitcase program through their charity Women’s Emergency Communication and Reliable Energy. When high school engineering teacher, Tim McDougal attended a “solar schoolhouse” given by Aronson, he was convinced the suitcases would be a perfect engineering project for his class.

In turn, the students, hoping to make a difference, have taken on fund raising in addition to suitcase construction. They have raised money for and built two suitcases so far. The first will be sent to the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico next week.

Teacher, McDougal hopes to see the program in all Elk Grove schools next year and Dr. Stachel said a group of students in Colorado is also planning to join the project.

Photo by: Randall Benton / rbenton@sacbee.com

Learn more about the Elk Grove students and the solar suitcases: http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/2316027.html

www.GraduatingEngineer.com

In what’s being called “a developmental shift for Ford,” the motor company has given their Millennial audience a challenge. More specifically, Ford’s challenging computer and electrical engineering students from the University of Michigan to grow it’s in-car connectivity and communications-and-entertainment system, Sync.

Ford hopes that the same twenty-something audience they are reaching out to via social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, will bring cloud computing and social networking “to the dashboard.”

Read more about the American Journey 2.0 project and Sync development: http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/10/ford-michigan/

Photo: Mark Fields, Ford executive VP and president of the Americas, demonstrates Sync at the Detroit auto show in 2007. Courtesy Ford

www.GraduatingEngineer.com

As read in ScienceDaily :

Maple tree seeds (or samara fruit) and the spiraling pattern in which they glide to the ground have delighted children for ages and perplexed engineers for decades. Now aerospace engineering graduate students at the University of Maryland’s Clark School of Engineering have learned how to apply the seeds’ unique design to devices that can hover and perform surveillance in defense and emergency situations.

Read the full article here.

Photo by Evan Ulrich/A. James Clark School of Engineering, U-Md.

www.GraduatingEngineer.com

That’s right: concrete used as the building material for boats. It all happened in June when the American Society of Civil Engineers hosted its 22nd Annual National Concrete Canoe Competition. Though rain, thunder, and lightening were present, the competition went on at Lake Nicol in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Twenty-two top engineering colleges and universities entered the event, but the University of California, Berkeley pulled off the win.

The competition is for civil engineering students and provides them with a real-world application of the engineering principles they learn in the classroom. The competition also builds teamwork and project management skills and challenges the students’ knowledge, creativity, and stamina. Finally, the star of the show, the concrete itself, is proven as a useful and versatile building material.

In order to go to the competition, teams must qualify in one of the 18 conference competitions held around the country. Qualifying teams gain academic scholarships totaling $9,000. The winners of the national competitions are holders of the America’s Cup of Civil Engineering. This year, the competition changed a bit when organizers told teams they could only build hulls to the specifications and dimensions in the rule book. Working within limitations challenged students to think creatively on ways they could gain an advantage over other schools.

In their fifth win in the competition’s 22-year history, UC Berkeley took home the cup for the Bear Area, a 230-pound, 20-foot-long canoe. It was Berkeley’s first championship since 1992. The canoes that came the closest to overtaking the Bear Area were built by École de Technologie Supérieure in Montréal, Canada, and California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. ETS’s Vintage, weighing in at 190 pounds and 20 feet in length, came in second place. Following in third was Cal Poly’s 246-pound, 20-foot-long canoe, also christened the Vintage.

Photo: UC Berkeley’s entry in ASCE’s 21st Annual National Concrete Canoe Competition, Vocal, Photographer: Paul A. Hernandez