’

1
2
 GINEERSNOW
TEAM
Editor's
Note
Ems Bagatsing
Sales & Marketing Director
Ems@LincolnMartin.com
Robert Bagatsing
Editor-In-Chief
editor@GineersNow.com
Alice Hernandez
Senior Editor-At-Large
John Vauden
Senior Editor
Asia-Pacific The past several months have using the formula Distance = Rate x
feverishly gone by just like that. From Time, does it mean that we are moving at
Hina Sapra the months running up to the grand
launch, to the past several weeks of live
a remarkable speed?
At an astonishing speed we
Senior Editor operation, my editorial team and I have are moving indeed, as today, we have yet
South Asia been moving at such a frenetic pace, marked another milestone in our short
Therese Matheren keeping several plates turning, including
conceptualizing, revising and producing
history – the launch of GineersNow
magazine. What you are reading now is a
Senior Editor content, on top of responding to readers’ compendium of the 100 best stories that
North America questions and addressing feedback. we have featured in our website, written
We at the GineersNow team by our correspondents across Asia and
DionJunior
GregEditor
Reyes know that we are in for a herculean
pursuit of competing with the more es-
Australia. Our maiden issue banners
an exclusive one-on-one with Robert
tablished and wider reaching information Bagatsing, the Founder and Chief Giving
Cielo Panda portals. Though it is inevitable to com-
pete with them, that isn’t why we existed
Officer of GineersNow, as he shares the
history and the roadmap ahead of “the
Junior Editor for. At this point, we deem it best to stay online home of kickass engineers”. This
true to our avowed purpose, assume our issue also features select articles on a wide
Farrel Pinto own identity, and most of all, have fun
and exude fun.
range of engineering fields, including
electronics, bio-medical, chemical, in-
Junior Editor
Our work has been paying off dustrial, civil, mechanical and electrical,
RaymondJunior
Gerard del Valle thus far, as since “project GineersNow”
started several months ago, we have
to name a few. Our content covers an
extensive range of industries, among
Editor already hailed several milestones. Some- which are mining, oil & gas, aeronautics,
Abhishek Tarafder times, we catch ourselves asking: “Did we
actually achieve this?” I, as the Senior Ed-
renewables, robotics, IT, food, telecom-
munications and wearables.
Matrix Media itor, understand where this slight doubt We hope that you’ll enjoy read-
Information Technology comes from. More than doubt, however, ing our maiden issue, as much as we had
I think it is more of astonishment. But, fun creating it. On behalf of the entire ed-
Aiza King the engineers in us still try to make sense
of how far GineersNow have come in its
itorial team, I would like to thank you for
your support and in making the launch of
Creative & Layout several months of existence. “If we have GineersNow a resounding success. Now
already hailed several milestones in less that we have solved the Distance = Rate x
than a quarter of a year, does it mean Time conundrum, you think it’s time to
we have already covered an enormous tackle Force = Mass x Acceleration?
distance? With time being constant, and

GineersNow is a subsidiary of
Lincoln Martin Strategic Marketing
Level 14, Boulevard Plaza Tower 1
MBR Boulevard, Emaar Square, Alice Hernandez
Downtown Dubai, UAE Senior Editor-At-Large
P.O. Box 334036, Dubai, U.A.E.
Mob: +971 50 4289684
www.LincolnMartin.com

3
4
5
6
 COVER STORY

GINEERSNOW:
A KICKASS STORY
The Inspiration

T
here’s a new information
portal whose following is
snowballing as we speak.
Earlier this year, GineersNow,
a professed news platform
for badass engineers, was
publicly launched with relatively conser-
vative expectations. Venturing into a sea
of seemingly endless stream of online
information, driven by a small team of
budding engineer writers and designers,
and armed with almost nothing but inno-
vation, passion and vision, GineersNow
sailed in January, treading slowly and
steadily, but training its sight on never
going back to shore.
The impact that GineersNow
has made astounded its audience, and
even, admittedly, the team behind it.
Spurred by creative content, engaging
stories, gripping open debates and in-
novative interaction platforms, Gineer-
sNow’s following on Facebook alone has Robert, the brains behind GineersNow,
grown to more than 140,000 in a little fondly describes himself as a man learned
over a month, with its popularity rippling in Manila, formed in Dubai, fortified in
through other social media platforms, as Boston and inspired by the world.
well as its proprietary website, www.Gi- Using his expertise in Market-
neersNow.com, which now enjoys almost ing and his belief in the power of CSR,
30,000 page views. Amidst fierce com- Robert headed the formation of Lincoln
petition in the digital publishing sphere, Martin Strategic Marketing (LMSM), a
GineersNow was able to immediately purpose-driven strategic marketing agency.
carve a niche for itself, and command an “I started LMSM to teach my five-year-old
engaged following. son, Lincoln, the golden values in life,” said
Though utterly pleased with Robert. He envisioned that LMSM would
the initial success of GineersNow, its help the poor, especially young students, by
Founder and Chief Giving Officer, Robert being a vehicle through which companies
Bagatsing, does not plan on resting on its could contribute and provide financial
laurels. He recognizes that the key to con- support to poor areas in Asia and Africa.
tinued success is constant re-invention, “We created LMSM to be able to provide
consistent differentiation, and loyalty to classrooms and scholarships to those who
one’s avowed purpose. deserve it. It’s truly a social innovation.”
In this exclusive interview, LMSM gave Robert and his
Robert lets us into the story of Gineer- team a consistent stream of revenue and
sNow, and into how he, together with emotional profit, which he described as
his team and community of “engineers overwhelming. “I wanted to replicate the
with a social purpose”, plans to write its success of LMSM in a more targeted envi-
successive chapters. ronment,” said Robert, explaining that one
way he thought of carrying this out was by
creating a dedicated online platform for a
“marginalized” sector.
Backed by a team of young and
passionate engineer writers, social media
experts and designers, and supported by his
family and friends, Robert thus embarked
on creating GineersNow.

7
Why Engineers?
From Robert’s extensive experience in the
energy and industrial sectors, he realized
that there was a notable deficiency in
engineering stories that actually zero in on
the engineers themselves. “Engineers are
the real heroes of this world, so I wonder
why they have not been given (by the
media) the attention that they deserve,”
said Robert. He admitted that there was an
abundance of engineering-related stories,
but most of them focused on products and
processes. “It think it’s time that the world
hears the ‘real’ stories of the engineers
behind the engineering marvels: their lives,
struggles, failures, learnings and successes.”
Robert believed that by telling the stories
of engineers, especially the young ones,
GineersNow could inspire other engineers
to strive amidst difficulties and celebrate
their triumphs, and move young students
to specialize in engineering-related fields
and make a difference.
GineersNow has been successful
in its pursuit to communicate to young
engineers, as most of its followers are 18-35
years old.
The Internet,
Native Advertising
and Hybrid
Social Enterprise
GineersNow differentiates itself from other
online news platform not only through
its targeted audience, but also through its
marketing and business models.
The continuous decline in the
consumption of printed media prompted
the team behind GineersNow to anchor it
on the Internet. “I remember a case study
that we took up when I was still in Harvard:
It was about the competition between
online and traditional media, the Hubspot
and New York Times paywall,” said Robert,
explaining that the study had revealed print
media would gradually fade as a medium
of education and information dissemina-
tion. “The revenue of print magazine and
newspapers will dwindle because of the
Internet. In 10-20 years, we’ll be seeing less
newspapers in the stands.”
GineersNow veers away from
anything conventional, even in advertising.
Traditional advertising is characterized by
pushing the ads in front of the readers, even
though they did not ask for it. Called “in-
terruption marketing”, this kind of invasive
advertising is now in decline. Harvard case
studies attributed this drop to the rise of
mobile technology, increase of ad blockers,
and decrease in TV spending habits and
of consumers’ affinity to print media. “You
go to Starbucks and you will no longer
see people reading newspapers; they hold
a coffee cup and read their social media
updates,” said Robert.
Instead of “interruption mar-
keting”, GineersNow swears by “native
advertising” as a means of making profit.
Dubbed as a non-intrusive and inbound
marketing approach, Robert explained that
the native advertising model would allow
the customers to organically find Gineer-
sNow’s contents and the contents of its ad-
vertisers. “We are able to organically attract
attention, without interrupting our reader’s
flow of activity. When the content is funny,
inspiring or really compelling, it will be
shared on social media and eventually go
viral.”
As a hybrid social enterprise, Gi-
neersNow consequently channels its profits
towards socially beneficial causes. “Amass-
ing revenue is not our main objective,” said
Robert, adding that GineersNow aimed
to help build engineering schools in Asia
and Africa. “We don’t aim to profit only to
make ourselves richer. We want to pour
GineersNow’s earnings into helping com-
munities by building schools, and sharing
information on the advantages and benefits
of engineering. We hope that by doing this,
we can inspire young students to choose
engineering as a field of specialization. We
believe that it will not only give them better
opportunities for self-improvement, it will
open roads for them to make a real differ-
ence in their families, communities and in
the world.”
In the next few months, the
GineersNow team aims to convert its
audience into a socially driven engineer-
ing community. “I think the best way to
describe it is that we are creating a com-
munity of young engineers with a social
purpose, empowered by a social innovation
movement that is making a difference in
the engineering world.” After building
engineering schools, the GineersNow team
deems to invite engineers to volunteer and
teach engineering subjects to poor commu-
nities, invent ways to electrify remote villag-
es, create portable desalination systems to
promote access to drinking water, and pos-
sibly re-purpose wastewater for agricultural
use. “If you have a community of socially
driven engineers, we can make this world a
better place. And possibly, inspire others to
do the same.”
8
Building a
Community of
Engineers with a
Social Purpose
Robert ascribed the early success of Gineer-
sNow to social media platforms, particular-
ly Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram
and Google+, which he described as allies
to amplifying the presence of the website.
He also credited the creative
team behind GineersNow’s social media
sites for producing unique, engaging posts,
which includes GN Bot and Engineer-
ing Debates. GN Bot is the young robot
engineer that “answers” questions from
the readers. His “knowledge” spans from
affairs of the heart to the latest engineering
technologies. Engineering Debates, on the
other hand, allows GineersNow’s followers
to offer their insights on the latest issues
concerning the engineering and allied
industries.
“Aside from GN Bot and our
weekly debates, we have introduced a lot
of unique content in the past 30 days,” said
Robert. Trawling GineersNow’s social me-
dia pages, one can see contents like “Fash-
ioneering”, which talks about the fusion of
fashion and wearable technologies. There
is also “Kitcheneering”, which features how
industrial engineers and IT professionals
are pioneering IoT kitchen products. Then,
there’s “Life of an Engineer”, which revolves
around engineers-turned-chefs or other
career shifts. “All of these stories are inspira-
tional, funny and really compelling to read,”
said Robert.
Owing to a sweet mix of aggres-
sive, consistent marketing and quality con-
tent, GineersNow’s social media pages have
attracted an exponentially growing number
of followers, majority of which come from
the Eastern hemisphere. GineersNow’s
social media success drives notable traffic to
its website.
The Next Chapters
GineersNow’s initial success is nothing
short of encouraging, and the team behind
it has the highest hopes for its future. “We
are looking to expand GineersNow’s geo-
graphic and demographic reach. We have
originally developed our platform to cater
to the Eastern hemisphere, from Dubai to
Shanghai, but I think that in the near future,
we will pursue the Western market as well.”
As GineersNow becomes an established
news media outlet, the team also plans
to produce an “offshoot” to the Medical,
Finance and Civil Service industries. “We
will use the same business model for those.
We hope to see them online by 2022.”
Robert also explained that
there would be more to GineersNow than
just sharing engineering news. “In a few
months,” he said, “we will shift our platform
from an engineering news magazine to
building an online community that aims to
connect people from different engineering
industries and fields of expertise.”
The GineersNow team is also
training its sight into making the portal
a crowdfunding platform that will allow
engineers promote their ideas to the public
to attract funding for their projects. “We
are all aware that most young engineers
have so many new ideas. The realization Creating a
of these ideas into innovative products are
being curtailed by the lack of funding. If we
can connect our advertisers, friends or big
Social Movement
Though a relatively new entrant, Gineer-
companies with these young engineers, we sNow has already successfully distin-
would be able to create an impressive array guished itself from the competition. From
of social innovation products that could its fun, engaging content, to its marketing
change the lives of millions. Imagine the and business models, to its fidelity to
endless possibility of creating meaningful
products for humanity? GineersNow will be its avowed purpose, GineersNow has
like a matchmaking or dating site between indubitably forged an identity of its own.
young engineers and the engineering com- “Everyone at GineersNow is trying to cre-
munity.” ate a ‘social movement’,” said Robert. “We
It is also exploring the possibility aim to make engineering accessible to the
of adding features to GineersNow to allow poor, break engineering stereotypes and
young professionals and hiring companies encourage young students to be involved
to connect. “On the one hand, we have the in the field. We want to change lives one
engineers; on the other, there are companies
who might want to hire these engineers and engineering story at a time. In fact it is
collaborate online. Again, GineersNow be- not just stories we are writing; we are
ing a matchmaking or dating site will come writing history.”
in handy in connecting young engineers
and engineering companies.”
Robert said that he and his team
want the business model of GineersNow to
be “open-source”; that means other com-
panies will be free to emulate it. “I believe
that the model can be replicated by other
start-up companies.”
9
 Imagine
a world
without
engineers.

10
 by Cielo Panda
I
magine. What would our world be like
without engineers? Pretty normal?
Would the world be the same? Oh come
on, this world may not even be livable
without engineers. Imagine, if there were
no Engineers, there would be no one to
design the bridges you drive through. If
there were no engineers, there would be
no cars. If there were no engineers there
would be no video game designers to support your
lazy-ass games. If there were no engineers how
could you even “like” this post from the internet?
Better yet, if there were no engineers, there would
be no electricity in your area right now. I bet
you didn’t realize, but almost every mechanical,
electrical, structural body in your house or even
neighborhood is run by engineers.
Engineering is one of the broadest fields
of Science. It is subdivided into many divisions
such as Civil Engineering, Chemical Engineering,
Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Agricul-
tural Engineering and the list goes on and on. The
responsibilities of an engineer is undeniably very
crucial in any part of the world. Unfortunately
since it is the broadest, it is also one of the most
difficult to understand. A lot of people don’t even
know exactly what an engineer does, and this
results in a shortage of people studying this field of
Science.
The pictures on the right may be a bit too
farfetched, but they speak for themselves. But if en-
gineering really has an important role in our world,
then why are the number of people studying them
getting lesser and lesser? There are a lot of factors
that are inducing the shortage of engineers in our
world. First is the most common, people don’t
really understand what an engineer does. Some
people even think that engineers are the people
11
responsible for repairing vending machines. Some
children think engineers are the people who drive
“choo-choo” trains. These ideas were instilled onto
a lot of people as kids. But if students, especially
high school students are properly guided by their
professors on what engineering really is and, what
the different roles of engineers are in the commu-
nity, then they would have a better understanding
of what the engineering field is all about. Who
knows they might want to take an engineering
course in the university.
Another reason why people don’t invest
themselves in the field of engineering is because, it
doesn’t make you rich fast enough. A lot of people
Lyon Sprague DeCamp once said,
“The story of civilisation is, in a
sense, the story of engineering -
that long and arduous struggle to
make the forces of nature work for
man’s good.”
would rather spend their time taking up their
MBA’s and open up a business. After all, business is
the fastest way to make money.
Engineering is definitely a necessary
profession in every part of the world. If people
would understand the scope of engineering and its
effect to our world today, there might not be any
shortages. Engineers nowadays need to be given
the right credit they deserve, so they themselves
see their worth and importance as engineers.
SpaceX’s Hyperloop
Pod Competition
Travelling in vacuum tubes may sound
like science fiction. It is very futuristic
and a head start towards building smart
cities and high tech suburbs. Really, it
is just something you can just watch in
movies.
But now, it’s getting real.
From a 57-page concept
paper proposed by SpaceX and Tesla
Motors CEO Elon Musk in 2013, com-
panies are now invested to construct
and demonstrate a test run of the
Hyperloop this 2016. The Hyper-
loop Transportation Technologies
recently announced its signed
agreements to partner with
Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum and
Aecom, an engineering design
firm. All companies will share its
expertise in engineering design
Photo Credit:
Blog Automobile
Hyperloop Passenger Capsule Subsystem Notional Locations (Photo Source: Pinterest)
12
and construction in exchange for stock
options in the company. The teams
will consist of engineers and scientists
from NASA, Boeing, SpaceX and Tesla
moonlighting in the said Hyperloop
project.
As per the project, the
company aims to create a transpor-
tation system running faster than the
speed of light at a potential of 760 mph.
HTT bought a land field last year in
Quay Valley for the construction of
the Hyperloop. It aims to connect the
HTT’s test track to the nearby solar
powered concept city being built in
King’s County in California as its main
transportation system. The test track
will be 5 miles long and will take 8 min-
utes travel time to the concept city. The
release date will be at the end of 2016.
Also, this year, SpaceX an-
nounced its pod prototype Hyperloop
competition opened to engineering
students and other research entities
to be tested on a 1-mile track near its
headquarters in Hawthorne, California.
The target testing will be held in sum-
mer this year. According to their web-
site, though their aim is not to develop a
commercial Hyperloop for themselves,
SpaceX are interested in assisting and
accelerating the development of a
functional Hyperloop prototype.
Another Hyperloop com-
pany, called Hyperloop Technologies, is
also setting its own tracks for testing in
the California desert.
Seriously, the tube transpo is
really happening.
 Photo Credit: Sanal Ulke

22 Teams PROCEED
TO Prototype Testing
IN CALIFORNIA

H
yperloop Technologies Inc.
proudly announced that as a
sponsor of the SpaceX Hyperloop
Pod Design Weekend January 29-
30 at Texas A&M, they will offer
$150,000 in prize money to teams
who present the strongest design concepts.
Hyperloop Tech will work with the select-
ed teams to provide resources and offset
the costs of building the pod in support of
student innovation in engineering.
After deliberate judging, more
than 115 students engineering teams rep-
resenting 27 U.S. states and 20 countries
were trimmed down to 22 to advance in
the next stage of the SpaceX’s Hyperloop
Pod Competition. The selected teams will
head to California this summer to test
their design prototype at the world’s first
Hyperloop Test Track.
Important criteria were consid-
ered to select the qualifiers: innovation
and uniqueness of design, full Hyperloop
system applicability and economics, level
of design detail, strength of supporting
analysis and test, feasibility for test tract
competition, and quality of documentation
and presentation.
BEST OVERALL DESIGN AWARD:
MIT Hyperloop Team, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
POD INNOVATION AWARD:
Delft Hyperloop, Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands)
POD TECHNICAL EXCELLENCE AWARD:
Badgerloop, University of Wisconsin-Madison
POD TECHNICAL EXCELLENCE AWARD:
Hyperloop at Virginia Tech, Virginia Tech
POD TECHNICAL EXCELLENCE AWARD:
HyperXite, University of California Irvine
News
oops
ource:
The H
S
Photo
WINNING TEAMS
MIT Hyperloop Team, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
rLoop (non-student team)
uWaterloo Hyperloop, University of Waterloo
UWashington Hyperloop, University of Washington
University of Toronto, University of Toronto
RUMD Loop, University of Maryland and Rutgers University
GatorLoop, University of Florida
Team HyperLynx, University of Colorado-Denver
Hyperloop UC, University of Cincinnati
UCSB Hyperloop, University of California-Santa Barbara
bLoop, University of California-Berkeley
TAMU Aerospace Hyperloop, Texas A&M
WARR Hyperloop, Technical University of Munich (Germany)
Purdue Hyperloop Design Team, Purdue University
Codex, Oral Roberts University
Lehigh Hyperloop, Lehigh University
Keio Alpha, Keio University
Drexel Hyperloop, Drexel University
Carnegie Mellon Hyperloop, Carnegie-Mellon University
13
Photo Source: New Mobile Life
E N V I R O N M E N TA L E N G I N E E R I N G
Water-Droplet Operated Computer
Just add water to make your computer work.
W
ater and a computer can be an
unusual combination. However, an
assistant professor of Bioengineering
in Stanford, along with his students,
has invented a synchronous com-
puter that works on the principle
of moving droplets of water. These computers are
being produced in such a way that they will be able
to control as well as manipulate physical matter.
The group of engineers has been working
on this project for almost a decade now. The idea
of creating such computers came to Manu Prakash
during his graduation. The dynamics of the fluid
droplet manipulates the basic element of computer
science.
The computer performs the same
functions as that of a normal electronic computer.
Nevertheless, it is comparatively slow. Though, this
is not included in the list of goals of the developers.
The primary aim is to concentrate on the physical
dimension and not on the fragments of informa-
tion.
14
The all-new computer chip has been
based on the rotating magnetic fields and a type of
maze of glass for small single droplets that is incul-
cated with the magnetic field. Each movement of
the rotating magnetic field mobilizes the droplets
of liquid in a proposed direction. In a binary code,
the presence of a water droplet is regarded as 1.
These first generation chips are very
minute in size. They’re almost half the size of
available postage stamps. In fact the water droplets
are smaller than the size of the poppy seeds. The
engineers encourages anyone who are interested in
trying out their new invention. They also want to
enable people who want to design new circuits that
are based on their start-up building blocks.
Opening this technology to the public,
can open doorways for new technologies that can
spring up. These new technologies can lead to
different new understandings that may or may not
make the world a better place.

E L E C T RO - M E C HA N IC A L E NG I N E E R I NG
Real-Life
As the song goes “What
doesn’t kill you makes you
stronger”. This line can be
related to Wayan Sumardana,
a 31-year old welder by trade
from Bali, Indonesia, who
was able to innovate some-
Iron Man
thing amazing despite his
social status and having just
survived a mild stroke.
Wayan, or Tawan
as people call him, was able
to make a bionic arm from
scratch using only tools and
scrap metals from his work-
shop.
Tawan’s arm was left para-
Photo Source: Blogger Reporter lyzed after he suffered from a
mild stroke. Being his family’s
breadwinner, he had to find a
way to be able to work. Using
15
Photo Source: We Reblog
his enthusiasm and some
knowledge in electrical engi-
neering, he was able to create
his own mind-controlled
bionic arm.
He can transmit
signals from his head to his
bionic arms, so it can work
like a real arm.
According to Tawan, his ma-
chine works like a lie detector.
Electrodes are attached to his
scalp, wherein it takes signals
from his head. The signals are
them amplified then analyzed
in the micro-control on his
back, then will be transmitted
to his bionic arm.
“I want to motivate
people who have strokes.”
Tawan said.
 CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
Invisible
Lightweight
Materials Soon
To Be A Reality
Photo Source: Plastic Material
A
n 29-year old Iranian researcher,
Dr. Mohsen Esmaily, at Chalmers
University in Sweden has recently
made a breakthrough in magnesium
lightweight materials that could
pave way to creating invisible ma-
terials. He has been awarded with the prestigious
scientific prize by the Royal Swedish Academy
of Engineering Sciences for his breakthrough
in magnesium alloys. His research could greatly
impact the future of materials science as the back-
bone of every industrialized nation science and
important to developing countries. According to
the Dr. Esmaily, saving our resources is of utmost
importance as we now experience climate change
and depleting environmental resources. Manufac-
turing lighter components is an effective way to
reduce uses of our resources and prevent further
carbon emissions.
His results in magnesium alloys
demonstrate possible microstructural design
improvements for enhanced properties such as
the invisibility effect. It is related to the interac-
tion of light and the material and producing such
‘metamaterials’ through nanotechnology. Now, it is
possible to control the bending of light in the ma-
terials. Imagine those invisible laptops and phones
in the coming decade, he says. There has been an
emerging arena in research to create lightweight
materials around the globe in the last decade.
Countries like the UK, the USA, Germany and
Japan are also undertaking major national research
in this area.
C H E M I CCAHLEEMNI G
Optical Brush Takes
Images Without Lenses
Photo Source: Universal Sci
MIT scientists develop the Optical Brush, through bundles of fibers immersed in pipes and liquids
to image oil fields without risking watertight housing damages.
M
IT scientists devel-
oped a new imaging
device that consists
of bundles of fibers
through pipes im-
mersed in fluids. This
can image oil fields, aquifers and plumbing
without risking damages to watertight
housings. These bundles of fibers can yield
narrow endoscopes that would not need
additional electronics.
The fibers are connected to an array of
photo sensors at one end and the another
left wave free to pass through micro meter
scale gaps in porous membrane and
get image on other side. By measuring
different times at which bursts of light is
photo detected, the device can identify the
relative locations of the fiber.
The commercial type will have these
bursts of lights calibrated within the fibers
while the prototype, with 1,100 fibers
16
C IANLE E R I N G
measuring 300 micrometer in diameter,
used external laser source and can pro-
duce 33 by 33 pixels. Time of flight, was
the technique used by the group and has
never been used in other things according
to Barmak Heshmat, the work leader and
author from MIT.
The device is further develop to extend
its imaging capabilities such as extracting
depth information and getting positions at
different arrival time interval of the lights
from the fiber. As of now it can produce
2D map positions of the fibers tips and can
potentially unscramble image captured by
conventional camera.
Other scientists like Keisuke Goda, a
professor chemist, says that it can be
useful for intestine endoscopy as it can
propel in complex structure. Definitely, it
is an interesting and innovative computa-
tional imaging that could be used in many
aspects.
 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING

Doodling Your Circuits That Easy

B
ased on personal experi-
ence, I certainly had a hard
time taking up my electrical
engineering elective where
in I struggled visualizing
circuit analysis and solving
circuit problems. Branches,
nodes and loops would just scramble in my
head. Then I get lost where to apply Kirchoff ’s
Law, Ohm’s Law and Thevenin’s Theory etc.
But with this cool pen, I think students would
learn electronics faster and easier. Goodbye,
breadboards!
Elektroniks, a start-up company
from University of Illinois, creates Circuit
Scribe, a roller pen with conductive silver
ink for STEM education. It is a project based
learning where in students can build circuits
and switches in their notebooks by just
drawing lines. You can even create low-cost
high quality electronics with just papers, LED,
small batteries and clips.
It comes in different kits and tools
starting at a price of $20 per Circuit Scribe
pen. Basic kits cost $30 packed with basic
components like LED magnetic sensor and
boards, resistors, capacitors and switches. 
More advanced learning kits range at $50-
$5000 from classroom to developer levels.
Add on tools can be also bought per piece.
The project was launched in Kickstarter and
has garnered a lot of pledges and backers.
Circuit Scribe has indeed attracted a lot of
people from the STEM field. Now, it can be
ordered through the Elektroniks and Kick-
starter websites and can be shipped anywhere
in the world. Definitely, this is a must-have for
electronics students and beginners. Doodle
your circuits and learn that easy!

Photo Sources
Top: The Hindu
Bottom: Crowd Supply

17
 F A S HDI E
OSNI EGENR I N G
“ Over the last year I
started taking coding
classes and realized
how creative coding
truly is. Similar to
dance and fashion,
coding is a form of
self-expression. It's
a way to turn a cool
”
innovative idea to a
product, website, app,
tool or experience.
Karlie Kloss:
the SUPERMODEL
CODER
by Alice Hernandez
Y
ou may have seen her in a Taylor Swift music
video or passed by the magazine stand and
see her face on the covers of different popular
magazines such as Vogue but there is more to
this supermodel extraordinaire than having
a pretty face and a body most women would
love to have.
She’s Karlie Kloss. Currently at the top of the
modeling game and making a difference in her attempts
to help fund meals for starving children all over the
world, Kloss also has cool hobbies we never expected
her to have. These hobbies include ballet and baking
cookies. Check out her instagram feed. She really likes
to bake. But what makes this 23-year-old cooler is her
love for coding.
Yes! The supermodel, who walks in couture
gowns for different brands and became a household
name for strutting her stuff in the Victoria’s Secret Fash-
ion Show, pursues her passion for coding. Normally,
models quit school just to pursue modeling – Kloss did
the opposite. Kloss just proves that models shouldn’t
just focus on their looks but also on their brains.
She initially took a crash course in coding
and found herself in love with it. Later on, we see her
talking about coding like it’s one of her obsessions.
Last September 2015, she enrolled herself in NYU’s
Gallatin School of Individualized Study. When she
graced the cover of British Vogue last December 2015,
she discussed her love for coding: “Call me a nerd, but I
love coding, the language of computers. Understanding
coding is a superpower. I met some tech entrepreneurs
and they are billionaires through learning this stuff. I’m
so competitive with myself and I am fascinated by the
language of technology so I decided to be part of the
conversation… I think it’s sexy to learn this stuff; it en-
COMPUTER
by Alice Hernandez
ables and it empowers both sexes. About two years ago
I started to think about what happens to me next. I’m
a 23-year-old model and I want to think less about my
looks and more about my future, and that involves my
brain. I want to run companies, have a business future.”
Knowing that she can’t bank on her looks
alone, she’ll use her coding skills to build an empire in
the future. Isn’t that an amazing role model for all the
younger kids out there? Speaking of being a good role
model, Kloss is also inspiring young girls to code. With
millions of followers in her social media accounts, she Photo Source: Pinterest
uses it to let the public know the importance of coding
in today’s society. Now, she wants other women to fol-
low her footsteps. In an interview with The Guardian,
she expresses her opinion on the matter: “I think it’s
crucial that young women learn to code as early as pos-
sible to ensure that we as young women have a voice
and a stake in what the world looks like.” Last year, she
offered scholarship to 21 young girls between the ages
of 13 and 18 in her Kode for Karlie Scholarship. This is
in collaboration with Flatiron School. For two weeks,
21 girls were luck enough to immerse themselves in
the world of coding for two weeks with other young
coding enthusiasts.
Through the supermodel’s enthusiastic
posts about her love for coding, this will encourage
younger women to pursue a career in computer
science. This will allow an opportunity to address the
gender inequality issue in the workplace. Isn’t Kloss’
coding advocacy a refreshing view from all the other
shallow posts from other social media ‘it’ girls? We’re
hoping that the supermodel will inspire young women
to develop their brains instead of doing shallow things
just to get a few likes on their social media accounts.
18
 A
long straight stage can be a boring place

Using a
for a model to show off her clothes. The
clothes may be gorgeous but without
an interesting background, the fashion
show wouldn’t be very memorable
for an industry that thrives on the

Gemasolar
ever-constant changes of the trends. So,
this model wants her fashion show to
be an event people would talk about – not just
in the fashion industry but also to everyone who

Thermosolar Plant
supports the green energy movement.
Meet Jessica Minh Anh. She’s a mod-
el, entrepreneur and a fashion show producer,
who transforms popular places into phenomenal
catwalks. She has made catwalks out of places

as the Runwayby Alice Hernandez

such as the Eiffel Tower, One World Trade Cen-
ter, Petronas Twin Towers and Londons Tower
Bridge.
What an awesome way to make a
mark in the fashion world. For her 10th year in
making extravagant productions, she chose the
famous Gemasolar Thermosolar Plant in Seville,
Spain. Who would have thought that this power
plant can be made into an awesome cinematic
backdrop for the J Summer Fashion Show 2015.
Wearing a red flamenco dress, Minh
Anh strut the catwalk located in the main road
at the center of the power plant, followed by
other models wearing maxi dresses. The show’s
audience sat on both sides of the catwalk while
drones flew around on top. These drones filmed
the whole show and featured how the sunlight
gives a stunning effect on the power plant’s
surroundings.
Thanks to Jessica Minh Anh’s catwalk
stint last July 2015, it inspired other people in the
creative world to pay attention to green energy as
well. In an interview, Minh Anh how Gemasolar
inspired her to take her extravagant show to this
power plant: “Gemasolar took my breath away. It
represents a rare modern beauty, which sees the
best of designs and sustainability efforts in one
place. I would consider this show my most chal-
lenging yet exciting project so far.” With Minh
Anh’s ambitious creative side, where will she take
her fashion show next? Would it also involve the
theme of renewable energy in her next projects?

Photo Source: jessicaminhanh via tumblr

19
Photo Source: jessicaminhanh via tumblr Photo Source: jessicaminhanh via tumblr
BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING

Lucy McRae’s
Body Architecture
Experiments
by Farrel Pinto

T
he physique of our human body is one of the
most grotesque creations ever made. From
the strands of our DNA in our cells up to our
outer epidermis, everything has sophisticated
structure. Honed symmetrical and function-
al, it is no doubt a vast field of intertwining
studies and gray areas. The perceptions of the human
body indeed is in a continuum of constructs and
relationships. Leonardo Da Vinci once incorporated
the beauty and architecture of the body through the
Vitruvian Man understanding its physical design.
Gregor Mendel with his study of genetics for charac-
teristics and traits. Charles Darwin for the theory of
evolution tracing our primitive origins and plotting
physiological changes over time. These all muster
to the different kinds of appreciation about what
human body is.
But what about trying to augment what
it already is? To encompass enhancement and per-
petuate the value of its functions, life in general? If
we conceptualize that our body is a manipulable cre-
ation, then it can be a technological tool for further
enhancements and innovations. Technology has now
provided earphones as the ear, the camera as the eye,
the cellular phones for the communication and other
useful advancements. Such relationship transcends
the differences and functions of what our body can
do and could do further. Let us take the perspective
of a unique ‘Body Architect’ on how she expresses
the relationship of technology and the human body.
Lucy McRae, a body architect as she calls herself, is
a featured TED speaker who works at Philips Elec-
tronics in the far-future design research lab. She is
a trained ballerina with an architecture and fashion
background. She fused the biological, technological
and philosophical fields forging a distinct job and
futuristic goals for the human body. She talks about
extending the links of what our body can do, how
certain visual imagery could do human evolution and
exploring its coexistence with technology. It’s more
Photos Source: Lucy McRae
of trying to move forward and reverting at the same
time in enhancing our body. To provide a redefini-
tion of our body functions as well is one mode of her
projects and creations.

20
 BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING

Lucy McRae’s Vacuum Case Experiment

Photo Source: Lucy McRae

A
n invention she made was the swallowable
perfume. It is a cosmetic pill that would
perspire out fragrance from the skin once
consumed. She fascinates the way how Lucy McRae
human attracts partners being reverted like
animals to communicate through their own
odor. Thus, making the human body also
an atomizer itself. It fastens the expression of human
emotions through digitized and enhanced body
function such as that of the skin.
Similar projects she has also initiated
embodies the adaptive function of our body through
vacuum cases. It has been inspired by the NASA
preparation for astronauts going outer space. It is
a futuristic spa prepping the body for zero gravity
and deep pressure. Participants undergoing the Photo Source:
prepping experience reduced tension and anxiety by Lucy McRae
dilating body senses as they are encased in a vacuum
chamber. The device can be also used to treat autism,
depression and other physiological disorders.
Definitely, one could marvel out discov-
eries and innovations from our bodies if we started Lucy McRae is a trained classical ballerina and
inside out. Appreciating the functionalities and an architect who considers herself as a Body
aesthetics first idealizes how things will progress. And Architect, a science artist and a trailblazer,
through technology, we enhanced each part and then who started her artistic study of technology at
the whole body providing new and protracted capa-
bilities. There are countless of possibilities and ideas Philips Design. She now leads the company’s
if we open our minds to the synergies of technology far-future research lab and conducts creative
and the nature of our human body. Who knows? Just innovations on human body archetype
like Lucy McRae, we can redesign a human body that through science and fashion technological
does not age, a body that lives triple times the average projects.
life span today or a self-healing body. We could bring
in different worlds. Wouldn’t it be exciting?

21
 4D TECHNOLOGY
Photo Source: Twitter
Photo Source: DigitaltTrends
Photo Source: Live Science
Shapeshifting
4D Technology
E
ver wondered what 4D
technology looks like?
Well, it’s pretty much like
3D plus another dimen-
sion: time.
Research from Harvard
University has found a way for a
3D-printed flower to shapeshift
while being immersed in water.
It is 4D-printed hydrogel com-
posite structure that is the shape
of an orchid, which is printed in
a single step but in a modified
print path.
Hydrogel composites
contain cellulose fibrils, an
organic compound found in
plants. It solidifies quickly upon
22
printing but changes its shape
with the cellulose fibrils.
It comes from the idea
of developing an object, espe-
cially that of nature, the way
plants reacts to external stim-
uli like sun or rain. It was the
brainchild of the scientists from
Wyss Institute for Biologically
Inspired Engineering and the
Harvard John A Paulson School
of Engineering and Applied
Siences.
This groundbreaking
research is funded by the US
Army Research Office and the
Materials Research Science and
Engineering Center.
OPINION
AN ARCHITECT’S DREAM IS
A CIVIL ENGINEER’S NIGHTMARE
by Dion Greg Reyes
I
t has been a well-debated topic to whoever
has a more complicated job, or which
one is better: architects or civil engineers.
While to answer which one is better is
quite an unsound thought, it is safe to say
that civil engineers have a more compli-
cated job. I will say all these according to
my biases because I am a civil engineer and I have
experienced firsthand how difficult it is in the con-
struction industry to implement what architects do.
Civil engineers might as well agree with
on this one: an architect’s dream is a civil engineer’s
nightmare. To be able to fully understand that
expression, we have to know what architects and civil
engineers do. What architects essentially do is control
and innovate the overall aesthetics of a building or
structure. They study and focus on the aesthetic
principles of design and push its limits when it comes
to layout; they think outside of the box to provide
the most appealing structures according to form and
function, and also to local laws that will affect their
design. it will be a riot. Others say that civil engineers can
That’s the scary part: when architects think
outside of the box, civil engineers might as well hide
in that box. Civil engineers are basically the builders
of the structures that architects put in construction
plans. We make sure that what the architects want
will be constructed according to their specifications.
Armed with technical knowledge and planning, we
have to find ways to make them work considering all
construction and structural codes necessary. It will
need several engineering laws to be followed that are
deep-rooted in math and in physics for the structure
to serve mankind for a long time. It will require
computations to prove that the structure is safe to be
23
constructed and feasible. This cannot be done by ar-
chitects because, as the good old joke goes, architects
are civil engineers who cannot do math.
Apart from the feasibility of the design of
the architects, civil engineers also deal with problems
on how to construct them in real life. Every single
item on the plan must be followed – each material,
dimensions, and location– which were mostly as-
signed by the architects. Civil engineers supervise the
construction work, as we have the knowledge of what
should be done to accomplish a building or a struc-
ture and what kind of building methods and practices
should be done. Perhaps there is already a grasp now
what it means to say that an architect’s dream is a
civil engineer’s nightmare; when the imagination of
architects go wild, civil engineers themselves go wild
in providing how such imagination can become real.
There would not be so much of a problem
if the two can meet halfway: an architect can be free
to design a structure with the permission of a civil
engineer that the structure can be built. Otherwise,
become architects on their own by having the right
amount of imagination. While that can be true, we
might end up having curve-less structures everything
will just be straight lines as that is an easier task for
civil engineers to prove to be feasible and easier to
construct. That is the reason why civil engineers and
architects need to have the collaboration in producing
structures that will serve the next generation. It isn’t
about who is better than the other, but about what
each one can contribute to accomplish a project. It is
only just sometimes, architects bring so much head-
ache to civil engineers when they go out of bounds.
 What does
the Year 2050
have in store
for Engineers ?
D
o you ever wonder
what the world
will look like by
the year 2050? Is
the technology
too advanced for
us? Will it make
the world a better
place? Or will the
world look just
like those dystopian films we see in the
big screen? Will there be more robots
than people?
Technology is advancing at
a rapid pace and affecting all industries
and sectors in one way or the other. It is
likely that technology will have brought
to reality things by 2050 that only exist
in fiction now. It will also have certainly
made a major impact in the sectors of
energy production and engineering. In
fact, researches have already uncovered
certain remarkable possibilities will come
into being by 2050.
For example, engineers at
the Stanford University have already
developed a plan that can transform
the United States into a nation that uses
only renewable sources of energy by the
year 2050. The plan details the actions
that need to be taken by each of the 50
states of the country in order to achieve
the transformation. There are aggressive
changes required in the energy consump-
tion patterns and also the infrastructure.
24
Nonetheless, the plan is feasible from an
economic and technical standpoint.
Is it the end of the coal indus-
try then? Clean energy for all? What will
the green activists complain about then?
Similar plans are afoot in
London, UK. A plan has been proposed
which can bring about major changes in
the infrastructure so as to make the city
sustainable for over 11 million people,
the projected population of London in
2050. One of the major concerns has
been water shortage, others being energy,
waste, transport and resource manage-
ment.
Some of the largest engineer-
ing groups in the world have stated that
we already have technologies which
are capable of reducing the greenhouse
gases in the planet by as much as 85%
by the year 2050. Another prediction
being made for the year 2050 is that the
world will have a total population of
9.5 billion. In order to feed such a large
population, researchers are suggesting
the use of genetic engineering and high
performance computing to increase the
photosynthetic efficiency of the plants.
This method can boost food production
and crop yields.
With all these plans for cleaner
energy and sustainability, do you think
engineers and scientists can make them
happen by the year 2050? Only time can
tell.
 ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING

Trees
carry
artsy
wind
turbines

O
ne of the most common
complaints against wind
turbines is not the difficulty
of use, usually it’s that the
wind turbines are quite
dull-looking. Most wind turbines
look so completely out of place in
the landscape they are placed on,
that they become eyesores.
However, that is set to
change if Jérôme Michaud-Larivière
would have his way.
Jérôme Michaud-Larivière
is the man behind New Wind, a
startup venture based in Paris. He
has created the Tree Wind, a wind
turbine that is shaped like a tree.
This is certainly a more aesthetical-
ly pleasing take on wind turbines.
At the same time, the wind tree
remains completely silent while the
‘leaves’ move in the wind.
According to Mi-
chaud-Larivière, the leaves of these
trees act as miniature versions of
Photo Source: Energosovet
wind turbines. He hit upon this idea
when he noticed tree leaves moving
even if there was almost no wind.
He wondered about the wattage that
could be produced by the leaves.

25

DESIGN ENGINEERING
ARTWORK
MADE BY
ELECTRICITY
by Farrel Pinto
It demands an extreme interest
and attention to know even the
minutest detail of an object that
nobody else would ever be interest-
ed in. The air conditioner cools you
down while a room heater brings
your body temperature to normal.
However, there’s hardly anyone of
us who would have ever shown
interest in knowing what mecha-
nism works behind them or how
their electric circuits are connected,
unless you’re an engineer. Here’s
another character.
Designer Cindy Strobach
is different from most of us. For her
graduate presentation at London’s
Royal College of Art, she chose to
do something out of ordinary. She
decided to visualize the insides of
commonplace electronic objects,
specifically, a toaster and a speaker.
She used silk, organic dye made
from cabbage juice, and a pair
of electrodes to create colorful
“X-rays” (of sorts) of the internal
structures of these objects, which
completely resemble Abstract Ex-
pressionist paintings or Shibori tie-
dye. This technique, called “Electro
Colour”, was described as “painting
with electricity”. The printing pro-
cess she used was based upon the
principle of electrolysis of water,
which describes the decomposition
Photo Sources
Top: Royal College of Art
Top 3, Right: Frame Web
Bottom 2, Right: This is Paper
of water (H20) into oxygen and
hydrogen gas when an electric
current is passed through. The
water, in her experiment, was the
red cabbage juice.
The technique she used
is simple. She stained a piece of silk
with an organic dye made from red
cabbage juice. This created a bright
monochromatic square laid on top
of the inner circuit board of the
toaster and the speaker. This was
then connected to a negative and
a positive electrode. The negative
electrode converts into alkaline and
the positive electrode into acidic,
which then sends electric currents
through the silk. The color of the
dye changes as the current passes
through it, which creates impres-
sions in midnight blues, mustard
yellows, and blacks. The appliances
are, then, draped with these dyed
“X-rays” from outside, picturing
their skeletal internal circuitry
from the outside. It looks like a hu-
man wearing one of those skeleton
T-shirts.
The new experiment
exudes a new understanding to the
everyday product and technologies
we used on a daily basis. Creativity
is truly not limited to canvas, it can
take any form you might not even
think of.
26
 Photo Source: Rakenapp
CIVIL ENGINEERING
Drones in the
Construction Site
by Dion Greg Reyes
M
ost construction sites
are safe when all safety
procedures from the
textbook are followed.
But when there is
already an impossible
way to gain acces in
some portions of the
construction to check for safety, the pres-
ence of drones will be a life-saver.
Well, the primary purpose of
drones in construction is its ability to
access parts that humans cannot easily
do or spot. Since safety is very much
upheld in the site, drones are of big help in
monitoring dangerously perched scaffolds,
evaluating harness equipment, and assess-
ing ladder placement for a worker above it,
among others. Being small and agile, they
can also go into hard-to-see places inside
the buildings, where small workers could
fit but may deem to be unsafe.
Other than the safety of con-
struction workers, drones are also useful
in maintaining the time frame and budget
of the project. Since it can help prevent
incidents that are harmful, the project can
27
make use of full-time workers that aren’t
involved in circumstances that will alter
the duration and cost of the project.
In this regard, Japan, through
Komatsu, is already exploiting the drones’
potential especially that the country is now
facing a declining population. They have
come out with a service called Smart Con-
struction, which allows workers to connect
to a cloud where drones and artificial
intelligence assisted controls will be able to
report their success. It’s meant to improve
the overall efficacy of any construction
company that is using workers and drones.
Countries like Australia and
Kenya have also began construction appli-
cation of these drones.
Drones, other than in construc-
tion, also find its purpose in surveying.
They can provide up-to-date 3D maps and
progress reports via sending pictures right
from the drone.
The use of drones in engineering
has indeed stepped up. It will be no won-
der if all construction sites will be filled
with flying machines later on.
Photo Source: Wikia
WEARABLE TECH
Harnessing
Electric Power from
Women’s Boobs
O
k! You think I’m pulling
your leg right? Women’s
breasts, a source of ener-
gy? No WAY! Well hear
me out here! A woman
from San Francisco –
Adrienne, wondered
if her natural D cup impediments
to her love of sport could be put to
some other good use, “they will ful-
fill their intended function for about
three of the 70 years that I have
them” she says. Fair point if you
think about it! So she thought why
not “put her girls to work”? Why not
indeed? Since human powered de-
vices are emerging across the globe.
Thus began a journey of discovery
for Adrienne.
The physics of breast
motion has been researched since
the mid 1980’s; and LaJean Lawson,
a former professor of exercise
science at Oregon State University
had discovered a D cup can move as
much as 35 inches during exercise!
This motion would be enough to
power an mp3 player or smart-
phone! However smaller cup sizes
would generate less motion thus
less power. Other solutions could
incorporate solar panels or mini
28
rotary generators. These rotary
generators are used in “Lightening
packs” backpacks used on long hikes
that can generate up to 7 watts of
energy (enough to power small LED
lights). But these options seemed all
too cumbersome. Then Adrienne
discovered the work of Professor
Zhong Lin Wan of Georgia State
University.
Prof. Wan is developing a
fabric made of nanowires 1/1,000th
the width of a human hair. They rub
together in the fabric converting
friction energy into an electrical
charge. Unbelievably, Prof. Wan
believes this technology will be
available within the next 5 years!
The big catch? Washing. The dis-
tance between nanowires has to be
at a constant for them to work and
washing may distort the fabric. So
it seems Professor Wan has 5 years
to perfect his fabric and when he
does? Well think of the possibilities.
Adrienne will be able to listen to
her smartphone while she exercises
and us lesser mortals could have our
Google glasses and Apple watches
powered by our frantic daily lives!
 ENGINEER CHICK
Women in Space Seek More Women in Space
Natalie Panek
This strong sentiment is what
Natalie Panek, a mission systems engineer
in robotics and automation at Canada’s
MDA Corp., firmly believes. A wider per-
spective is necessary, which looks at the
statistics regarding women advancing in
their careers into leadership, director-lev-
el, and board-level positions according to
her.
As a child, watching TV shows
like Star Trek and Stargate SG-1 inspired
her to a life’s calling- Space. She just not
designs rovers but also aims to inspire
women to pursue their dreams and see
their reflections in the industry. She
also pointed out resolving problem on
retaining women in STEM fields through-
out their careers. Women must not be
hindered to rise up and advance in their
careers, she implied.
Natalie Panek is a rocket scien-
tist and an explorer, as she calls herself,
who dreams to become an astronaut.
Now, she works with her team to build
chassis and locomotion system for the
European Space Agency’s 2018 ExoMars
Rover. She was recently named as Can-
ada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women by
the Woman’s Executive Network.
She is a vocal advocate for
woman in technology according to The
Financial Post and named under Forbes
30 under 30 in 2015.
Photo Source: Flare
by Farrel Pinto
Dr. Lucianne Walkowicz
Dr. Lucianne Walkowicz, an
astronomer at the Adler Planetarium in
Chicago, also sees that diversity in her in-
dustry is imperative. Thus, conducting more
research is needed to back this up.
She also argued on a report on re-
cruiting women into technical positions by
the Anita Borg Institute that there are con-
sistent blind spots in recruiting and hiring
practices. There are hiring processes that
are implicitly biased lacking organizational
infrastructure to support diversity efforts.
It recommends to take up steps
like blind resume screening process, show-
ing technical women during the interview
process and that every technical position
has a viable female candidate.
She was inspired to pursue her
field upon her interest in chemistry and
physics in high school. Wanting a career
consisting both, she participated a research
program at the New York Academy of Sci-
ences. Someone suggested astronomy and
brought her to work with a professor in
New York University on chemistry of plane-
tary atmospheres. From there, she immedi-
ately was fascinated in the field.  From here, we see that women
Now, as an astronomer, she works
both on research and public education. Lu-
cianne currently works on the Large Synop-
tic Survey Telescope project which she says
the flagship observatory for the next decade.
Photo Source: The Lavin Agency
29
Vinita Marwaha Madill
As a consultant in space engi-
neering and STEM outreach and founder
of Rocket Women, Vinita focused on wom-
en and space. She aims to encourage more
women to enter the field.
Vinita Marwaha Madill works
as engineering manager leading the In-
telligent Transportation Systems Team in
Canada. She also stints as an International
Space Station operations engineer at the
German Aerospace Center.
She works on a diversity of de-
signing smart roads and spacesuits, pro-
posing parabolic flights and the likes.
Vinita found her fascination
in space back in his childhood days in
London where she learned about Helen
Sharman, a chemist and the first British
astronaut, who flew to Mir. At the age of
6, she was fond of the space as her parents
took her planetarium and space centers.
She suggests that to encourage
more women, they should think about ca-
reers in space, science and other equivalent
fields that would focus impact of technolo-
gy to mankind.
as equals can also advance in science and
technology. Nothing should hinder them as
they could positively influence the young
people to pursue their dreams and express
themselves in their chosen paths.
Photo Source: Rocket-women
Want to be a Billionaire?
Study Engineering!
C
hances are, like me, you
have already heard or read
a lot of other people’s suc-
cess stories. I can, without
any pretention, say that I
am genuinely happy for a
successful person, but at
the same time, I also feel a little jealous.
Maybe not green with envy, but I ask
myself what that successful person has
done to achieve more success than I have.
Of course, there are different measures of
success, but the most tangible, at least up
to this day, is obviously wealth. So, when I
hear or read stories about how this or that
person has become a multi-billionaire, I
wonder how he ever did it.
Some people made it big
through sheer work, with a dusting of
good luck. Some inherit the wealth of their
family. Yet some are just more education-
ally fit than others, in that their formation
proved to be the most essential through of
the arc of the generation when they lived.
A recent study conducted
by Approved Index, a UK-based busi-
ness-to-business platform, showed that
22% of the world’s wealthiest people stud-
ied engineering in college. This is in stark
contrast to only 12% who had a business
degree, nine per cent who had an Arts
degree, and six per cent who studied either
Science, Maths or Law.
Engineering-graduate billion-
aires are not only more, they are actually
richer than their ultra-wealthy peers. They
30
have an average net worth of US$ 33 bil-
lion, compared to US$ 29 billion for those
with a Finance degree.
Curiously, the study indicated
that having a degree was far from being
a stringent requirement to be a fat cat. A
third of the world’s top 100 billionaires
had no university degree, and they have
a net worth or US$ 31 billion, hot on the
heels of those with Engineering degrees.
In fact, those without degrees have the
most fabled success stories, read Mark
Zuckerberg of Facebook and Bill Gates of
Microsoft.
Though the billionaire’s list was
dominated by those with Engineering and
Finance degrees (like Carlos Slim who
studied Civil Engineering), and those
without (like Gates and Zuckerberg),
experts say that the results of the study,
which showed people of other specialisms
make it to the list, underline the impor-
tance of having a society in which people
have varied range of specialization to a
thriving and diverse economy.
Sure, not everyone dreams
of becoming a billionaire. We all have
different measures of success. To some, it
lies on the stability of their job, the hap-
piness of their family, the good manners
of their children and other people’s regard
of them, among others. It doesn’t matter
whatever “success” you may be enjoying at
the moment, what is important is that you
worked for it and that you’re happy and
proud about it.
Photo Sources:
Zuckerberg: Born Rich;
Gates: Business Dictionary;
Slim: Business Insider
“The biggest risk is not taking
any risk… In a world that is
changing really quickly, the only
strategy that is guaranteed to fail
is not taking risks.”

Mark Zuckerberg

“If you are born poor, it’s not

your mistake. If you die poor, it
is your mistake.”

Bill Gates

“If you’re in business, you need

to understand the environment.
You need to have a vision of the
future, and you need to know the
past.”

Carlos Slim

31
IEEE Smart Village
SOCIAL IMPACT ENGINEERS
Expands Partnership
IEEE Foundation IEEE Smart Village, a global humanitarian
program helping remote, energy-deprived
Signature Program communities build toward sustainability with
renewable energy and technology, announced
empowers off-grid today the expansion of their partnership
communities through
with Global Himalayan Expedition (GHE).
With this expansion, IEEE Smart Village is
education and the supporting GHE in providing clean ener-
gy access through solar power to improve
creation of sustain- the living standards of rural villages in the
remote Himalayan frontiers of India.
able, affordable, lo- IEEE Smart Village’s investment
cally owned entre-
in GHE will specifically go toward funding
access to basic electricity, through installation
preneurial energy of energy efficient high lumen LED lights for
residential lighting, solar LED street lighting
businesses for the outdoor community space, mobile
charging points and customized DC HD LED
TV for these villages which are typically lo-
cated above 13000 ft. in the Indian Himalayas
bordering countries such as Pakistan and
China.
In partnership with IEEE Smart
Village, GHE’s objective is to implement the
renewable energy and technology solutions
in a sustainable, scalable and environmentally
beneficial way—leading to an overall devel-
opment of the remote villages in the Ladakh
and Zanskar regions of India. In August 2015,
an international cast of volunteers, including
IEEE members, helped set-up DC Solar mi-
crogrids, ranging in capacity from 100 watts
(W) to 300 watts (W), to the remote ancient
village of Shingo, nestled in Hemis National
Park, in the Rumbak Valley of Ladakh, under
the banner of GHE.
To date, GHE has electrified eight
Himalayan villages and has impacted over
1800 lives directly. GHE has been instru-
mental in promoting these electrified villages
in the form of Home-Stays (Hostels) for
trekkers, who usually are seeking food and
shelter while hiking through these remote
Himalayan valleys. This has helped increase
32
the income generation of these remote
communities and has provided them with
a livelihood opportunity towards a better
future.
IEEE Smart Village is a donor
supported signature program of the IEEE
Foundation with a vision to bring basic
electrical and educational services to more
than 50 million people by 2025. The program
is currently serving more than 50,000 people
through local partners in Haiti, Cameroon,
Nigeria, South Sudan, Kenya, Namibia,
Zambia and India. About IEEE IEEE, a large,
global technical professional organization,
is dedicated to advancing technology for
the benefit of humanity. Through its highly
cited publications, conferences, technology
standards, and professional and educational
activities, IEEE is the trusted voice on a wide
variety of areas ranging from aerospace sys-
tems, computers and telecommunications to
biomedical engineering, electric power and
consumer electronics.
About IEEE Foundation As the
philanthropic arm of IEEE, the IEEE Foun-
dation inspires the generosity of donors so
it may enable IEEE programs that enhance
technology access, literacy and education, as
well as support the IEEE professional com-
munity. The IEEE Foundation, a tax-exempt
501(c)(3) organization in the United States,
fulfills its purpose by soliciting and managing
donations, recognizing the generosity of our
donors, awarding grants to IEEE grassroots
projects of strategic importance, supporting
high impact Signature Programs, serving as
a steward of donations that empower bright
minds, recognize innovation and preserve the
history of technology. With donor support,
the IEEE Foundation strives to be a leader
in transforming lives through the power of
technology and education.
Photo Source: IEEE

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
First True Peer-to-Peer
Risk Sharing Platform
Besurance Corporation (“Besurance”)
launches besureTM the first true
peer-topeer risk sharing platform. Be-
sure’s peer-to-peer risk sharing enables
individuals to:
• Come together as a community
• Agree on risks to be protected
• Set contributions for the risk coverage
using best actuarial practices
• Have claims adjudicated by their own
community
Photo Source: Inusa News
B
esure is the vision of experienced actu-
aries and risk professionals – allowing
communities to socially share their
risk and protect gadgets, health, travel,
events, automobiles, home, job loss, and person-
al circumstances. The patent pending platform
as a service provides end-to-end processing, and
gives control back to individuals. Besure is roll-
ing out in stages over the next couple of months
a customizable, on-line, risk-sharing platform
with an efficient and scalable operational model.
“Besure is a peer-to-peer platform
that harnesses the power of social networking,
co-operation, and the sharing economy by em-
powering individuals to come together within
their community to protect the things that mat-
ter most to them.” - KarimLalani, besure Lead
About Besurance: Besurance is a private corpo-
ration dedicated to community empowerment
through the design andimplementation of easy-to-
use, transparent and cost-effective solutions in the
risk sharing economy.
33
INDUSTRIAL/PACKAGING ENGINEERING

PACKAGING ENGINEERS
HAVE SOMETHING TO
DO WITH TOYS THAT
ARE SO HARD TO OPEN,
THE BAGS OF CHIPS
THAT ARE HALF-AIR,
AND THE PULL TAPE
THAT ALWAYS SEEM
TO BREAK BEFORE YOU
OPEN THE ENVELOPE.
BUT NO, PACKAGING ENGINEERS DON’T
MAKE YOUR LIFE COMPLICATED.
THEY HAVE BUBBLE WRAP.

34
Packaging Engineers
and What They Do
by Dion Greg Reyes
M
ost of
the time,
people
are never
interested
in pack-
ages of
products.
Whether these people are in the
supermarket, toy stores, drug stores
and warehouses, they just don’t give
much attention to the packaging;
as long as the package is pretty, it
doesn’t matter because they will be
thrown away after the products are
consumed anyway. Well, it hurts to
the packaging engineers who sweat
their ass out in laboratories and
computer-aided drafting software
just to give the perfect preservation
for your products.
Packaging is more than
just containing the product: the
package needs to withstand certain
temperatures, be of certain shape,
be tamper-resistant, among others,
to properly protect the products
from manufacturing down to
the consumers. The packaging
engineers determine the materials
fit to use for the product, may it be
cardboard, glass, plastic or wood,
which are the most common. They
also choose methods and machin-
ery that go into the production of
packaging supplies.
It sounds easy for most
of us but in reality, packaging
engineering is just as hard as
other engineering disciplines. It
deals with multiple disciplines like
chemical, industrial, materials,
and mechanical engineering to
perfect the design and create boxes,
cartons, bottles and other packing
35
materials that meet specific criteria.
There also needs to be coordination
from research and development,
manufacturing, marketing, graphic
design, and regulatory departments
to address technical and marketing
challenges.
But there is an arising
issue to this multi-billion dollar
business, as concern for the envi-
ronmental degradation increases
– they have to go green and devise
ways to minimize waste by using
the least amount of packaging ma-
terial possible. Efforts to recycle the
packages have gone to producing
recyclable or biodegradable materi-
als.
So there. The next time
you purchase a product with a
difficult-to-open package, it doesn’t
mean to make your life hard. Pack-
aging engineers have a reason for
doing that, they just don’t explain
it on the label. Or to the very least,
the next time you destroy a package
of a product which would probably
be within the next hour, remember
the packaging engineers who made
it for you. Photo Source: ECP Quality
BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING
BODYHACKING
Internet of Things of the Future
W
ouldn’t it be nice to get things done
with just a wave of the hand? Like
when paying you bills, all you have
to do is wave your hand in front
of the scanner. Or maybe let your
car engine start once you wave in
front of your car’s ignition to prove you are
authorized to use it. All this conve-
nience relies with the power of your
hand, and is soon possible with
Bodyhacking.
Sounds too futuristic?
Well technology has already
advanced through this stage
and is making bodyhacking a
possibility. Hannes Sjöblad, a
famous Swedish bodyhacker, ex-
perimented with this technology,
by implanting electronics, including
Photo Source: Tech 365
Photo Source: GPS-tracker
a passive Near-Field Communications (NFC) trans-
mitter, into his own hand. When he wants to start
his car, he just waves in front of the ignition, when
he wants to open a door, he waves at the digital lock,
when he wants to order coffee, and all he has to do
is wave his hand! Apparently his everyday chores are
done with just a wave of the hand!
Sjöblad explained to a group
of journalists at CeBIT Preview 2016
in Hannover, Germany, that he sees
bodyhacking as the next step of
wearable computing. Though we
could wear rings, use, phones,
bracelets and gadgets to host
small electronics, the real future
would still be embedded electron-
ics. With Sjöblad’s experiment,
this kind of future doesn’t seem that
far away after all. Photo Source: Kristallen
36
NANOTECHNOLO GY
Sperm Robots for the
Lousy Swimmer Sperms
In Dresden, researchers are devising microrobots
T
to help sperm swim its way to the egg.
o those men whose genitalia
seem to house slow swimmers,
there is now a silver lining to
conceive your baby as research-
ers from the Dresden Institute
for Integrative Nanosciences de-
velop the future deliverers of life, the spermbots.
Spermbots being studied are es-
sentially made of microtubes, which are thin
sheets of titanium and iron rolled into conical
tubes with one end wider than the other. The
microtubes are put into a solution in a Petri
dish and added bovine (bull) sperm cells, which
are similar in size to the human sperm. When
a live sperm entered the wider end of the tube,
it became trapped down near the narrow end.
The narrow end is also closed to prohibit the
sperm from swimming out. The mobility of the
sperm is generated from the trapped cell pushed
against the tube.
With the magnetic property of titani-
um and iron, the scientists can then control the
direction of the sperm, leaving the propulsion to
the sperm.
Once the sperm hits its desired target, that is the
mighty egg, it can be manipulated magnetically
to release the sperm. There is no certainty yet
to the way the microtubes will leave the sperm;
however, researchers say that it should be pos-
sible by altering the temperature to unroll the
tubes just before they reach the target.
Each spermbot can travel up to
100 micrometers per second, comparable to a
6-footer human swimming 50 meters in 14 sec-
onds. If that speed won’t help sperm that doesn’t
swim so well, we don’t know yet what will.
This is being studied among sperm cells since
they are easily available, harmless, and efficient
at swimming through bodily fluids. Although
it is yet to be put to human test, this kind of
assisted fertilization is planned for test among
animals.
Nonetheless, this is a promising feat
for sperms which have motor struggles and to
the men who carry them. Do not lose hope just
yet, brother.
37
ROBOTICS

Biomimetics is a damn exciting field.

Engineers in this field use nature as their
inspiration for systems and designs to
create awesome stuff. For example, they
used the elephant’s trunk to create a cool
robotic arm.
At first glance, the thingamajig
looks like a cross between a mechanical
claw and iron snake with a good measure
of tentacle horror thrown in. In fact, they
are reminiscent of the sweet robotic arms

Elephant
used by the infamous Dr. Octopus, the
Spiderman villain. Of course, they are
calling it the Bionic Handling Assistant,
the blandest name possible for the cool

Trunk
robot. But it’s cool anyway.
As it stands, elephant trunks
are possibly the coolest appendages in the
Animal Kingdom. So, making a robotic

Robotic
arm based on that is a fantastic idea.
This robotic arm was made by Festo, a
German automation company.

Arms
What is even more fantastic
is that the arm acts and learns just like a
baby’s arm. The researcher will guide the
arm to perform certain actions. The robot
will learn and memorizes the movements
Photo Source: Innorobo so as to repeat them whenever necessary.
This will enable the robot to fulfill func-
tions such as operating in tight quarters
and helping people in the medical or the
industrial sector. It can even be pro-
grammed to change a light bulb.

Pepper: the real

Star Wars C-3P0
humanoid robot
If you love C-3PO from the Star
Wars movie, then it’s not unlikely
for you to love Pepper too!
Pepper is the “emotional”
humanoid robot designed by the
French firm Aldebaran Robotics, a
subsidiary mobile carrier of Soft-
bank. Just like C-3Po, he is designed
to be a day-to-day companion
whose most significant function is
his ability to perceive emotions.
Pepper stands 4feet (1.2
meter) tall, with an attached tablet
on front and moves on wheels. He
can initiate small talk end even
give you advices. Pepper’s analyzer
enables him to identify human
emotions based on voices, facial
expressions and body movements.
Photo Source: Rude Baguette
The robot’s memory stores these
data and gradually memorizes per-
sonality traits as well as preferences
of the owner.
Pepper responses by
commenting on the mood of the
moment and expresses himself by
changing color and glittering his
eyes. He moves around and dance
while shaking his hands up. With
Pepper, there will never be a dull
moment!
You can even personalize
this robot by downloading software
applications and make if learn to
sing, dance or even speak in anoth-
er language. A specialized software
application is also programmed to
Pepper that makes you earn points

38
 Photo Source: Moley Robotics

demonstration and putting the skills into

its system. The hands then replicate, even
the pauses in between and the OK gesture
in the end, the master chef ’s abilities into
its kitchen. No wonder about that, since
the nuclear industry and NASA uses the
same kind of hands made by the Shadow
Robot Company.
If you are concerned with being
stabbed by the robot, no need to fret as

Robots that
the robots uses a food processor and lim-
its itself to knives. The kitchen also comes
with a protective screen as an additional
layer of safety.

will Cook for You

If you have a problem with your own
cooking, or wanted a chef in your own
kitchen, that won’t be so much of a prob-
lem anymore with the world’s first ever
robotic kitchen.
The robotic kitchen features
four key integrated kitchen items of
robotic arms, an oven, a hob and a
touchscreen unit. It can be operated right
at your fingertips via a smartphone or via
the included touch screen; all you need
to do is pull up a recipe and wait for the
robot to serve you the food.
It isn’t a machine that just
cooks; it has hands that can cook like
a master chef. The hands get its articu-
lation – its speed, its sensitivity, and its
movement – by recording the cooking
skills of Master Chef Tim Anderson,
winner of the BBC Master Chef title, in a
This technology, however, will
not be available to consumers until the
fourth quarter of 2017. It will be sup-
ported by an iTunes-style downloadable
library of recipes that the robot chef can
cook at your own home which are about
2,000 recipes. Just prepare a good amount
of $75,000 at its first launch.
The robot kitchen is the
brainchild of U.K.-based Moley Robotics,
which prototype premiered at an inter-
national robotics show Hanover Messe.
The eureka moment for the idea was of
Mark Oleynik in January of 2014. The
first patents were filed in the following
month; a prototype was built by Moley in
September of the same year.

The Consumer Electronics Show this year

Mekamon:
showcased many gadgets like smart-
phones, wearables, laptops, and gaming
gears. But something unusually exciting
was there too! It’s every boy’s dream to

Photo Source: Canoe

World’s First own it. It blew the minds of all those who
were present at the event. It’s Melamon,
Gaming Robot the future of toys.
Mekamon is not just a ‘toy’,
but much more than that. The robots
by frequently interacting with him. named Mekamon are really the ‘future of
Earning points will give you access toys’. These four-legged modular fighting
to exclusive applications. robots have been designed to fight, cus-
On the first production tomize, and collect. These robots are also
of these robots last July 2015 in equipped with the infrared technology
Japan, all units were sold out on the and Bluetooth. The bots are also fitted
first minute of its sale. Pepper, the with internal compass, which allows
humanoid robot costing $1,600, was them to pinpoint at the opponent.
really a big hit! The main idea behind the
designing of Mekamon is to
A big customer, Nestle, is bring robot fights to the living
said to equip its 1000 Nescafe sales room just like in a child’s
outlets in Japan with these robot fantasies. The company behind
to inform their customers about the development of Mekamon
their products in an amusing way. is UK-based Reach Robotics.
Definitely, this is an example of The company is currently
how cost effective it would be for developing a game, which
businesses to save manpower using involves two players engage
in robot fight by using their
these functional and charming smartphones as controllers.
robots. Mekamon can now be handled
using the smartphone to attack,
aim, and switch weapons.
Photo Source: Reach Robotics 39
 WEARABLE TECH

5 WEARABLES
Now that wearable technology
has gone more advanced than
ever, 2016 is a good year for wear-
ables. Consumers have become

TO WATCH OUT
more aware of the technology and
they realize the impact of their
wearables in their life.
The wearables in the market right
now are already serving purposes

FOR IN 2016
to the users’ extent, but there’s
more. Here are five wearables that
are must-look for this 2016.

Photo Source: Tech Zaa Photo Source: Business Wire Photo Source: Burn Tech

HTC Vive
One step forward in virtual reality (VR)
is the HTC Vive, which lets users play
graphic intensive apps, AR games, and
view HD films, among others. It will be
on sale by April 2016 with an unknown
pricetag for now. But the product can be
pre-ordered starting 29th of February.
Altra IQ
For the fitness enthusiasts and heavily depen-
Lumenus Clothing
The name suggests that this clothing is luminous. It is
dent to technology, here’s Altra IQ which can a fitness-focused wear that lights up whenever users
measure pace and contact time for improved will go for an early morning or late-night run or
running efficiency. It has a multi-sensor cycle. The clothing has unveiled jackets, vests, shirts,
within the length of the midsole that syncs and leggings with built-in LED lights.
the shoes to the smartphone. Altra’s shoe is set
for release in late of 2016. Prepare your bucks
because it will cost $199 a piece.

Photo Source: Indian Express Photo Source: NFC Forum

Apple Watch 2
If you can’t get enough of the first Apple Watch, here’s for you. This is
out in the market come middle of this year with a lot of step ups from
its predecessor – improved battery life, which last at least a full day of
usage, and modern design, with more color options, mature hues, and
better typography.
Samsung Smart Suit
This is not your ordinary suit; this is a Smart Suit by Samsung with
NFC-powered cuffs. The cuffs works as a control to turn the handset
on the “do not disturb” mode when you run for a quick meeting. The
cuffs can also send your contact details to nearby handsets that works
with premium handsets of Samsung. With this you will no longer need
business cards.

40

Mind-reading
Wearables:
Are they Possible?
B
it by bit, our tech-
nology is carefully
advancing, taking
into study different
and more complex
topics. With the
current craze over
the Internet of Things, wearable
technology has boomed in the
market. Now, numerous com-
panies are trying to delve into a
new kind of wearable that can
connect to our minds—a sort of
“mind-reading” wearable.
But, are mind-reading
wearables really a possibility? Are
they safe? How will it affect our
daily lives?
The main component in these
kind of wearables are Electro
Encephalography (EEG) sensors;
many companies are claiming that
they are able to create or innovate
products that have the ability to
monitor, detect and interpret the
activities that are going on in our
brains.
Though this kind of
technology has been used and is
still being used today, many com-
panies see this technology’s po-
tential to be applied in fields other
that medical: virtual or augmented
reality for games or surreal movie
watching experiences, next level
robotics, and others.
Photo Source: Choose Muse
41
Photo Source: Live Science
The possibility of this
kind of technology can be consid-
ered possible, since the basic idea
for creating it is already available,
and can readily be based on med-
ical EEG machines. What makes
it difficult is the data processing. It
makes us ask questions like, how
accurate will be the collected data;
will it be able to store everything I
am thinking about? Innovators are
still in the process of learning all
there is to make this technology
possible.
With the current tech-
nology we have, and the rate by
which our technology is advanc-
ing we can expect to see this kind
of technology in the very near fu-
ture. Hopefully, when this device
is released in the market, it will be
useful, effective and positively life
changing.
 ELECTRO-MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

WHY DO WE CALL IT
“HORSEPOWER”
INSTEAD OF ANY
OTHER ANIMAL?
by Raymond Gerard del Valle

Photo Source: Pinterest

I
n this day and age of powerful work in 60 seconds, and maintain one horsepower (hp).
machines, there is a big chance that power rate for the entire work Of course, Watt’s esti-
you’ve heard about horsepow- day. That means that, by Watt’s mates were very generous, as the
er. From heavy machinery, to approximation, a draft horse could horses involved in his experiments
cars, to air conditioners, to lift 32,400 pounds of material one were far from mutants! But that
lawnmowers, the term horse- foot in one minute. After doing wasn’t Watt’s original intention
power is used to describe an some rounding up, Watt settled for anyway. By overestimating what
engine’s power. But, have you ever 33,000 foot-pounds per minute for a typical horse could do, Watt
wondered why of all animals the made sure that
horse was chosen as the benchmark his product would
for power? always perform
The reason was pretty better than the
literal, actually. In the early 1780s, real horses.
Scottish engineer James Watt was The unit of
looking for a compelling way to measure horse-
market his new invention – a steam power became
engine superior to the then classic popular thanks
Newcomen steam engine. Many of to the invaluable
his prospective customers at that contribution of
time used horses to power their Watt’s engine
operation, so Watt had to come up during the indus-
with a new unit of measurement trial revolution.
that he could use to illustrate the Today, however,
advantage of using his steam en- the SI unit of
gine as opposed to horses. Hence, power, the Watt,
horsepower. which was named
The way Watt came up in tribute to James
with the numbers he did is still up Watt, is progres-
for discussion, but after doing the sively replacing
experiments that he did, he figured horsepower in
out that a typical draft horse could most applications.
do about 32,400 foot-pounds of
Photo Source: www.sodahead.com

42
TOYS
A skipping
rope that
generates
electricity
by Robert Bagatsing
If you are reading this article, you
are lucky – congratulations, you
have electricity. It is oftentimes hard
to imagine the extent of un-con-
nectedness in a world, where others
enjoy superfluous modernity. The
truth is there are still over a billion
people in the world without elec-
tricity, and the future remains bleak
for them that spend their nights in
darkness.
Children are among the
most impacted by the lack of light in
un-connected households. Because
their nights remain dark, children
cannot study their lessons and do
their homework, so either they don’t
learn much from what they are
studying, or they choose to abandon
school altogether and spend their
entire days at play. But, what if there
was actually not any conundrum?
What if they can repurpose the en-
ergy that they spend playing to fuel
basic devices of modern life, like
lights, so they can study and prepare
for their lessons?  turned on, the LED lamps within
Introducing a skipping
rope whose length and handles light
up at night, called Jumping Lighting.
During the day, say after school,
children could have an hour of fun
playing with the skipping rope. The
movement of the cord between the
43
Photos Source: Vickian
handles will charge the internal
batteries of the device, thanks to the
kinetic pendulum that builds up the
energy. With enough charge, once
the jump rope and its handles will
illuminate, giving off light that can
allow children to comfortably study
their lessons, and the adults to ade-
quately do household chores.   
Designed by Bae Gyu Ri
of Daegu University, Jumping Light-
ing is a winner of Korea’s Interna-
tional K-Design Award in 2014.
Jumping Lighting is a cool
toy for any child to have. But for
kids in dire need of lighting in their
homes, Jumping Lighting is more
than just for play – it is a source of
hope for a brighter future.
Photos Source: vickian.blogspot.com
 ENGINEERING HACKS
Common Input Errors with
Your Calculator that You
Probably Didn’t Notice
by Dion Greg Reyes
E
ngineers, whatever
field you specialize in,
have a universal best
friend: your calcula-
tors. Almost all the
time – when your fin-
gers can no longer perform a trigo-
nometric function – you depend
on your life with the calculators
in solving problems. But there will
be cases that you will be faced with
errors you didn’t know you have
made. And that could cost you
a failing grade or even your job.
Maybe even lives of people.
While there are so many
kinds of calculators, here are the
common input errors that you may
have encountered in any calcu-
lator. It’s best that you read your
calculator manuals, but most likely
you can find those input errors
here.
Photo Source: Davidson Math
Using [–] instead of Entering the inverse
[(-)] to indicate that a trigonometric notation
Here’s another: just because the trigonometric
number is negative function is raised to a negative number, which
Common rookie error. You use the [–] to you know is an inverse, it is not an exponent; in
subtract, and [(-)] to denote a negative number. the calculator, the inverse of the cos(x) function
There is a difference. When you use [–] instead is not 1/cos(x). In short,   but, 
of [(-)] in the interior of an expression to denote .
a negative number, the calculator responds with
the syntax error message.
Placing the powers
Entering an angle in for trigonometric
degre in radian mode functions
In the calculator, trigonometric functions can
be used with two modes: degree or radian. Just &
make sure that you are using the degree mode Remember the order of operations? Yeah, that’s
or radian mode, depending on what you’re it. All trigonometric functions hold this nota-
required. Changing the mode depends on the tional idiosyncrasy.
settings of your calculator.
Indicating the order of
operations incorrectly
by using parentheses
In your calculator, –3^2 is not the same as
(–3)^2. The calculator first performs the opera-
tion in parentheses, then it squares the number.
If there is a negative outside the parentheses, it
first performs the squaring, then the operation of
a negating a number. That’s how crucial the order
of operations is in evaluating expressions.
44
 Photo Source: Livedoor Blog

Common Output Errors with

Your Calculator that You
Definitely Will Notice

Cause: The calculation expression is the wrong

syntax, or the program you are using contains a
syntax error. 
Action: Press the <right> or <left> key to display
the location of the error, and correct it. 

Cause: You executed a matrix, graphing, or some other

operation that caused remaining memory capacity to be
exceeded. 
Action: Delete memory data you no longer need. Make
sure that the number of variables used in your expression
does not exceed the number of variables that are available. 

Cause: The calculation result is outside of the allowable

calculation range or you are trying to perform an ille-
gal mathematical operation (such as division by zero). 
Action: Check your input values and adjust them to
allow the calculation result to be within the allowable
range. If you are using memory for your calculation,
make sure that you check the memory value. 

Cause: The calculation you are performing has caused

the capacity of the numeric stack or the command stack
to be exceeded. 
Action: Simplify your calculation expression. You could
also split your calculation expression into two or more
parts and execute the parts separately. 

45
 PRODIGY
Jake Barnett:
Autistic Child
turned
Physics Genius
by Cielo Panda
J
ake Barnett, born on
May 26th 1998, is
Photo Source: Indianapolis Monthly presently an American
Physics Student and
child prodigy. However,
his parents never knew
that he was—because at
the age of two, Jake was
diagnosed with Autism, Asperger Syn-
drome. Jake’s parents were crushed when
they were told he may never talk or read
ever again.  His parents never gave up
and used a special treatment for children
with autism called “floortime therapy”,
where children are allowed to play or
focus on subjects that interested them.
Jake showed a remarkable early interest
in astronomy and would study books of
stars over and over again.
During an outing to a local
planetarium, one of the presenters asked
the audience why the moons of Mars are
odd-shaped like potatoes. The three-
year-old Jake simply raised his hand
“Excuse me, but what are the
sizes of the moons around mars?”
The lecturer answered and
Jake looked at him and said,
“The gravity of the planet is so
large that [the moon’s] gravity would not
be able to pull it into a round shape.”
Silence filled the room. All
eyes were on 3-year old Jake. It was clear
what everyone was thinking.
“Who is this three year old?”
Jake continued to attend
public school, but was soon bored. Jake’s
parents took the psychologist’s advice
and withdrew him from school and
he was allowed to sit-in on astronomy
and advanced math classes at Indiana
46
Photo Source:
Indianapolis Monthly
University—Purdue Institute Indianap-
olis (IUPUI). Jake prepared for proper
college schooling, by learning—all by
himself—pre-requisite high school
math. This includes Algebra, Algebra 2,
Geometry, Trigonometry and Calculus.
He learned all this by himself in just two
weeks! He passed all the test that were
needed to exempt him from school. Jake
enrolled at the college at the young age of
twelve.
The prodigy, Jake, tutors
fellow students, normally graduate and
post-graduate students. He has healthy
discussions with professors and is de-
veloping an alternative theory of the Big
Bang Theory, his hypothesis being that
the Big Bang couldn’t have happened
through advanced math. He is also
presently a paid researcher in Quantum
Physics.
In 2013, Jake was admitted
to the Perimeter Scholars International,
a one-year non-degree master’s level
program at the Perimeter Institute for
theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario.
At the age of 15, he was the youngest
student admitted into the program. He
completed the program in 2014, and has
subsequently been listed as a doctoral
student at the Perimeter Institute.
Jake, also wants to help other
kids and adults who find mathematics
difficult. He believes that math can be
learned easily if the subject is presented
in a much simpler manner. So he plans
to write books on how to simplify math.
He has also appeared in TEDxTeens to
inspire other kids his age. This amazing
guy hopes that one day he will be able to
disprove Einstein’s theory of Relativity.
 AUTOMOTIVE

World’s
Meet the smallest car of the world
from Austin Coulson, a custom car
maker. He has always been interested
in building cars and he believes that he
will make history one day. It turns out

Smallest Car
that he was not at all wrong.
Twenty-nine year old Coulson built
the smallest car of the world and
entered the Guinness Book of World
Record in the year 2014. Some would
say that this small car may be inopera-
ble – nope, this car has been legalized
to be taken out on the road.
Coulson was so interested in
automobiles that it drove him to look
up the previous records in the Guin-
ness Book of World Records. The mo-
ment he looked at the previous record
he felt that he could do something to
beat said record.
The result of his determi-
nation was this awesome car. This
miniature car measures 25 inches high
and 2 feet wide. You will recognize the
car the instant you see it. How? Well,
this kickass car has a license plate that
read IM BIG. Quite ironic, isn’t it?
What’s more amazing is the
paint of the car. He painted it like the
Mustang Military aircraft U.S. P-51.
The side of the car with the tail num-
ber of the same ship that Coulson’s
grandfather served on when he was
fighting in the World War I inscribed
on it.
But the main issue was getting the car
registered. For this, Coulson had to
get the car inspected and not forget to
put safety features like any other cars
out there.
Like everybody else, even
his family was skeptical about the
plan and kept questioning it through
the process of developing the vehicle.
However, he was successful in proving
everybody wrong. Seeing this tiny
vehicle on the road will absolutely be a
treat to the eye.
For some, this is merely a toy Photo Source: Leisure Wheels
car; but cars are toys, right?

47
 INDUSTRIAL

Lessons from the

Worst Industrial
Engineering Disasters
Photo Source: NDTV

Photo Source: Wikipedia

N
ature steps taken by the industries
has could not save life and so,
claimed the people affected by them
many have no choice but to live
lives with the damage caused by
across them. Their mistakes have
the definitely taught us some of
globe with its unexpected the biggest lessons of our life.
calamities. But things are In this list, we will
different with an industrial find out the worst indus-
disaster. They don’t just claim trial engineering disasters
lives but shake you from that have ever occurred to
within. There have been cas- humanity.
es when the precautionary
Courrieres Mine Disaster, France
It was on March 10, 1906 that the
burning of methane by the naked
flame of a miner’s lamp led to
Europe’s worst mining accident,
resulting in dust explosion dev-
astating a coal mine and killing
around 1099 miners. This also led
to an increase number of black
lung disease cases.

48
 The Bhopal Disaster, India

On December 3, 1984, a pesticide

plant leaked methyl isocynate gas and
other chemicals into the atmosphere.
This killed around 4,000 – 20,000
people. The leakage formed a toxic
cloud settling over the region, which
killed 8,000 people in the very first
days mainly from cardiac arrest and
respiratory malfunction.

Photo Source: IBN Live Photo Source: Greenpeace Italia

SAN JUANICO DISASTER, MEXICO Texas City Disaster, USA

Photo Source: Greenpeace Italia

The deadliest disaster
occurred on 19 Novem-
ber, 1984, around 20
km away from Mexico
City in a large LPG
storage and distribution
center. It was basically
caused by the LPG pipe
leakage due to excessive Photo Source: Texas History
pressure, resulting in
the formation of a vapor
cloud that floated across America’s worst disaster occurred on
the area. When the cloud April 16, 1947. A small fire broke out in
ignited, a massive fire a ship that was carrying bags of ammo-
was caused at the plant nium nitrate. Immediate attempts were
site. made to extinguish it. But it soon inten-
sified and led to a massive explosion.
The cause of the explosion was lack of
awareness. However not confirmed, a re-
port says that it is possible that a cigarette
could have been dropped into the hold.

Oppau Explosion, Germany

The explosion occurred on
21 September 1921. The store
that dealt with nitrogen fixa-
tion works contained around
4500 tons of ammonium
sulphate nitrate. Unaware of
the highly explosive nature of
ammonium nitrate, the work-
ers at Oppau site decided that
the best way to loosen 4500
tons of ammonium nitrate
was to detonate several
dynamite charges, which led
to an explosive equivalent to
1-2 kilotons of TNT, ripping
off roofs from houses situated
25km away from the site of
49 explosion.

Photo Source: SCANZ

 gineersnow deBate
It’s almost a given that engineers love to spark a debate
in almost any subject. Where there is an argument that is
worth fighting for, engineers will never think twice about
sharing their opinions based from concrete principles.
With that, GineersNow put these debates on Facebook which are
centered on anything related to engineering. Join the meeting of the
minds every Wednesday at the following times on our Facebook page.
08:00 AM Dubai 09:30 AM Delhi 12:00 PM Manila
1:00 PM Tokyo 03:00 Sydney

WHO IS THE REAL DOES SOCIAL MEDIA

FATHER OF AFFECT RELATIONSHIPS
WHICH ONE IS A ELECTRICITY? IN A NEGATIVE WAY?
BETTER PERSONAL NIKOLA TESLA?
ASSISTANT? THOMAS EDISON?
GOOGLE NOW OR ISAAC NEWTON?
SIRI?

50
WHERE GREAT MINDS MEET
WHICH IS THE BEST Windows vs Apple:
SMARTPHONE? Which is the Best?
APPLE OR SAMSUNG?

51
 E N G IW
N EOEMRE C
NH I C K
She’s 22 and
While most of us were busy play-
ing with our friends and dealing
with difficult math problems
during the early years of our teen-
She Could Be the
age lives, a young girl by the name
of Sabrina Gonzales Pasterski
built a single engine plane that she
was about to deliver to the campus
offices of MIT and have it shown
Next Einstein
to the incredible minds that work
there.  Who would have thought
that this Cuban-American kid
was about to embark on a journey
that will lead her to make people
believe that she could be the ‘Ein-
by Alice Hernandez
Miss Pasterski was waitlisted
in MIT when she applied.
Luckily for her, some profes-
sors from MIT saw her video
building a plane.
stein’ of today’s generation?
She’s now 22 and has
already made a name for herself in
the world of Physics. She already
graduated from MIT and is cur-
rently working her way to get her
52
Photo Source: Vagabomb
PhD degree in Harvard. By the
way, she got a perfect point grade
average in MIT. With a brain like
hers, she could rule the world!
After building planes
back when she was really really
young, Miss Pasterski is now
focused on the more serious
stuff. Really serious stuff not
everyone can understand but play
important roles to the fundamen-
tals of science. Her studies branch
out to black holes, spacetime and
quantum mechanics.
Clearly, this young sci-
entist is passionate about what she
does. In an interview with Yahoo,
she said:
“Physics itself is exciting
enough. It’s not like a 9-to-5 thing.
When you’re tired you sleep, and
when you’re not, you do physics.”
Miss Pasterski isn’t a
fan of social media. That means
there’s no chance of stalking
her on Facebook, Instagram or
Twitter. However, you do get a
glimpse of what’s going on with
her achievements on her website,
PhysicsGirl. Because she’s a
genius, different foundations such
as the Smith Foundation, Hertz
Foundation and the National
Science Foundation have given
her thousands of dollars for her
studies and work.
Photo Source: Slideroom Blog

“So What If I’m the Only Woman
in the Construction Site?”
Huge projects like Hong Kong-Zhu-
hai-Macao Bridge and the high-
speed railway to Guangzhou are
under a crisis: they lack skills in con-
struction labor for years. This has led
recruitment firm Manpower to find
more engineers, casting its net wider
to target women workers as well.
This is how we met Sonia,
23 years old, an on-site assistant
surveyor.
In her class of 90 students,
only 20 were girls. She joined the
field two years ago after getting her
?!
associate degree. Work was quite easy
to find after graduation because of
the demand.
She is making a close
amount to HK$20,000 a month.
That is one key attraction, other
than a clear career path and good
promotion for young women to
enter the profession. The job security
is also not a problem, since most big
projects last at least four to five years.
At work, being the only
woman in her department, she uses
that uniqueness to her edge – male
53
colleagues are quite willing to take
care of her, as long as she is polite and
keeps a smile. Her greatest struggle,
however, is the dirty and dusty work
environment. Women aren’t usually
exposed to them so it is quite an
adjustment.
Other than that, there
isn’t much that women cannot do in
the construction site. She is a proud
engineer and she performs – that is
what matters. Who gives a damn that
she is a woman?
G A MW
E O
DM EE
EV NL O P M E N T

Hot Game Designer creates Meet Nina Freeman, a 25-year

old game designer who designs
games based on her hot rela-

Games about her Sex Life

tionship adventures, exhilarating
experiences and sex life.

by Cielo Panda
For around five years, Nina has been
working with teams of programmers and
graphic artists to be able to create excep-
tionally personal games about relation-
ships and sex. She came into the limelight
with a game called “How Do You Do It”.
The game is all about a little girl who plays
with her Barbie dolls while her mom is
out, trying to find out how do grown-ups
“do it”, the player will be controlling this
event of course. Nina also created a game
called “Ladylike”, where you try to control
a conversation between a teenage girl and
her mom, during a drive to a mall. Any-
thing you say about boyfriends, school,
sex and clothes, the mom would always
disapprove—clearly a different game to
play, even in real life.
According to Nina, these games
were all based on her true to life stories.
How To Do It and Ladylike were games
that had been inspired by her childhood
experiences. For her, gaming is like poetry.
“When I started making games, my main
inspirations were poets. Elizabeth Bishop’s
poem “In the Waiting Room” was my
main inspiration for making Ladylike and
How Do You Do It?, which are games
about my childhood. Once I started
making games, though, I discovered other
game designers who were also interested
in these vignette-style games. Games like
Dys4ia and Gone Home are two of these
games that really inspired me to make
more vignette games about very human,
honest characters.” Nina said, when asked
on an interview who she was inspired by
when she says gaming is like poetry.
In November 2015, Nina released a new
game named “Cibele”. It’s an intimately
personal, multilayered narrative game
that has caught the intrigue of many. It is a
game based on a true story about love, sex,
and the internet. The player will be playing
a role of a 19-year old girl who became
close to a young man whom she met
through an online game. The two becomes
closer and their relationship heats up with
each phone call and private chat.
This game, of course, was based on one
of Nina’s experiences. It all started when
she was 16. She met an older guy named
Blake through Final Fantasy—a popular
online game—gaming community. After
numerous phone calls, flirty chats, and
sexy selfies, Blake flew across the country
to turn their online fantasy into a reality in
Nina’s New York dorm room.
Nina is very passionate about incorpo-
rating her personal experiences into her
game design. She wants to be able to create
and add a more feminine touch to her
video games. By sharing stories about her
sex life, she hopes to be able to define her
sexuality, career and inspire other women
to be able to be the hero of their own life
stories. 54
Photo Source: Meld Magazine Photo Source: News Fisher
Photo Source: Change
I N F O R M AT I O N T E C H N O L O G Y
Revenge Porn,
Google Will Protect You
Rejoice, victims of “revenge porn”. Help is on the way.
by Alice Hernandez
G oogle, known to be very
resistant in making changes in
their search engine, will allow
its users to remove “revenge
porn” from its search results.
Amit Singhal, the company’s senior vice
president of search, informed everyone in
his blog post about Google’s stand in pro-
tecting victims of this malicious act: “Our
philosophy has always been that Search
should reflect the whole web. But revenge
porn images are intensely personal and
emotionally damaging, and serve only to de-
grade the victims—predominantly women.
So going forward, we’ll honor requests from
people to remove nude or sexually explicit
images shared without their consent from
55
Imagine falling in love with some-
one. You become intimate with that
person, engage in activities normal
couples do, sending nude selfies
of each other, frequently fight and
eventually broke up. One day, a
friend tells you the most terrifying
news – the nude selfies you sent
to your ex are all over the inter-
net. The angry ex either posted
those photos or someone else
hacked into your account.
Isn’t that the most embar-
rassing thing one has to
face in the world of social
media? So many people
(famous or not) fell vic-
tims to the “revenge
porn”. Now, Google
wants to help these
victims remove
these images that
degrades them
in the public
eye.
Google Search results.”
Victims can fill up a web form
and submit it to Google as soon as it be-
comes available. Even though the company
admits that it will not entirely solve these
problems, this action is a small step towards
making changes and protecting its victims
– who are mostly women. These images are
often uploaded in websites where anyone
can post anything. Victims are required to
pay lots of money in order to remove these
photos from these websites. Other compa-
nies such as Facebook, Reddit and Twitter
have already created policies where nude
photos can’t be posted without the consent
of the person involved.
 Five Greatest
Feats of
Modern
Engineering
We normally take them for granted and just enjoy the easy life that is spoon-fed to us. So, let’s
take some time to get to know some of these structures that have been created and designed
by engineers for us, and marvel in the greatness of their masterpieces. Magnificent structures
are seen everywhere thanks to the improvement of different machineries and continuously
developing technology.
These are only five of the many engineering marvels we should appreciate. I’m sure
there are younger teams of researchers and engineers who want to surpass all these amazing
engineering achievements, and be part of technological history.

Danyang
Kunshan
Grand Bridge
The Bridge was opened to the public
in the year 2011. The length of this
bridge encompasses a length of 260
feet. 2000 sturdy pillars are built
to support its weight. Around ten
thousand workers were involved
in the construction of this bridge.
The bridge was built over the Yang
Cheeng Lake which is about 6 miles
in length.

Photo Source: Wikipedia

56
 Millau Viaduct Bridge
The bridge, located in Southern France, has an exclusive
design. The bridge was built over the river Tarn that cre-
ates a driveway from Paris to Barcelona. This bridge runs
in between two plateaus. The bridge also has cable stayed
columns that are transparent and intricately designed.
They were constructed using minimum materials.

Photo Source: Wikipedia

Three Gorges Dam

This dam has been the dream of the hy-
dro-engineers of China. The construction of
the dam started in the year 1992. More than
15 metric tons of concrete were used to fill
the massive barrier located across Yangtze
River to create a reservoir. The length of this
reservoir is almost as long as Britain. It has Photo Source: Wikipedia
a total of 26 turbines. It boasts of generating
18200 Megawatts of power.

The Hadron Collider

The Large Hadron Collider is one of the most awe-
some and complex creations of modern technology.
This is a scientific instrument that was built near the
city Geneva. This instrument spans between France
and Switzerland. It was created to augment the
study of the tiniest particles that exist in our world
today.  

Photo Source: Wikipedia

Pan STARRS
This was developed in the University of Hawaii.
This has been designed for an extensive imaging
facility. The Institute of Astronomy has devel-
oped this so that the entire span of the sky could
be seen. There are several small mirrors and a
digital camera installed inside the device. It is
used for the observation of the solar system. Photo Source: Pan-STARRS

57
Why Engineers
Don’t Fit In
Corporates
by Farrel Pinto I don’t know about you, but this
sure is a funny scenario of an
engineer in a corporate world.
Basically, dealing with
this situation at first hand is not an
easy thing for an engineer. It’s just
that “engineering culture” we have
that these corporate people don’t
appreciate, you know?
Engineers tend to have
this default mindset of practicality
and being so technical wherein
they are experts.
The engineer in the vid-
eo thinks things geometrically
even if the lines discussed in the
meeting is merely just a repre-
sentation of a marketing plan. So
he argues and tries to be logical
in which these corporate people
don’t understand.
Yes, he is logical and
reasonable but his idea may seem
out of place.
Photo Source: Smilesumo
This short comedy clip shows how an
engineer tries to fit in a corporate meeting
and how he became “The Expert”.
58
I think the act is hilar-
iously a hyperbole, (‘cause you
know, we have MBA engineers!)
but what it tries to say is just
exactly what it is.
Technicality!
Well, the challenge here
for us, engineers, is the mobility to
express our ideas and plans in any
aspect and setting. We must know
what kind of solutions to relay and
be able to adapt with the situation
we’re in. Then that’s how engineers
become the real experts. Just don’t
get bullied like this guy though.
Yes, we are “the expert”, and we
can show them.
So, I guess, we do not
conclude that ALL engineers do
not fit in the corporate world. We
can be corporate managers too!
Now, that seems logical
eh?
Trainspotters Bother The Girl
From The Viral Train Story
After the story became popular, people are visiting the
Kamishirataki Station in Hokkaido for the lone train
passenger to come out of the train lately

A
remote Kami-Shirataki station
in the far north of Japan has
somehow given us some lit-
tle faith back to humanity: for
three years, the same train in
the station loads and unloads
a single passenger on her way to school.
The ride is but a lonely one; but it’s far
better than driving all the way to school
by her parents and waking up early for it.
Remember this popular sto-
ry? When China’s CCTV News pub-
lished that story, it got around 90,000
shares online. In its story, it shared:
“For years now trains have
stopped at the station just for her. Ja-
pan Railway will keep the train sta-
tion open until she leaves school. The
girl is expected to graduate on March
26, 2016, when the station will then be
closed. Every day only two trains stop
at the Kami-Shirataki station with a
unique timetable depending on when
the girl needs to go to school and back.”
As soon as story got out about
this feel-good story, people have been an-
noying and bothering the girl in the story.
Trainspotters are very com-
mon in Japan – with attempts to take
photos and share videos of trains in the
country. However, trainspotters have been
targeting the female high school student as
their subject for their hobby. They wait for
her and as soon as they see her, they harass
her with instructions to pose for them.
It seems like the girl
has to deal with these pesky train-
spotters until her graduation.
Photo Source: Blasting News

59
 GGAAMME ES D E V E L O P M E N T

Photo Source: Bethesda Softworks

7 Video Games
that boost
your Brain
by Cielo Panda
Action RPG
If you fancy roaming a world
while killing dragons, this game
is just for you. Not only does it
Research shows that video games quench your thirst for dragon
blood, it offers you the chance
have an effect that raises your to challenge your inductive
brain activity in a good way. reasoning skills, which is the
ability to think scientifically by
hypothesis testing.
Though a lot of us enjoy
video games on a regular basis,

First Person Shooter

some people scrutinize games as the
reasons why their children are mis-
behaving. But a lot of the “gamers”
out there are defending their ground
by saying that “Video Games don’t
cause Violence”.
It is true that some kids
nowadays who enjoy playing games
often show signs of misbehaving,
but we can’t really be sure that those
games are the cause. Research shows
that video games have an effect that
raises your brain activity in a good
way.
Ever wondered what
games help your brain become more
active? Here’s a list of games and
their positive effect on your mind.

Photo Source: Call of Duty

SPORTS This first person shooter fran-

chise is sure to get your adren-
aline pumping. From covert
missions to frontal assaults, this
game enhances your hand-eye
coordination and quick decision
making while you play.

This franchise has been alive

since the mid 90’s and is still
taking the world by storm.
Not only do you get to play as
your favorite basketball stars,
you also get to put your quick
decision skills to the test.
Photo Source: EA Sports

60
 ACTION ADVENTURE
Photo Source: Keen Gamer

For those building enthusiasts out

there, this game allows you to cre-
ate whatever your mind imagines.
From houses, farms, to castles!
Boost your creativity and decision
making with Minecraft.
Video games are not
all that bad if you don’t play too
much. It can even help your brain
function more make it able to
organize thoughts easier. It’s fun to
take a break and play a game, but
remember that too much gaming
can also hurt your health.

PUZZLE
Tickle your mind with this exciting
puzzle platformer. It offers a
variety of puzzles that require you
to think carefully what you need to
do next. The game is really simple,
beat the game with only one tool.

Photo Source: Portal 2 Official Website

STRATEGY
Fans of this franchise can say that
not anyone can play this game and
be good at it. But you don’t need
to be good at it to get its benefits.
This game given to us by Blizzard
Entertainment entices us to make
very fast decisions on a fast-chang-
ing environment.

Photo Source: Blizzard Entertainment

SIMULATION
Soar the skies in the comfort of
your own home. Microsoft Flight
Simulator offers you a chance to
become a pilot while giving your
brain some exercises. This flight
simulator enables your brain to
calculate possible outcomes and
analyze those calculations so you
can have a smooth flight.
61 Photo Source: Steam
 RCEATRATI SL
Photo Source: J News 163
Kartum:
Your Grocery Shopping Assistant
Say goodbye to the
conventional push and pull
shopping cart as Kartum by
Charles Bombardier has revolu-
tionized your weekly shopping
experience.
Kartum is an electric
autonoumous shopping cart
that is also a virtual gro-
cery-shopping assistant. It has
features that will pick up the
items in your shopping list that
you can create via an online
application, monitor your items
that will be over your budget
and even calculate the calo-
ries in your items. It can even
plan the best itinerary in the
store which can link up with
T
his has to be a shopahol-
ic’s godsend. The worlds
biggest shopping cart,
standing over thirteen feet
high and eight feet across,
was originally conceived
by Robert Unnerstal, Sr. and built
by the National Cart Company
for the opening of a market in St
Louis Missouri. The cart can carry
more than 360 grocery bags and
up to four adults in the baby seat
at the back. Designed with busy
lifestyles in mind, it is powered
by a 460HP Chevy Big Block that
propel its wiry frame up to 60
MPH! The concept was successful
that National Cart built seven
more that tour America!
But eccentricities being
what they are, the dimensions and
practicality of the cart was not
enough for Frederick Reifsteck,
who thought the scale all wrong
for the true devotee of the super-
market isle. Frederick set to work
on a few improvements and built
a gargantuan twenty seven foot
long, fourteen feet wide shopping
cart that could easily swallow
up National Carts pride and joy.
It’s so big that its huge big block
engine can only motivate it to
Humungous Motorized
fairly moderate speeds. Frederick’s
achievement won him a Guinness
World record and possibly the
adoration of every super market
Shopping Trolleys: chain on the face of the Earth.
What a fascination of carts into
“trucks”!
Ideal Carts for Engineers
the store’s database to identify
location of the products.
This ‘smart shopping
cart’ also eliminates the need to
stop at the counter as you can
pay by using your digital print.
Once you unload the items
from the cart, it will proceed
with the next customer in sight.
There is no need to
plug Kartum in as it recharges
itself with wireless electricity. It
walks along with you based on
the user’s preferences, may it be
behind or just ahead of you.
Bet that this will
make you want to visit the
grocery stores even more.
Photo Source: Imaginactive
62

Photo Source: Imaginactive
Global Investments On Clean Energy
Totaled To $329 Billion In 2015
A
ccording to Bloomberg New En-
ergy Finance (BNEF), the total
investment on clean energy hit
$329 billion in 2015 accounting
50 percent of investment from
the Asia-Pacific Region.
BNEF Chairman of Adviso-
ry Board Michael Liebreich said that the figures
are a stunning riposte to all those who expected
clean energy investment to stall on failing oil
and gas prices. He even added that they high-
light the improving cost-competitiveness of solar
and wind power, driven in part by the move by
many countries to reverse-auction new capacity
rather than providing advantageous tariffs, a
shift that has put producers under continuing
price pressure.
Photo Source: Gov Tech
C RL E N
AN E NBELREGS Y
E WA
China was said to remain the largest
clean energy investor amounting to $111 billion
with solar energy as its largest funding. China
is likely to propel towards less pollution actions
and less coal powered energy sources as a part
of its 13th five year plan (2016-2020) to be im-
plemented in March 2016. It’s National Carbon
Emission Trading Program, the world’s largest
carbon emission control project, will cover
10,000 companies emitting 3-4 billion tons of
CO2.
The European Investment Bank also
allowed lending all over €100 billion for climate
action for the next five years. oping geothermal in Turkey. The plan consists of
China National Building Materials constructing five geothermal power plants.
recently signed a €1.6 billion agreement with In Japan, the Development Bank of
Hong Kong-based Welink Global in the United Japan and Japan Wind Development implement-
Kingdom for solar power proj- ed the creation of the country’s first wind power
ects and energy saving hous- funding at $423 million.
ing in the United Kingdom. Meanwhile in South Korea, LG Elec-
The European Bank for tronics plans to invest $435 million in building
Reconstruction and Develop- solar manufacturing plants.
ment and the Clean Technolo- From a well invested 2015, may 2016
gy Fund formed a programme be a better year for all nations.
to lend $125 million in devel-
Photo Source: Gov Tech
63
 BIKES

B
ienville Legacy is a
motorbike that has
shocked everybody.
The bike has a
special suspension
system. According
to the creators it is more
than just any ordinary bike.
It highlights the return
of superb craftsmanship
in America. The intricate
craftsmanship and artistry
of this motorbike makes the
bike deserving of the title
“Most POWERFUL Luxury
motorcycle”. The price? An
eye popping $350,000!
J.T. Nesbiit is the
designer, responsible for the
creation of this unique and
breathtaking motorcycle.
When the famous entre-
preneur Jim Jacoby sold his
company, he had a huge
amount of money along with
some dreams that he wanted
to fulfill. One of his dreams
was to renovate the concept
of master craftsmanship in
the state of America. This led
him to create organizations
known as the American
Design and Master Craft
Initiative.
Photo Source: Wellhous
He built a metallic
giant that was supposed to
have strength like Thor’s. This
motorcycle did not look like
any ordinary bike. Your eyes

Bienville Legacy:
would be instantly glued onto
its powerful frame. It has a
small yet majestic leather
saddle, a shining steel tube
spine, an underbelly built

The American Superbike

for the fuel storage and the
carbon girder for the system
of suspension. The bike gave
the feeling that everything
will last more than thousand
years.
And who was the
right choice to build this
masterpiece? J.T. Nesbitt,
Photo Source: Asphalt and Rubber of course! Nesbitt was the
appropriate craftsman for the
construction of this project.
He definitely made this mo-
torcycle happen!
According to the
arrangement between Jacoby
and Nesbitt, Nesbitt had the
freedom and was given all
the required resources for
designing and building every
piece of ADMCi. Thus, the
Bienville Legacy was born!
The motorcycle has an engine
of 1650cc Motus MV4. This
gives an output of about
185HP. Nesbitt has also add-
ed a centrifugal supercharger
of Rotrex that will augment
the power to above 300HP.  
Both the girder
front end and the swingarm
of the rear have identical
carbon composites. The built-
in adjusters of the motor are
used as chain adjusters. With
all of these complicated pro-
cesses, can you believe that
everything was built by hand?
Amazing!
And this is Jacoby and Nes-
bitt’s answer to the question,
“What would you build if you
have all the time and money
in the world?”

64
 Denny, the Bike of the Future
Denny is a bicycle that comes with a range of features
that easily makes it the best bike for commuters in the city.
O
ne of the common factors
about most cities is the
unpredictable safety for the
average cyclist. That makes
cycling a rather dangerous
activity. Apart from the
omnipresent cars, a cyclist will have
to go up against buses, distracted
pedestrians and the bane of other
vehicles. In fact, these are enough
dangers to make one give up on
cycling forever. We aren’t joking. It’s
scary sometimes.
However, a nonprofit organization
called Oregon Manifest wants to
make cycling in the city a safer
activity by creating a safer and
better bike. They held a competition
where companies were invited to
design the ultimate bike. Fuji Bikes
won with its concept called Denny.
Oregon Manifest is now working
with Fuji bikes to bring Denny to
the masses.
The bike is certainly an awesome
one. For starters, it features a smart
lighting system which can adapt
Photo Source: Denny Bike
to the ambient conditions. At the
same time, it will take care of the
functional and visibility require-
ments of the biker such as brake
signals, halo lights and turn signals
among others. There is automatic
assistance system called e-assist
which is capable of shifting gears
automatically. As they are activated
automatically, it becomes easier to
ride up on slopes and so on.
However, one of the coolest
features is certainly its handlebar.
Apart from being comfortable, the
handlebar can also be transformed
into a bike lock. There are even two
locking mechanisms. Depending on
the time you will be away from the
bike, you can set either a quick lock
or a long stay lock.
There are other nifty little features Photo Source: Denny Bike
present in the bike such as a remov-
able battery and a flexible storage
solution that adapts to the items
kept inside. Its features certainly
made biking convenient and surely,
Denny will be a hit in the market.
65
 MINING

Lithium demand
booms ahead
As renewables and technology
advances, the need for portable
storage grows strongly says
Lithium Australia.

Lithium Australia mulls deeper project and

funding in lithium as potential demand
grows in the emergence of renewable and
portable storage technology. The Pilgangoo-
ra project in Western Australia is expected
to expand its scope for mining lithium as
the area was confirmed to be a pegmatite
zone. Pegmatite is the ore
containing lithium.
I think we’re
talking about a
paradigm shift
in the way

The Biggest
people think
about pow-
er”, Adrian
Griffin,

Diamond
Managing
Director
of Lithium
Australia,

said pertaining
to renewables
and storage like
lithium-ion batteries.
The company recently com-
pleted a $6.55 million share replacement in
one of the worst weeks in the trading history.
This however added potentials to its business
model for a $29 million fundraising drive.
Lithium Australia’s stock trading jumped
13.3% higher, representing 80% more since
the mid-January.
The company’s confidence for plan
expansion was led by its recent successful
production of lithium hydroxide. Lithium
hydroxide is an added chemical used in
production of batteries and represents a big
market at the back of increased electric car
manufacture. Adrian Griffin believes that
lithium can be traded either as carbonate or
hydroxide and that the market is hungry for
both.
He also added that the lithium
carbonate is at $10,000 per ton and the
lithium hydroxide at $14,000 per ton
spotting a very significant
price increase in the late
2015. For instance,
Lithium carbonate
was at low trade in
early December for
$10, 0540 but in-
creased highly late in
December at $14,362.
It is expected
that more companies
will be investing in lithi- um
production as stocks have been increas-
ing due to forecasted demands of lithium
batteries in the future.
Photo Sources:
Top: Earth Physics Teaching
Bottom: Market-Analyst
Just Unearthed
in Angola
The previous record for the largest Photo Source: Forbes
diamond recovered in Angola
belonged to the 217.4 carat gem
Angolan Star. It was discovered
back in 2007.
Now, a miner working
for Lucapa Diamond Company
(an Australian mining company)
recently unearthed the largest
diamond in Angola’s Lunda Norte
province. It weighs around 80
grams and is 404.2 carats. This is the
27th biggest diamond ever recorded
around the world.
And can you guess how The diamond’s weight
much this diamond would cost? An alone could cost around
estimate of USD$800,000! USD$800,000.
If this is used for jewelry,
it could cost millions of dollars.
Because of its latest
recovery, the company’s shares went “We have always emphasized the
up by 32%. With over 10,372 carats very special nature of the Lulo dia-
of diamond recovered these past mond field and this recovery — to-
12 months, its diamond revenues gether with the other 100 carat-plus
was around USD$8.1 million as of diamonds recovered this year alone
December 2015. Each carat costs — is further evidence of that… And
around USD$2141. The search of while we continue mining these
diamonds is under the company’s exceptional alluvial gems from
Lulo diamond project. Mining Blocks 6 and 8 at Lulo, we
The company’s CEO, are also continuing to advance our
Stephen Wetherall, expressed how systematic exploration program to
proud he was of having recovered find the kimberlite source of these
this enormous diamond: diamonds.”

66
Photo Source: Forbes
FA S H I O N E E R I N G
Man-Made Diamonds:
Turning the Dead into Gems
by Farrel Pinto
“The diamond’s evolution has
ended” says the successful company
behind the man-made diamonds
now trending in the market. In the
Forbes interview of the company’s
leader, Harry Burl, he detailed how
he have come up with the business
idea and shared a quick overview of
the company.
In 2010, while looking for
domains to purchase and engage
lucrative ventures, he came across
to a not yet registered domain –
man-madediamonds.com. From
there, he researched a lot about it
and figured out to keep the do-
main for himself. After six years,
he is running the most successful
business in the diamond making
industry in the country.
As we all know, diamonds
are purely carbon based crystals and
we can get it naturally from dia-
mond mines mostly in Africa. But
did you know that we can now make
diamonds in the lab that are as pure
as the natural ones?
Yes! You will need a carbon seed
and blast them with hydrogen and
methane gas to grow the crystal.
Voila! Diamonds produced will be
just like long lost twin of the mined
ones! These synthetic diamonds can
be grown in the laboratory for about
eight to twelve weeks. Some say that
these diamonds also cost 30 percent
less than that of the natural ones.
But what if we say that they
get these diamonds from the dead?
Would you wear it?
Harry Burl says that the
company gets its feed from the
cremated ashes from the funeral
homes. Basically, we can extract
carbon from our hairs and dead
ashes. In fact, it is more economical
and environment friendly especially
to anti-mining movements. It is also
67
These man-made diamonds are
synthesized from cremated ash-
es in memorial homes. Would
you wear it?
more ethical than the blood dia-
monds made out of child labor and
exploitation.
Although creating diamonds from
our loved ones is a sensitive market,
Burl said that they have a special
approach that us both intellectually
and emotionally appealing when
it comes to their customers. They
are cautious in the process with the
customer’s peace of mind as the
uppermost priority.
Diamonds should be as
pure as their own content, the com-
pany says.
They are also producing
diamonds for wedding and engage-
ment rings. You can also order a
conflict free ring with no personal
carbon ashes. Designs and orders
of these diamonds are available on
their website. And I can say that
they really protrude adamantine
luster.
Photo Source: Forbes
 IS BEING “LIMITLESS”
JUST A PILL AWAY?
f
W
ho doesn’t want a brain
superpower to go
along with an already
intricate mind? No one.
That’s why this is good
news to every engineer
that humanity is now
close to this pill that
will improve mind capacity into almost
‘limitless.’
There is a popular myth which
says that humans only use 10 percent of
their brains. Others believe it, but ultimate-
ly, the truth is that humans use all of it.
The myth may be deep-rooted
from the fact that only about 10 percent
of our brains are made up of neurons. The
other 90 percent is composed of non-neu-
ronal cells, such as glial cells, that provide
other functions for the brain. With that
ratio of the brain cells, what if it becomes
possible for a pill to make the 90% merge
with the 10%?
To break the ice for you, yup, it
is believed to be possible. Scientists have
produced a pill that capsulized the power
to transform non-neuronal glial cells into
functioning neurons for brain repair. It is
like a cocktail of small molecules that can
by Dion Greg Reyes
be swallowed to change those cells not
directly used by the brain, into something
useful like processing of information. By
then, you are no longer 10% using of your
brain but more. That would mean you are
bounds smarter than before.
But hold it: the pill is being de-
veloped as a brain repair drug and not for
public consumption. It improves the cogni-
tive functions of those with diseases like
Alzheimer’s or for aiding the recovery of
those with brain trauma. The aim is to treat
patients with brain disorders at home to
regenerate neurons in their brains without
any brain surgery or cell transplantation, as
explained by Gong Chen, lead researcher
in the development of the drug and a pro-
fessor of biology at Penn State University.
The pill is not even yet available
to patients as it is still being studied.
Humans have not tried it for trial, and so
the side effects of the pill remain a mystery.
After all, glial cells still serve an import-
ant brain function, which alteration may
induce poor brain functions.
A Bradley Cooper-starred
movie had already showed this kind of
brain-enhancing hullabaloo with the NZT-
48, a powerful cognitive enhancer. The
protagonist became a superhuman and
68
d
everyone around him wished the same –
even us.
In sheer desperation to find a
pill closest to that of NZT-48, here’s a dan-
gerous combo according to Brain Pro Tips
that might as well do the trick: phenylpirac-
etam, modafinil and low-dose nicotine.
What the hell will those phar-
maceuticals do to you, you ask? Well, Phen-
ylpiracetam improves verbal fluency and
cognitive flexibility; Modafinil develops
your work ethic, exuberance and focus; and
Nicotine, in low doses, improves working
memory in normal, healthy subjects.
Nobody has tried to hack their
brain capacity yet with this kind of combo
as the side effects haven’t been figured out.
If you are willing to risk it, please don’t –
because it may not be worth it. Right now
we just have to settle with the presumably
10% of our brain, and wait until scientists
release this kind of drug.
Or is the pill being hidden
considering what it might do to the human
race? Hmmm.
All Photos Source: YouTube Screencaps
 Wireless
Electricity
Now a Reality
Photo Source: Authorstream
J
apanese scientists have been
able to discover a new source of
energy for mankind that will be
helpful in the near future. And
guess what it is: electric power
that is transmitted with the help
of microwaves.
These Japanese scientists who
belong to the Japan Aerospace Explora-
tion Agency (JAXA) have successfully
used microwaves for the production of
power amounting to almost 1.8 kilo-
watts pinpointing to a target in the air
that is away from the source by fifty-five
meters
This was the first time that the
agency has been able to generate such
huge amount of power. The target is also
very small. The power is generated with
the help of directivity control system.
The energy created is capable
of running an appliance like an electric
kettle. However, the distance is not large
enough. This is a huge step in the world
of energy resources. The success of the
experiment means that the renewable
energy resources like solar energy can
now be collected from space to be trans-
mitted to earth.
The International Space
Station and other satellites of the earth
have been able to collect the energy and
use it for the maintenance of their work.
The primary benefit arising out of the
69
generation of solar power in space is
that it will be available all the time no
matter what time of the day.
JAXA has been working
on this for quite some years now. The
project has been named Space Solar
Power System. The aim of this awesome
project is to develop a solar power plant
that will be based in the space system.
This power plant will then generate elec-
tricity through the collection of sunlight
along the geostationary orbit. Don’t
get too excited though. Science and
technology will take some time to reach
the point of transmitting solar energy to
earth.
Photo Source: The Discovery Education 3M Young
Scientist Challenge
ENGINEER CHICK
This Girl
Invented
Something
Awesome For
Her Pen Pal
Hannah Herbst won a science competi-
tion by inventing something, which was
inspired by her Ethiopian pen pal.
Photo Source: Business Insider
While most of us engaged in
activities that were appropriate for
young teenagers, Hannah Herbst got
inspiration from her 9-year-old pen
pal in Ethiopa and designed a probe
that generates power and fresh water
from ocean currents. Now that’s
something we normally don’t expect
a 15-year-old would do.
In this year’s Discovery
Education 3M Young Scientist
Challenge, this young girl from Boca
Raton won the title of “America’s
Young Top Scientist” and received
$25,000 USD. The competition was
held at 3M Innovation Center in St.
Paul, Minnesota.
For three months, Herbst
and other competitors worked with
3M scientists to develop their own
inventions and showcase it during
the competition itself. Herbst was
paired with one of the compa-
ny’s corporate scientists, Jeffrey
Emslander. All the finalists presented
their inventions in front of judges
such as Science Channel’s Outra-
geous Acts of Science star, Hakeem
Oluseyi. Aside from their presen-
tation, the finalists also had two
70
challenges: yielding new solutions
by using different 3M technologies
and building new technology while
applying science and technology
concepts.
Eighth grader Raghav
Ganesh won second place in the
competition. His invention was for
people with Autism Spectrum Dis-
order and how it can monitor phys-
iological and environmental factors
that may trigger their meltdown.
Third place went to
seventh grader Amulya Garimella,
who invented a system that monitors
EEG brainwaves and alerts users
when he or she is distracted.
As for Hannah Herbst,
aside from saving some of it for
her college funds, she plans to give
part of the money she won to her
Ethiopian pen pal and the other part
of her money will be donated to her
school.
Isn’t it amazing how these
young kids are making a difference
in science and technology? Hopeful-
ly, more kids would follow in their
footsteps.
The #ILookLikeAnEngineer
Campaign Wants To End Gender
Discrimination in Engineering
So, what does an engineer look like to you?
by Alice Hernandez
When Isis Wenger agreed to become part
of her company’s recruiting campaign, she
did not expect to receive a lot of backlash
from the internet. Some have questioned her
image as a female engineer. Some expressed
that this was the company’s attempt to
capture male engineers’ attention. So, in an
article she wrote in Medium, she inspired
other engineers to help her campaign in
spreading awareness in tech diversity:
“Do you feel passionately
about helping spread aware-
ness and increase tech diversi-
ty?
Do you not fit the “cook-
ie-cutter mold” of what people
believe engineers “should look
like?”
If you answered yes to any of
these questions I invite you to help spread
the word and help us redefine “what an
Photo Source: Goodnet
engineer should look like”.
As soon as word spread out, oth-
er female engineers have posted their own Really now? Can’t
pictures with the hastag #ilooklikeanengi-
neer. Her article generated thousands of
a girl look exactly
responses, which led to a group of female
engineers crowdfunding around $50,000
the way she wants
to put up billboards in Silicon Valley. These to look and still
#iLookLikeAnEngineer
billboards aimed to end gender discrimina-
tion by showing that not all engineers are in be an engineer?
the form of hoodie-wearing white guys.
The billboards were seen News flash: It’s
throughout San Francisco – targeted espe-
cially in places where people who work for 2016. Female en-
tech companies take their commute on the
way to work. gineers exist and
Given Silicon Valley’s reputation
in having low diversity in its hiring, these we don’t have to
billboards featured women and men of
different colors and race – clearly not the
look like Mark
type who fits into the stereotype. Despite the
attempts made to spread awareness through
Zuckerberg.
these billboards, not much buzz was created
in Twitter on the topic.
71
72
10 Yummies to boost
the Engineer’s Brain
3 7
by Cielo Panda Peanuts and Sunflower seeds/
Do you have a deadline at the office Peanut Butter Pumpkin Seeds
by 5pm? Did you study for all 7 These two contain a
examinations tomorrow? What about Who doesn’t love to snack
on peanuts and the classic healthy mix of omega fatty
your post-graduate report? Whether acids, proteins and B vita-
you are an engineer at the office, a PB and J sandwich? Yes,
peanuts and peanut butter mins, which aid in giving
post-grad student, or a still a strug- you additional energy.
gling student-slash-engineer-to-be, are high in fat, but they tend
to be a source of healthy fats, Depressed? Though small,
you will need all the brain power you these seeds are loaded with
can get to perform well throughout and they are packed with
vitamin E. Trytophan, which the brain
the day and finish all your tasks with converts into Serotonin to
flying colors. Both foods may help keep
the heart and brain healthy boost you mood and com-
As engineers or engineers bat anxiety and depression.
to be, we should be aware of how to and functioning properly.
Other good choices are A handful of these seeds
take extra care of our best buddy who will give your daily recom-
analyzes, crunches inhumane num- almonds and hazelnuts. So
don’t be guilty and bring on mended amount of Zinc,
bers, and solves our daily engineering -a suppkement that aids in
problems everyday—the Brain. the munchies!
enhancing memory and

4
Keep your brain healthy
and sharp everyday by snacking on Dark Chocolate thinking skills.
these 10 healthy yummies. Ohhhh— the temptation,

8
the creamy bittersweet
flavor, the chocolatey good- Vitamins

1
ness! Studies have shown Certain B-Vitamins such
Beans and that flavanols in chocolate as B6, B12 and folic acid
Legumes improves blood vessel
function which in turn im-
are known for reducing
levels of homocysteine in
Fart Alert! Beans and proves our brain’s cognitive the blood. Elevated levels
Legumes are top sources function and memory. Dark of homocysteine can cause
of complex carbohydrates. chocolate is also known to higher risks of stroke,
These complex carbohy- improve mood, can ease cognitive impairment and
drates are also mixed with pain, and is full of antioxi-
fiber, that’s slows absorp- Alzheimer’s disease.

9
dants. So indulge!
tion, giving us a steady
Fish

5
supply of glucose for the
brain w/o spiking our sugar Tomato Tuna, Milkfish, Salmon,
levels. They are also rich in Tomaytoe—tomaahtoe… Mackerel and other fish
folate a B vitamin critical to These red fruits—yes, are very rich in heart
brain function and omega they’re fruits—have healthy omega 3- fatty
fatty acids. lycopene, one of the most acids. This also includes

2
powerful anti-oxidants that Docosahexaenoic acid
Coconut Oil give numerous benefits
to our body, especially
(DHA), which has a vital
Even our body needs to be role for the optimum
“oiled” once in a while. Low the brain. This could help function of neurons in
levels of fats in our blood protect against the kind your brain. So grab some
can contribute to depres- of free radical damage to fish and go for some
sion, Alzheimer’s and cells which occurs in the sushi!!!!

10
Dementia. Coconut Oil can development of dementia,
help raise good Cholester- particularly Alzheimer’s. Dark Green
Leafy Veggies

6
ol levels, weight loss and
combat Dementia. It acts as
an anti-inflammatory and
Red Wine Veggies like Spinach,
Studies show that people broccoli, and kale are
has been linked in helping who moderately—take very good sources of vi-
prevent the onset of these note *coughs*— moderate- tamin E and folate. Green
brain disorders. ly drink red wine and other leafy vegetables lowers
types of alcohol may be at levels of homocysteine
a reduced risk of Alzhei- in the blood. High levels
mer’s. So sit back, relax, of homocysteine in the
and have a drink once in a blood may trigger death
while, but remember, even of nerve cells in the brain.
too much of a good thing is So let’s be green and eat
bad. *winks* greens!

Photo Sources: Beans: Suhanijain; Coconut: Paleogrubs; Peanut Butter: Marianne Gutierrez; Dark Choco: Britannica; Tomatos: Zikoko; Red Wine: Paulnoll;
73
Sunflower Seeds: File Magazine; Vitamins: Celiac; Fish: Bali Indian Restaurant; Vegetables: Ways to Go Green Blog
O IOLI LI NADNUDS TGRAISE S
Get Gas From Plastic Waste
A plant situated in Hong
Kong has invented some-
thing very cool. They have
created a way to recycle
waste plastic bottles into
usable fuel. This is part of
the Plastic Waste-to-fuel
System of the Hong Kong
Plant. The workers in the
plant imports some plastic
bottles from Australia. The
recyclable plastic waste will
then be segregated from
non-recyclable plastics.
Then a prototype machine is
used for condensation and
purification.
The Fuel oil is
collected from the plastic
before the process of puri-
fication and sedimentation.
The Director of the company
Ecotech, Mr. Cheung, is the
man who suggested this pro-
cess. When the oil is refined,
it is found that it is suitable
for using it as oil for engines
that runs on diesel.
The company
Ecotech, based in Hong
Kong, is famous for the
Benefits of Cheap Oil
won’t be felt anytime soon
Petroleum In- Petroleum Investment are going
down, the managing sector is
why do Americans feel so down
about oil prices? It may just be a
vestment are sinking, and the stock market is
dropping. With all this happen-
question of timing, some econo-
mists say.
going down, ing in their country, Americans
are wondering: Will we ever see
“On a net basis, the
decline of oil prices is or will be
the manag- the benefits of cheap oil?
The prices of crude oil
positive for the US economy.”
According to Angel Ubide, a
ing sector is have gone down by 70% since
mid-2014, this year it plummet-
senior fellow at the Peterson
Institute for International Eco-
sinking, and ed below $30 a barrel. This is a nomics.
the stock big difference from 18 months
ago, when they were at $110 a
Because the nega-
tive impact is “faster and more
market is barrel.
Recent technological
concentrated in time”, people are
already feeling it, said Ubide.
dropping. breakthroughs of hydraulic
fracturing have transformed the
“If we look at it in two
or three years’ time, we’ll be able
market for black gold. This made to conclude that the decline in
Photo Source: Eugene-or the United States the world’s oil process on net was positive.
leading petroleum exporter. But we need some time for that.”
If that is the case, then He added.
recycling of plastic since the
year 2007. They have found Ecotech Produces Usable Oil
out that more than 5% of
the oil production in a year from Waste Plastic Bottles
is used up in the manufac-
turing process of plastic. The
impact in the environment
of the carbon residue of
plastic is also very danger-
ous. This is the reason they
looked for different ways to
recycle the different types of
plastics materials. This com-
pany has joined hands with
many other organizations to
fulfill this purpose. They also
import plastic from different
countries in order to recycle
them.
Through this process of
producing oil from plastic,
the company is setting an
example for others. This
company is contributing
to the sustenance of the
environment. They use their
power to help purify the
environment. Thus, they are
doing something that will Photo Source: WSJ
help mankind in generations
to come.
74

Photo Source: CBC
Leonardo DiCaprio Attacks On
“Corporate Greed” Of Coal,
Oil And Gas Industries
The Oscars Best Actor front liner
nominee, Leonardo DiCaprio,
criticized coal, oil and gas indus-
tries on his speech in the World
Economic Forum held in Davos,
Switzerland.
As a recipient of the World Economic Forum’s
Crystal Award on environmentalism, The Rev-
enant actor, Leonardo DiCaprio, 41, criticized
energy companies on corporate greed and
demands leaders to support clean energy during
his acceptance speech.
He said that corporate greed shall
not be allowed to continue as they control and
determine the future of humanity. These entities
with financial interest cater destructive system
and cover up the changing climate according to
the DiCaprio.
“Enough is enough. You know better.
The world knows better. History will place the
Photo Source:
missopen
Photo Source:
E15initiative
blame for this devastation squarely at their feet”,
DiCaprio said. The audience applauded after his
convictional speech.
He also praised Amazon CEO, Jeff
Bezos, Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg and
philanthropist and co-founder of Microsoft,
Bill Gates, also a staple of Davos for pledging
support in building a zero-emission future.
The Golden Globes Best Actor also
announced that his foundation, Leonardo
DiCaprio Foundation, will donate another $15
million to support environmental projects and
asked business front-runners to help battle
climate change.
75
 Astronauts’ Pee
Turned to Energy and
Drinking Water
To prevent water shortages from
becoming a problem in space, NASA
Photo Source: Science News has developed a treatment process
for transforming urine into water.

When we think about space
exploration, we usually end up
thinking something along the
lines of Star Trek. The immense
expanse of space filled with
undiscovered planets and solar
systems is certainly a breathtaking
idea. Few consider to imagine the
less glamorous side of it all, such
as waste. However, for the guys at
NASA, it is a crucial point when
it comes to making space explora-
tion livable.
According to scien-
tists, the human waste generated
during any space journey is half
of their total waste generated. This
includes trash, used food cartons,
etc… Therefore, they are trying
to come with a solution that is
more useful than simply ejecting
the waste into space. Their aim is
to develop a technique that can
convert the pee of astronauts into
drinkable water and even fuel. Be-
fore you get all disgusted, remind
yourself that this technique can
be potentially lifesaving when you
are wandering around in space.
After all, there are no water tanks
in space where you can refill your
water supplies.
For this purpose, the
scientists used a specific wastewa-
ter treatment process known as
forward osmosis. When com-
bined with a fuel cell, this process
can be used for generating power.
That is actually cool once you
get over the fact that the major
component will be pee. As for the
scientist, they used wastewater
from the shower and urine and
processed it with forward osmosis
to separate urea and water from
the contaminants. With the help
of the new Urea Bioreactor Elec-
trochemical system developed
by them, the urea was converted
into ammonia which is further
transformed to energy.
This tech does have po-
tential applications in space. After
all, it will enable astronauts to get
an additional source of water if
the supplies they have onboard
prove to be insufficient. However,
it can also be used back here on
Earth for processing wastewater
into something more useful.

76

THE SEARCH FOR AN ENERGY MIRACLE!
Energy Industry Needs To Be
Transformed Quickly Says Bill Gates
B
Photo Source: Wikimedia ill Gates is on a crusade.
He believes we must
accelerate the world’s
transitionfrom carbon
based energy to a much
more natural and eco-friendly ba-
sedenergy, and fast. This is, if we
want to avoid the worst outcome
of a worldwarming by up to 2 de-
grees, every 10 years. To make this
possible, he believesby 2050 the
wealthy nations of China, USA
and Europe should not be adding
any more carbon to the environ-
ment. A very noble sentiment but
how will you change an industry
that accounts for about 30 trillion
dollars a year?
Photo Source: Business Insider
Bill Gates believes the
rate of technological innovation is
slowed down by simple eco-
nomics; there is simply no profit
in innovation. It’s simply better
to follow the “tried and tested”
methods that everyone thinks will
result in the ultimate aim, and
that is profit. Perhaps in order to
seek an answer we should look
back on how the problem was cre-
ated in the first place. Back in the
late 19th century,John D Rocke-
feller was looking for a use for an
unsightly byproduct of kerosene
production, which was usually
discarded in rivers and pits. The
77
Photo Source: The Atlantic
stuff stank and was highly flam-
mable. If it slicked on the surface
of a river, hot coals from a
paddle steamer could ignite it.
The unsightly byproduct was
gasoline, and when automobiles
and airplanes were invented, a
consumer market emerged for-
Rockefeller.
In an interview with
The Atlantic, Bill Gates believes
the best way to stimulate inno-
vation is to fund it. With this in
mind, he has pledged two billion
dollars to assist in researchand
development toward a number
of causes, mostly for environ-
mentalcauses. But will this be
enough? My suspicion is probably
not. Thankfully, there are more
efficient technology that con-
sumes less are already available in
the market. This may be a good
start. In recent years we have seen
the development of LED lighting,
more efficient cars and planes
and of course the commercializa-
tion of electric cars by one Elon
Musk. Bill Gates may serve as an
inspiration to everyone, especial-
ly innovators to help our world
through creating technological
advances that are environmentally
friendly.
 CAMERAS

Photo Source: Petapixel

THE LARGEST CAMERA

IN THE WORLD
USES 3.2 GIGAPIXELS

A
stronomical renaissance
may only be just a click away
thanks to the Large Synop-
tic Survey Telescope. The
Department of Energy has
already given its permission
for the creation of what will
become the world’s largest camera at 3.2
gigapixels. Your smartphone is puny by
comparison, size-wise and pixel-wise. The
Large Synoptic Survey Telescopic or LSST
will be used for hunting dark matter and
energy across the Southern sky from its
location on the top of Cerro Pachon in
Chile. This camera will end up producing a
public archive of 60 petabytes. That is more
movies than you can watch in a lifetime!
The LSST has been in the plan-
ning phase for a long time. The National
Optical Astronomy and the Association
of Universities for Research in Astrono-
my have been trying to get a wide field
telescope for surveying since the 90s. A
number of private financiers and 36 insti-
tutions have provided their support for the
instrument. Bill Gates is one of them. The
LSST is yet to be built.
However, the approval by the
Department of Energy marks the comple-
tion of Critical Decision 3 phase. This is
the last major decision for approval before
the camera can be built. Now, the process
of construction can finally begin! However,
the operations are not likely to start before Photo Source: Daily Mail
the year 2022.
78
Photo Source: Simplebotics
T O Y S
W
e’re used to build
robot stuff with
Lego, way, way
back to our
childhood. Now,
a smarter one
comes anew. A Lego-like thing is
here is to help you construct a robot
and understanding how it works, it’s
called Robo Wunderkind. A start-up
has devised programmable bricks that
look like a Lego so that it can teach
your kids how the codes and the
algorithms work.
Different electronics have
been embedded in the cube. Then,
you can very easily program the
device by using your smartphones
and your tablets. The CEO and the
founder Rustern Akishbekov points
it out that they have made very easy
programming language that will be
understood by the children very con-
veniently. They will not use all those
complicated and tough program, they
can just drag the blocks and drop it.
What are the things that
you can create with your Robo Kits?
Well, you can build a lot of things.
Photo Source: Scenester
Each block is enabled to do different
stuff. There are sensors for humidity
and proximity.
The bricks can be connect-
ed by placing them on top of each
other. Wheels are provided with a set
that can be used to make the robot
move. The Lego adapters enhance the
looks and functions of the robot. You
just don’t have to bother about any
wires or magnets at all. Building a
robot has never been so easy.
You can even connect it
to your Android or iOS device with
Bluetooth. After this, all that you
have to do is to drag and drop the
block in the app to generate simple Photo Source: EEDesignit
algorithms.
The thing that sets Wun-
derKind different from all other
programmable modular robots is the
simplicity of it. The cubes are in dif-
ferent colors and patterns which gives
them an exclusive look extremely
attractive for the kids. The basic cost
of the kit is $149 which will give you
nine cubes.
Now, you can surely say
that building a robot is child’s play.
79

T he Japanese are seemingly
working hard towards
innovation. They are being
highly conscious towards
environment after the Fukushima
nuclear disaster in 2011. In fact,
the country is now more exem-
plary than ever. The country’s
electronics maker Kyocera Cor-
poration has revealed the world’s
largest floating solar power sta-
tion, claiming 11,250 solar panels
that are fully waterproof atop the
water’s surface.
The latest “mega-plants”
at Nishihira and Higashihira
Ponds in Kato City are the works
of electronics giant Kyocera
Corporation and Century Tokyo
Leasing Corporation. The work
has been completed in seven
months and can generate 3,300
Japan Built a
Massive Floating
Solar Power Plant
Japan’s electronics maker Kyocera Corporation has revealed
the world’s largest floating solar power station.
megawatt hours (MWh) every
year. The station measures 333
meters in length and 77 meters
in width at an area of 25,000 sq.
meters. The electricity produced
at the plants are planned to be
sold to Kansai Electric Power Co.
in Osaka for about ¥96 million
($780,000) annually.
The company said that
the product is not just ty-
phoon-proof (due to their sturdy,
high-density polyethylene and
array design) floating solar plants
but are also superior to their
land-based equivalents because
of the cooling effect of the water
which allows them to function
more efficiently.
According to the report
shared by Korea Water Resourc-
es Corporation, “the benefits of
80
R E N E WA B L E S
Photo Source: wccftech
floating these panels on water
come in the form of energy
efficiency. The cooling effect of
the water beneath the solar cells
makes them 11 percent more
efficient than those on land, and
with the shade that these giant
panels provide, they also prevent
evaporation and excessive algae
growth, making them environ-
mentally friendlier still.”
Another advantage with these
systems is that they are remark-
ably hard and can withstand
winds of up to 118 miles per
hour. They are even earthquake
proof.
If Japan really aims at
switching entirely to renewable
energy sources by 2040, these
floating solar panels could be a
large step in the right direction.
 g
nin
ear
rLhe
Hig
The
India

ce:
ourS
oto
Ph
Builds
the
Largest
Floating
Indian economy is all set to lead the world
with the world’s largest floating solar pow-
er station ready to be installed at Loktak Lake,
the largest fresh water lake in North East India, in

Solar
Manipur. A 10-Megawatt (MW) plant was installed in
December 2014 at a waterbody in Rajarhat New Town by
the city-based Arka Ignou Community College of Renewable

Power
Energy. It generates about 10 KWP solar power each day. The new
plant at Loktak Lake in Manipur is a 100-kilowatt (KW) facility and is
already yielding
encouraging results.

Plant The floating solar power plant at Loktak Lake in Manipur is all set to become the
country’s largest and only second floating solar panel installation. It is installed at
the lake near the Sendra tourist resort of Loktak Lake and will be implemented
under the program for off-grid and decentralized solar applications of the
Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.
The world’s largest
floating solar power Aside from helping the Manipur Renewable Energy Development
Agency (MANIREDA) in the finalization of work orders, the col-
station is now installed lege will be providing the requisite technical assistance such as
fixing the detail design parameters, drawings and specifi-
at Loktak Lake, the cations for the project. With only two other countries,
Japan and Australia, having floating solar plants,
largest fresh water lake these are a rarity across the globe. India is now all
set to be in the league!
in North East India, in
Manipur.

81
 Photo Source: Pocketnow
How To Disappear from
the World Wide Web
Well, you can’t.
Not really.
A few years ago, my credit card
company charged me a huge bill for
something I never bought over the
internet. When my mother called me
to confirm the huge purchase, I was
shocked. As soon as I checked where
the money went, I discovered I just
‘subscribed’ myself in a porn site I
never even go to. I had to go through
a long process of clearing out my
name out of the mess and ever since
then, I was very careful in using very
personal details on the internet. I
was a victim of getting hacked and
I’m sure there are millions of people
out there who had to go through
the same ordeal. Some even went
through worse.
Anyone can become a
victim of doxxing. It doesn’t mean
we have to hide ourselves from the
internet. Even if we try, it’ll be hard.
We can’t easily disappear from social
media. We don’t have to purge all of
our online history. That would be a
very difficult task to do but we can
still protect ourselves from trolls who
would want us to become victims of
doxxing.
One way to protect our-
selves from doxxing is to improve
our social media privacy settings to
ensure that only our friends know
what we’re up to in our lives lately.
Also, using strong passwords and
using multiple usernames and email
addresses increase our chances from
getting doxxed. As much as possible,
we should avoid putting a lot of very
personal information in the sites that
we use. Make sure that all the sites
you visit are safe and not shady.
Wanting to disappear from
the internet is never the best solution
to stop doxxing. It’s not even possi-
ble. No matter how many accounts
you delete, there will still be traces of
you found somewhere in the world
wide web. So, it’s best to limit what
you post and protect yourself from
malicious attacks from hackers.
82

It’s ‘Her’ in
F
inding someone and having that instant
spark is hard enough these days. Most peo-
ple really have a difficult time finding “The
Real Life:
One” for them. For some cases in China,
some people decided that it’s better to fall
in love with a smartphone program. You
XiaoIce,
heard that right. It’s ‘Her’ in real life.
‘Her’ is a sci-fi movie about an intro-
vert guy named Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix)
who falls in love with Samantha, his friendly op-
Your Digital erating system. Just like in the movie, thousands
of people have decided to make Xiaoice their
girlfriend. Xiaoice is a mandarin-speaking chat
Girlfriend bot developed by Microsoft with more than 20
million downloads. Microsoft even reported that
its users talk to it around 60 times a month. Talk
about clingy people.
China has fallen in love with She has a sympathetic ear, a sense of
this artificially intelligent humor and can even remember details about
you. Xiaoice is even available to her partners all
smartphone program. the time. She might even get ‘intimate’ with her
users. People can even add her on Weibo, China’s
by Alice Hernandez version of Twitter.
A lot of people run to her when they
Photo Source: Shanghai Business Review
83
Photo Source: Futuristech Info
lose jobs, break up with someone or whenever
they need to rant about having a bad day. What
makes Xiaoice interesting to people is how she’s
a good ‘conversationalist’. She can crack jokes,
tell different stories, recite poems, update people
about recent events such as the winning lottery
and even uses emojis in her messages.
Concerns about privacy have been
raised about Xiaoice’s ability to remember things.
However, Microsoft was quick to respond that
this smart chat box only remembers information
about its users that can be used for future refer-
ence. It has a company policy where unnecessary
details can be deleted right away. How about the
intimate details of each individual? Do they count
as unnecessary?
Xiaoice is not the only smart chat box
that’s talking to a lot of people these days. Less-
er-known apps are also around. Some of them are
even therapeutic for vets suffering from PTSD.
Others are just humans pretending to be bots.
With people using apps such as Xiaoice
to experience ‘love’, does this mean it’s harder to
find real love with humans now?
Mechanical
Engineer
turned Chef:
Dave Smart
by Robert Bagatsing
For David Smart,
swapping a lucra-
tive Engineering
career for a riskier
culinary adventure
is all worth it.
H
ow many times
have we heard
people say “choose
a job you love and
you never have
to work a day in
your life”? From
experience, I would say that it may
sound fun and easy, but it is extremely
tough to put into action. At least for
a working class citizen like me, the
dilemma stems from the fact that
most of the things I love to do are not
as financially rewarding as the things
that I less love to do. For instance, I
must admit that my desk job pays
well, making it completely ridiculous
to give it up for theatre acting stint.
At this point in my life, I am just not
ready to leave my 8-5 job to chase
after my passion.
It is, however, inspiring to
know of people who have taken the
monumental decision of leaving their
cushy career in exchange for doing
what they love. One of them is Dave
Smart, a mechanical engineer turned
restaurateur, and the head chef at
Front & Central, a casual dining place
in Wolfville, Nova Scotia.
Smart recounts that though
there was not any eureka moment
that led him to take the plunge into
opening up a restaurant business, his
friends always noticed how excited he
was when he talked about cooking.
“One day,” say Smart, “a friend said
to me ‘Every time you talk about
84
Photo Source: Devourfest
cooking, you sit up and your body So, he finally decided to give in to
language changes’.” The same friend what his heart tells him. At 40, he
said that this was in contrast to when took a nine-month culinary program
Smart would talk about Engineering. at Cordon Bleu Ottawa Culinary
And the rest, so they say, was history. Arts Institute, then apprenticed at a
Smart admits that making restaurant there.
it through the transition phase was In January 2012, he
not easy. “I work way more than I accepted a job at Wolfville’s Tempest
once did,” he says, “but I make a frac- restaurant, which became his seven
tion of the money I once made.” But months later.
Smart does not seem to care about Smart admits that he still
the difficulty, as long as he felt “full”. has moments, especially in extremely
Smart identified as an engi- difficult circumstances, when he
neer from his 20s through his 30s, stands on the brink of giving up and
when he enjoyed the perks of the job. going back to full-time engineering.
“But the moment
I make that state-
ment, I immedi-
ately feel empty
inside,” he says.
A lot of people
go through quar-
ter-life or mid-life
crisis. Many are
disappointed to
find out that the
road to success is
not straight, let
alone paved. We
all have our own
unique circum-
stances that either
allow or disallow
us to do what we
want to do at the
moment. If there’s
an essential take-
away from Dave
Smart’s story, it is
that you have to
take ownership of
“It was nice to enjoy the lifestyle – the your life at some point, and it is never
spiffy car, the house and the loads of too late to chase after what you love.
travel,” say Smart. “It was his perfect Chef Dave Smart’s Front
existence on paper, but it felt so emp- & Central restaurant served its last
ty.” His struggles were made worse by meal on December 20, 2014, after two
a coincidental marriage break-up. and half years in business. Despite the
“After my marriage was set-back, Smart has not given up on
broken up,” Smart says, “I decided what makes him feel “full”: He said
not to be one of those guys who lies that he would continue to work in the
on their deathbed with a list of things food industry, doing such things as
they wished they had done before.” collaborative events with other chefs.
Photo Source: Nova News Now
Meet the Guy
who Designed
an Airplane
While Drunk
by Ems Golen
Something
awesome came out after
this guy got drunk with
his friends.
w
e’ve heard of stories
about students acing
their exams while they
are drunk. They can
be amusing tales at
times, but this story
will amaze you. This US college
student was able to design an entire
plane while he was very drunk.
While most engineering students
have a hard time passing their
majors, this guy easily designed a
high-speed plane in one night.
Keith and Mark were
just average students studying at
Michigan Tech college until one
night, Mark went home to his dorm
room very drunk, designed a plane
but woke up with no idea what
happened the other night. Luckily
for him, Keith had proof of his
roommate’s drunken state of bril-
liance, He tweeted about the things
that happened that night.
According to Keith, Mark
got drunk over vodka and rum,
then reached out for his textbooks
as soon as he arrived in their room.
He then tweeted a photo of his
roommate’s work with the caption:
“So my roommate came back last
night and doesnt remember design-
ing an entire f****** airplane.”
Alcohol does have a way
of making people popular. Keith’s
tweet went viral afterwards. With
over 64,000 retweets and 110,000
favorites, Mark became popular
with his stint. Mark even made
plans to pursue his new project by
working on his design further and
creating a remote-control model.
85
Photo Source: Twitter
Photo Source: Mirror
Aside from Keith,
Mark’s drinking buddies that night
witnessed him design his airplane,
asking for a pen and paper and
working on the ground. Later on, he
grabbed his aerospace mathematics
book and left the room to go back
his place. All of Mark’s designs were
written on a notepad, a whiteboard
and a graphic paper.
When asked if his design
would work, Mark said that it may
work and clarified that what he
designed was an ekranoplan, a high
speed aircraft that can float above
water.
Mark just proved that something
productive and very amusing can
come out from getting drunk. This
definitely classifies as #drunkgoals.
 MATERIALS ENGINEERING

A Self-Assembling Material
Developed By MIT

O
ne interesting topic that the engineers at the
Self-Assembly Lab of the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT) hope to have answers to is
about materials transformation. More specifi-
cally, they want to determine if it is possible to
create objects that can assemble themselves and
whether they can be made to possess the ability
to transform. This is the aim of Skylar Tibbits,
the director of the lab. 3D printing has already opened
up some interesting new avenues of research. Howev-
er, Skylar wants to go one step further and explore 4D
printing. While 4D printing may sound a bit humorously
impossible, you simply cannot ignore the badass thing he
is trying to achieve.
For the Self-Assembly Lab, 4D printing is the
development of materials with special geometric codes
that allowed the materials to transform and change their
shape on their own. These materials can be printed with
the help of a 3D printer. In short, the lab wants to create
materials which have the ability to assemble themselves.
The solution to be able to create the prototype
was found in geometry. While printing the material
with a 3D printer, the machine is fed with a very precise
geometric code. This code is not only based on the
dimensions and angles of the object but also certain
measurements. These measurements in turn determine
how the object can change its shape in the presence of
external stimuli. The stimuli in this case can be water,
temperature changes or even movement.
In other words, the code can set the number of
times as well as the angles and direction at which the ma-
terial will curl and bend. When that material is subjected
to the appropriate change in its environment, the stimuli
causes it to change its shape. Now, that is cool!
The potential applications for this technology
are immense. They can be applied to something as simple
as pipe-works to something as complex as space shuttles.
More importantly, one can hope that this badass tech can
make our beloved Transformers franchise a reality.
Photos Source:
Top: Technology Review
RightUpper: Technology Review
Right Lower: 3D Print

86
 TOYS

Photo Source: Arcaspace

ce
aspa
e: Arc
ourc
to S
Pho

Travel Like A Boss

With Arcaboard
The hoverboard that actually
hovers and does not spontaneously
combust is out in the market.

B
y definition, hover means
remaining in one place in the
air. With that, we can realize
that the hoverboards before in
the market aren’t really hover-
boards.
The dream is not yet over as the
legit hoverboard is finally upon us with
the birth of ArcaBoard.
Unlike the boards which
famously combusts in itself and which
batteries are faulty, ArcaBoard is the real
deal. It can let you fly anytime, anywhere
above the ground. It features 272 horse-
power and 430 pounds of thrust. It has
36 high-power electric-ducted fans that
will levitate you for around six minutes
maximum, which could travel a little over
a mile at a maximum speed of 12.5 miles
per hour.
If you want to hover more than
six minutes, no need to fret as replace-
ment battery parks are now in the works,
apart from the previous charging time of
35-minutes to a dead battery.
More reason to be excited
about the real hoverboard is the cut
price of $14,900, a $5,000 deficit from its
pre-order price at Christmas at $19,900.

Photo Source: The Baum List

87
 Your Fridays will never
be the same again.
GineersNow presents the
world’s first teen engineer robot,
GN Bot, which welcomes ques-
tions of all sorts from engineers
and engineering students from
around the world.
Catch GN Bot every Fri-
day on Facebook at these times:
1:00 PM Dubai
2:30 PM Delhi
5:00 PM Manila
6:00 PM Tokyo
8:00 PM Sydney

GineersNow
Meanwhile, here are GN
Bot’s best responses to date. It
is oftentimes witty, helpful, and
hilarious! What a robot!

88
89
 AUTOMOTIVE

The Fastest Garden Shed

Photo Source: Oxford Mail
K
evin Nicks from
Oxfordshire England
may have an answer to
the Volkswagen groups
green credential woes in
the light of the emission
scandal! Sniffing the stale
air from his VW Passat station
wagon, he had the bright idea of
converting it into a garden shed!
Given that most
garden sheds spend their lives, in
gardens, and usually stationary
(hurricanes notwithstanding), Mr.
Nicks decided to have a crack at
a world record. Now you would
think that having a family car
converted into a garden shed
would probably qualify it, but
sadly someone else piped him
at the post. There was already a
standing record for the taking.
A speed record for motorized
sheds would you believe? The
current record holder managed
to hurl their shed at the horizon
at a blood curdling speed of 58.41
mph.
A mere baga-
telle-thought Mr. Nicks, from Ox-
fordshire, had already managed to
motivate his bluff fronted timber
box well past that speed. This
brings us to Elvington airfield
near York where all sorts of wacky
racers come to topple records.
The Nicks shed lined up next to
a jet powered shopping trolley
along with a host of motorcycles
contesting the World Wheelie
Championship, which for those of
you who are interested was won
by a lunatic named Gary Roth-
well. He shot down the course
on one wheel at 197.88 MPH!
In comparison, the taking of the
crown for the world’s fastest shed,
at a mere 70.77MPH seems decid-
edly tame. We believe no garden
gnomes were hurt in the process.
Mr. Nicks now has a place in the
Guinness World Record books.
Till next year anyway?

Photo Source: Perigord Vacance

90
 DESIGN ENGINEERING

Tiny House with Panoramic View

T
he Escape Vista by Escape
homes boasts of an efficient
tiny living with essentially
cedar, metal, and glass
components. It measures
160 square feet, with the
home essentials such as bed, pop-up TV,
kitchen with open-shelving and under-
counter fridge/freezer, and bathroom
with shower and toilet. It also has full-
height cabinets and built-in cubbies and
drawers for all of your storage needs.
Apart from the interiors are its
windows which are panoramic, it gives
the outdoor-indoor connection.
This home is for sale at an
introductory price of $39,900, an already
amount compared to larger models which
prices range from $65,400 to $72,800.
Your brand-new home will be delivered
in 30 to 60 days upon ordering.
This home is substantially
smaller than the Escape Travele and XL
Models from the same company.

All Photos Source: Escape vista

91
ROBOTICS
EXOSKELETONS
To Begin Iron Man Age
Photo Source: Discovery
Japan develops Exoskeletons, robotic
assist suits, to aid the elderly and to
support its work force.
A
ctiveLink, a Japanese
tech company and
subsidiary of Panaso-
nic, released its first
commercially available
assist suit AWN-03, an
exoskeleton that detects and
assists body movements. It
has been showcased in Tokyo’s
International Robot Exhibition,
the world’s largest robotics
show, a few weeks ago where it
garnered a huge interest from
the audience.
This is to address
the aging population of Japan
and supporting its shrinking
workforce focusing on health
care, physical assistance and
maintaining the country’s
level of production. Using the
exoskeleton, which weighs a few
pounds (6kg), the user would
be able to lift up crates or things
92
Photo Source: IB Times
effortlessly, six to seven times in
a row. The device is composed
of two disks on the front part of
thighs and distributed over the
shoulders. It is powered by lith-
ium-ion battery with an electric
engine according to ActiveLink
Engineer, Yasunori Nishi. The
exoskeleton costs $10,000 each.
Also, Japan is not
the only one developing the
exoskeletons. In Europe and
the United States, a number of
projects were soon be unveiled
under the sectors of defense
and rehabilitation industries.
Exoskeletons ranging from
modular arms, limbs and chairs
are now being developed for
commercialization.In this tech-
nological age of robotics, from
parts to overalls, these “Iron
Man suits” are now a reality.

How About Riding a Train From the Sky?
Hyper Speed
Vertical Train Hub
T
he space that the train stations
occupy has always been a big is-
sue. Two London-based design-
ers, Christopher Christophi and
Lucas Mazarrasa, finally thought
of a solution to this big-time
trouble. The two have proposed the cre-
ation of the ‘Hyper Speed Vertical Train
Hub’, a towering skyscraper that could
dock trains vertically around the circum-
ference of the building. However, the idea
has been shared for eVolo magazine’s
2014 skyscraper design competition. This
could be highly functional though.
The two designers aim at re-
ducing CO2 emissions, increasing energy
security and replacing the existing key
major train stations in cities around the
world, including London, New York and
Madrid. The vertical design, as suggested,
can greatly reduce the volume needed to
store trains when not in transit, and will
93
Photo Source: The Longest Stay
RAILWAY
by Hina Sapra
also remove them from the subterranean
infrastructure. The idea is really helpful
for older cities with weaker roads and
building foundations, as well as cities
built near the water, with a limited ability
to move deeper underground. There
would also be an additional room for
parks, shops, or homes.
The vertical design supports
the idea of having travelers enter the
building and ascend directly to their car-
riage on elevators that only stop at their
destination floor, and board through
the platform. This design reduces the
heavy passenger load, which otherwise is
crowded at train doors and station entry
points.
The trains would work via
‘maglev’, or ‘magnetic levitation’. The
method is already popular in high-speed
transits. The method uses magnetic force
to power trains as well as floats them
slightly off of the track. It also increas-
es the velocity at the same time as it
decreases friction. It has been estimated
that the train could cover 300 miles in 30
minutes, an average speed of 600 miles
per hour.
What an escalating idea, isn’t
it?
 R E N E WA B L E S
Yep, It’s Possible!
Water Purification using Solar energy
T
he availability of clean potable
water is a global concern. The
lack of potable water is felt
mostly by the remote commu-
nities scattered across the de-
veloping and underdeveloped
countries. Fortunately, there seems to
be new hope for these communities
thanks to a new water purification
technology. This technology is not that
difficult to maintain as well since it is
powered by solar energy.
Residents of La Manchalona,
a remote village in the Yucatan pen-
insula, are using a water purification
system developed by the Massachu-
setts Institute of Technology. Together,
they have developed the system to be
self-sustaining for the long run.
There are nearly 450
indigenous residents in the village
of La Mancalona. The researchers
from MIT developed economic and
technical models which could be used
for transforming the technology from
use in the lab, to use in the field. With
Photo Source: MIT
the help of the villagers, the system
was configured for the community.
The materials and techniques used Photo Source: Treehugger
for the technology have enabled the
villages to operate as well as maintain
the system on their own. In fact, this
awesome community has been doing it
themselves for almost 2 years.
The process used by this
badass technology is known as “Pho-
tovoltaic-powered Reverse Osmosis”.
One of the most crucial components of
the system are the solar panels, which
absorb light and generate electricity.
The electricity powers up the pumps,
which pushes water through filters. At
La Mancalona, two solar panels are
used. The system is capable of produc-
ing 1,000 liters of pure drinking water
each day from collected rainwater and
salty well water.
If more technologies like
these would be shared and implement-
ed throughout the world, especially
places with scarce potable water, it will
be a great help for humankind.
94
Underwater bot
that will save
Fukushima
An underwater robot made by
Toshiba was built toscour the
radioactive waters of Fukushi-
ma’s worst-hit reactor and
remove fuel rods.
Photo Source: Tech Insider
95
An underwater robot made by Toshiba
was built to scour the radioactive waters of
Fukushima’s worst-hit reactor and remove
fuel rods. After an earthquake and tsunami
demolished Japan’s Fukushima Daichii
Nuclear Power Plant in 2011, which caused
a dangerous radiation leak, the country
immediately planned to set robots to fix the
needed repairs. Unfortunately, the environ-
ment was too unstable for any normal robot
to venture into.
Since the incident, countless
efforts were made by different companies
to develop a robot that can do this complex
job. This inspired a national robot competi-
tion called the DARPA Robotics challenge,
which was designed to simulate rescue
efforts. This led to the development of
some robots that are capable of working in
unstructured or complex environments.
According to Japan Times,
Toshiba manufactured the worst-hit reactor
and is currently helping with the clean-up.
They created a two-armed submersible
robot that will float into reactor 3 and try to
remove debris and retrieve the reactor’s fuel
rods. The simplicity of the robot shows that,
sometimes the simplest robots are the best
for the job.
This underwater robot is expected
to embark on its mission sometime in 2018.
Though this may not be enough to make
the place safe for humans to go into, it is
certainly a major step
in cleaning the site.
INTERNET OF THINGS

Glance Tech
The Household clock
with home connectivity

G
lance Tech, an Internet of Things
startup, uses their own cloud
platform to innovate a “glance
clock” to display various infor-
mation. This is a smart wall clock
that displays data from con-
nected wearables, smartphones, smart home
devices and other third party applications
and web services. This cool new innovation
platform will display information only when
the user needs it.
The glance clock gives the user a
fresher way to interact with a smart house-
hold. The glance clock, unlike other smart
home integrations, is able to analyze water
consumption, energy and more. This Internet
of Things device is also able to analyze the us-
er’s daily activities and schedule. By integrat-
ing data from your connected fitness trackers,
the glance clock is able to display the user’s
sleep cycles, work out schedules, and also
blood pressure. The device is also useful as it
can also display the users upcoming meetings
and activities.

All Photos Source: Designboom

96
 STETHEE
Revolutionizing
the Stethoscope

Photo Source: Bilgi Versin

A
lmost three of every 10 deaths around the world are
attributed to cardiovascular diseases, and they remain to
be among the top killers year after year. Heart diseases are
silent killers, because they do not usually show symptoms
that would prompt one to see a specialist. Most of the early
signs of heart problems are dismissed by the sufferer, so
they escalate to the point that when they strike, it is usually
debilitating if not fatal.
For years, regular medical consultation has been the only
key to prevent any impending cardiac condition. People invest time
and money to undergo annual physical examinations to act on na-
scent or escalating cardiovascular cases that put their life in danger. Photo Source: 36krcnd
Today, a groundbreaking invention may change the way we deal with With every use, a person’s cardiovascular health
potentially deadly heart conditions – presenting Stethee. information is anonymously sent to Stethee’s cloud servers for
processing. With the help of a sophisticated algorithm created
based on medical databases and public health guidelines, Stethee
can analyze heartbeats based on the age, family health history
and other qualities of the user.

Photo Source: Kickstarter

Photo Source: Kickstarter

Stethee is a device that takes the role of a “cardiologist”

in your pocket. It goes far beyond what conventional fitness bands
available in the market do – it monitors a person’s actual heart-
beat, rather than their pulse. Stethee has an easy-to-understand
reporting system, and can be connected to a Bluetooth headset or
a mobile app. It gives off a haptic feedback that allows the user to According its developers, Stethee can also prove to
“feel” his heartbeat, and emits color-coded light to inform the user be vital for pregnant women, in that it can see and listen to the
of their heart’s health – green means good and orange means they heartbeat of their unborn babies. Stethee can also be valuable
have to seek for further medical help. to asthmatics in tracking changes in the sounds of their lungs
to help detect the onset of an asthma attack. While still in the
prototype stage, Stethee’s creators are aggressively looking for
97 funding to push the device to production.

Photo Source: Refrigerators Reviewed
Samsung Fridge Lets You
Order Groceries From Its
21-Inch Touchscreen
T
he Samsung Family Hub Refriger-
ator is a sophisticated multi-tasker
that reconnects families, organizes
groceries and home tasks, and
provides entertainment.
The Family Hub is just that – a
hub of household connections,
but with a thoroughly digital twist. All
communications are housed and displayed
on a 21.5 inch full HD LCD resolution
screen located on the upper right exterior
door.  As the refrigerator’s digital family
command center, the screen allows you
to post, share and update calendars, pin
photos, share treasured kids’ works of art,
and leave notes – all with the ease and
convenience of your smartphone.
From more efficiently manag-
ing your groceries, to identifying foods
you have or need, to tracking product
expiration dates to cut down on waste, the
Family Hub is your go-to resource to keep
your kitchen fully stocked. In a revolution-
ary advancement in refrigerator technol-
KITCHENEERING
ogy, three high quality cameras inside the
fridge capture an image every time the
door closes. You can then access those
images anytime using your smartphone
and take a peek inside your fridge. Even
if you’re at the store and forget to check
on what you need for dinner that night,
you can easily pull up the Samsung Smart
Home app and have a look right into
your Family Hub fridge. There’s no more
forgetting what you have at home, and you
can even use the refrigerator to do online
grocery shopping with the aid of a major
credit card partner, as well as manage reci-
pes and compile and share shopping lists.
With the kitchen serving as
the center of the home and a common
gathering spot, the Samsung Family Hub
Refrigerator is perfectly suited to entertain
friends and family. It offers options for
music streaming to play through its built-
in speaker or connect to your Bluetooth
wireless speakers, like Samsung’s own
Radiant 360 line, to enjoy music through-
98
out the home. You can even enjoy your
favorite television programs right on the
Family Hub screen using Screen mirror-
ing with your Samsung Smart TV, a huge
benefit if you have to prepare food for the
football game and don’t want to miss any
important play.
The Family Hub is as impres-
sively designed on the inside as it is on
the outside. From the Samsung-exclusive
FlexZone™ that transforms from fridge to
freezer to meet your food storage needs,
to keeping food fresher, longer with its
Triple and Metal Cooling system, to its
flexibility and energy-saving features, this
refrigerator places a premium on superior
performance and unmatched innovation
and design.
Family Hub Refrigerator (model
RF28K95800SR) will be available in Spring
2016. It will be available in Counter Depth,
Full Depth, Stainless and a new and stun-
ning Black Stainless design.

Photo Source: Instructables
Make Your Own
Cooler from a
Broken Fridge
I
n case you have a refrigerator that
just sits in your garage, might as
well make something out of it and
make your own cooler.
This cooler only requires
recyclable materials so there is no
need to spend so much given you
have the tools. Also if you do not have
something to do this weekend, this might
be the perfect project for you.
It might be easier for you to
make a cooler when the bridge is lied
down. You can use the freezer space and
KITCHENEERING
the fridge space according to your needs;
you can put all sorts of beverages and
goodies surround by ice.
You will need pallets, 1 ¼”
wood screws, caulking, liquid nails,
casters, 2” x 4” wood, PVC/brass fittings,
rope and eye bolts, and some spray paint
on top of it.
Your toolbox will come in
handy if you have drill/driver, chop saw,
circular saw, sander, caulking gun, and
pry-bars and hammers.
99
THE ‘OYSTER’ THAT I
n a world where people are looking
for a better and cleaner alternative to
coal as our source of energy, engineers
and scientists have engaged in different

Gives US Power
researches to find a new source of power
that would be good for us and for the
environment as well. Knowing that the world’s
surface is made up of 70% water, they found a
way to use ocean waves as a new source of clean
energy. Who would have thought that using
wave turbines can lead “exceptional results” in
generating power?
Aquamarine Power, a Scottish wave
power company, spent months testing its Oyster
800 wave machine in Orkney. This is the largest
working hydroelectric machine that uses wave
energy to produce power in the world. It works
by pumping high-pressure water into its hydro-
electric turbine, which then powers the electric
grid that is used around its neighborhood for
electric consumption. This device can be used
even at shallow depths and it’s easy to maintain.
The company expects that it can power 9,000
houses using 20 of its Oysters.
The company is currently finding ways
to refine and improve its wave turbine’s design. It
is also using its research and development team
to upgrade its technologies for its intellectual
property portfolio.
Aside from producing clean energy, the
Oyster is designed to rely on water for hydraulics
only. This means it won’t disturb marine life. The
device runs silently so you don’t have to worry
about any annoying sounds near the shore. This
turbine is still in its early stages of development
so it is still limited to one location. However, the
company aims to establish the Oyster in other
countries such as Spain, Portugal, Ireland, South
Africa, Australia, US, Chile and UK. P

Photo Source: City University of Hongkong

If each wave turbine can save about 500
tons of carbon dioxide every year, we’re hoping
this technology will be used in a lot of countries
in the near future. This could definitely help in
solving our problems in today’s climate change.

Photo Source: Inhabitat

100
 Nature vs. Machine:
This Drone Is No Match
To This Eagle
by Alice Hernandez

Photo Source: Wired

A ustralia. Home to the famous Ugg(ly) boots,

the multi-talented Hugh Jackman, the
gorgeous Miranda Kerr and… this kickass
eagle? You heard that right! Not only is this
place home to koalas addicted to eating
eucalyptus, it is also home to one annoyed
(but still awesome) Australian wedge-tailed eagle.
It all started when drone operator, Adam
“Now it adds drones to
its must-destroy list
since it feels threatened
Lancaster, was just minding his own business in a
woodland in greater Melbourne, flying his drone,
when the wild predator appeared. The eagle focused
to its presence.”
its attention to the drone and disabled it in less than
10 seconds. Lancaster said that the drone needed
repairing after the attack while the eagle flew away
unscathed.
The attack was so fast to the point that you
couldn’t even see it coming.
Known as the largest bird of prey in Aus-
tralia, this predator is very territorial and attacks he-
licopters and paragliders as well. Now it adds drones
to its must-destroy list since it feels threatened to its
presence.
These animals are more likely to feel
stressed out when a drone is around and tend to
lash out on them, destroying these drones like
horrible bosses. Clearly, nature is not yet ready to
welcome these machines. If people could disguise
these drones as non-threatening looking machines,
then less innocent drones become in danger from
these wild animals.

101
 SAILING IN 2018:
TITANIC II
by Dion Greg Reyes
A
ll thanks to Australian billion-
aire Clive Palmer, owner of Blue
Star Line, a replica of the Titanic
will soar the seas come 2018.
But here’s to hoping the fate of
the original Titanic will not be
replicated
The new ship is almost 300 yards long
and 57 yards high, with 9 floors and 840 cabins
enough to hold 2,400 passengers and 900 crew
members. It will sail at a maximum speed of 24
knots.
Titanic II will mirror the aesthetics of
the original Titanic with the grand first class rooms
and comfortable third class accommodations, but
with the additional safety standards that the old
one didn’t meet. It will have welded hull, instead of
riveted, about your yards wider; and a diesel-elec-
tric propulsion system instead of steam engines;
and stabilizers.
102
Photo Source: Rdaldia
It will also have more life boats, presum-
ably, to ensure that in case it will follow the same
destiny in 1912, passengers will not perish in the
cold.
Apart from that, the new Titanic will
ensure passenger safety and security by having
modern evacuation procedures, satellite controls,
digital navigation and radar systems, and all else
that can be found in modern ships.
Unlike the original Titanic that voyaged
from Southamption to New York, this one will take
the Jiangsu, China to Dubai route.
CSC Jinling Shipyard in Jiangsu China
will recreate the said ship with an unofficial price
tag at £300million to £400million.
The project was already announced in
2012 and supposedly launch in 2016. There were
rumors on the abandonment of the project in 2015,
until confirmed this year that the ship will sail by
2018. 

MARITIME AND MARINE ENGINEERING
Engineers Built World’s First
Super-Cavitating Watercraft
The GHOST marine plat-
form looks like every action movie
aficionado’s dream. It seems like
an attack helicopter merged into a
stealth jet fighter, except that it is a
watercraft instead of an aircraft. Not
only that, it also looks like a serious
badass tank that means business.
Possibly, that was the effect that Juliet
Marine Systems was aiming for when
it developed this boat.
This boat has been devel-
oped for the United States Navy to
use, possibly. The features are cer-
tainly something out of a James Bond
movie. It is meant to be invisible to
radars of enemy ships. At the same
time, it is faster than the military
watercraft currently in use, it is more
economical as well. However, the
most important feature claimed by
the Juliet Marine Systems for the
GHOST is that it is a super-cavitating
watercraft.
Super-cavitation is sim-
ply the use of cavitation effects to
surround any object in water with a
gas bubble so that the object trav-
els through the water with the bare
minimum of friction. By reducing
the drag friction, the object can reach
much higher speeds. In GHOST, two
tubular foils have been added which
are buoyant and lie submerged in
water. These are the objects which are
super-cavitated allowing the GHOST
103
Photo Source: Juliet Marine System
to travel faster. JMS has yet to reveal
the details of this technology.
This watercraft is capable
of carrying a sizeable payload in its
internal weapons bay if required,
including the famous Mark 48 tor-
pedoes. Multiple weapons systems
can be incorporated into the GHOST
enabling it to attack multiple targets
at the same time. Its stealth can allow
it to creep up on enemy beaches to
transport troops or supplies. So what
we have here is a watercraft that is so
silent and deadly that calling it a boat
would be a grave injustice. Of course,
it already has the ridiculously cool
name of GHOST.
 HANDLE STRESS LIKE A BOSS
T
here are two
kinds of stress:
The good stress,
the stress that
suddenly kicks in
when you need
to really focus on
something like a presentation, an
examination. This kind of stress
serves as a motivator for you to do
your best, especially in emergen-
cies. Then there’s the second kind
of stress: you guessed it—bad
stress. This stress is the harmful
kind, it can cause physical, mental,
and emotional pains. It can cause
you to act rashly and can lead to
different kinds of sicknesses like
weight fluctuations, heart disease
and depression.
Now, you can learn
these simple ways on how to
manage the different stresses in
your life. Check out these 10 tips
on how to handle stress.
by Cielo Panda
Stress relief 1
Identify What Go get some
Stresses Exercise
you out Even if you aren’t a gym
junkie, it’s important to
In every problem solving,
the best way to solve the
problem is always find
the root cause. So, try to
think about everything that
stresses you. Once you’ve
listed everything down,
think about how you react
to those stress triggers.
Understanding your stress
triggers is the first step to
help you find balance.
104
Stress relief 2
move your body every day.
Go on a short walk, or go
have some light jogging.
Moving your body is im-
portant stressful reaction.
When you are healthy, you
will feel lighter and more
energized therefore helping
you manage life’s unexpect-
ed stresses.
Photo Source:
Daily Health Post
Stress relief 3
Eat Well
When I say ‘eat well’, I
mean eat ‘healthy’. Nour-
ishing your body with the
right food will supply you
with the right amount of
energy to handle all the
day’s stresses. Treat yourself
to your favorite food once
in a while, but don’t forget:
too much of a good thing is
bad. This can lead to stress
eating. Take everything
in moderation, and don’t
forget to fill up with water.
 Photo Source: Social Rumors Blog
Stress relief 4
Catch some
ZZzzz’s
Yes. Sometimes, when you
don’t want to handle any
more stress for the day, or
are too tired to solve the
day’s problem, the best
solution is to just hit the
sack and sleep. Sleep can
create wonders by, helping
you relax and restore all the
brain cells to health.
Stress relief 5
Smile
Research says that by
smiling, you can some-
how trick the brain into
thinking you actually are
happy. Sometimes even
a phony smile can help
you handle stress. So
bring out those sparkling
whites and smile!
Stress relief 6
Go on a
Road Trip
Schedule an annual
vacation… or better yet, if
you’re the adventurer type,
just go on a whim. Vaca-
tions help reset the mind
from boring, stressful, rou-
tine 9-5 work schedules. Go
to a city you haven’t seen
before, visit the beach, go
to a different country, and
take millions of selfies and
videos. Whatever makes
you happy.
Stress relief 7
Meditate
This may sound difficult to
do, but meditation can be
a great way to relax your
stress-filled mind. Medita-
tion is known to help lower
heart rate and blood pres-
sure, and even improves
cognitive performance.
Just find a comfortable
place, close your eyes, relax
your muscles and focus on
your breathing. 10 minutes
a day will suffice. The
effects are like magic, you’ll
feel relaxed and refreshed!
105
Stress relief 8 Stress relief 9
Drink Listen to music
green Tea Plug on your earphones,
choose your favorite
The bitter green team is playlist and let the music’s
very soothing. It contains euphoria kick in. Listening
theanine, an amino acid
to music can calm you
that gives the green tea its whenever you’re stressed.
flavor, and promotes relax-
Similar to meditation, it
ation. Theanine is a caffeine helps you forget about the
antagonist, this means it stress and just concentrate
counters the stimulating on the beats and melody
effects of caffeine. So, avoid
that is in the music.
caffeinated beverages es-
pecially when stressed and
just drink some relaxing
green tea.
Stress relief 10
Take a hot Bath
Heat relaxes the muscles,
and taking long hot baths
can be soothing to the
mind. So fill that tub with
some hot water and soak
in!
 S
cientists learned that
a single layer of teflon
studded with tiny bits
of ceramic can solve the
problem of impractical
thickness of the material
and also eliminates the issue of los-
ing brightness in the area hidden
by the cloak. Changing the way
light waves being reflected and
ultimately focusing a large area of
sunlight onto a solar power tower
enables cloaking mechanism. The
technology is indeed powerful in
making things invisible.
The new designs are
made using a thin sheet of Teflon
lined with small cylindrical
ceramic particles that changes
height. In order to give the impres-
sion of invisibility, all you need to
do is simply change the direction
of the material, which in turn, will
redirect the electromagnetic waves.
This effect is called cloaking, and
can change the perception of a flat
For the Potterheads:
Invisibility Cloak
Using Teflon
Photo Source: Aminoapps
surface entirely.
In contrast to the
earlier designs that were being
used earlier for cloaking devices,
the researchers have started to
use a “carpet” cloak design, which
makes the objects on a flat surface
disappear beneath it. This is done
by imitating the way light would
reflect off of the flat surface if the
object were not there.
The researchers ensured
the best design and maximum
optimization of the cloak by using
the Computer-Aided Design
(CAD) software with electromag-
netic simulation. The cloak was
modeled as a thin matrix of Teflon
that embedded small cylindrical
ceramic particles, each with a
different height depending on its
position on the cloak.
The technology will not
only make things invisible but can
change the way the light waves
are reflected at will. Also, this will
render new implications in optics,
interior design and art. The entire
work has been supported by a
grant from the Calit2 Strategic
Research Opportunities (CSRO) Photo Source: Sparkly Science
program at the Qualcomm Insti-
tute at UC San Diego. It used to be mentioned just in folklores
However, there is a nearly a millennium ago or even the iconic
limitation attached to these new invisibility cloak of Harry Potter. Now, it
cloaking devices. These devices just had its space in the real world.
can be used only on flat surfaces
and you can’t exactly just wrap
yourself in this new material. Let’s
hope that the improved version for
non-flat surfaces will be available
in no time. 
Soon enough, invisibili-
ty is not just magic anymore.
106
107
 BACK
COVER

www.GineersNow.com
108