Today in History – May 3, 1997 – Garry Kasparov, reigning World Chess Champions wins first of six chess games against IBM’s Deep Blue supercomputer. The event was the twentieth century version of John Henry’s “man against machine”. The event was viewed by millions of chess and computing fans who were able witness the competition live on this Web site, which now serves as the official archive.

The triumph of “man against machine” was not to happen, however, as in the shocking finale World Champion Garry Kasparov resigned 19 moves into Game 6 and lost in little more than an hour. This was the first time a current world champion had lost a match to a computer opponent in an official chess tournament. Match commentator Yasser Seirawan was stunned: “What we just witnessed was a landmark achievement in chess . . . I absolutely didn’t expect this to happen.”

Check out the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on the Kasparov and Deep Blue, artificial intelligence and history of computing. For more educational resources, see our electrical engineering education, computer science education and computer engineering education community pages. The Engineering Pathway also hosts Engineering Education communities in all ABET-accredited disciplines.

NCSMT recognizes Shodor as statewide leader in innovative partnership

Collaboration brings computing excitement to community kids’ programs

Durham, NC - When it comes to partnering with other organizations to improve math and science education, there’s one NC non profit organization that stands out: Shodor.

Shodor’s Pathways to Cyberinfrastructure program, which brings computational science (scientific computing) activities into existing afterschool programs at community centers such as the Emily K Center in Durham, was recognized on April 19th at the NC Science, Math and Technology Education Center’s annual Celebration of Science, Math and Technology as a leader for its partnership efforts.

The “Partnership Award in Science, Mathematics, and Technology Education” recognizes and honors North Carolina organizations that have an innovative partnership supporting science, mathematics, and technology (SMT) education.

Shodor’s Pathways program seeks out existing programs for kids from grades 3 through high school in order to add a scientific computing component. At the Emily K Center, for example, students are challenged with activities such as:

• exploring math and science skills using tools from the National Science Digital Library (http://nsdl.org) such as Shodor’s own Interactivate http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/
• working hands-on in Web design using HTML
• designing web page logos using Gimpshop and Inkscape; and
• learning skills in agent modeling using AgentSheets and Netlogo.

Amy Cummings, Education Program Leader at the Emily K Center, commented that youth involved in Shodor’s program at the center last summer “had a genuine understanding of how germs and disease spread because they had worked with a computer generated model.” “They had learned a good deal about probability in the process,” she added.

“Shodor is able to engage our students in science and technology in a way that they do not experience in their school day,” explained Cummings.

Shodor also partners with Durham’s Antioch Builds Community Center through the Pathways program. NCCU undergraduates were trained to lead computational science workshops in a four-week summer program at the center for 3rd through 8th grade participants. Topics ranged from mathematical modeling to environmental science.

“Shodor has done an outstanding job of sharing math and computational skills for the youth of this community,” said Michael D. Page, Chairman of the Antioch Center’s board of directors. “These workshops have been an asset in enhancing learning skills, improving homework performance and demonstrating new and innovative techniques to problem solving,” he added.

By partnering with organizations such as the Emily K Center, various faith-based centers, several Durham Parks and Recreation centers and Durham Public Schools’ afterschool programs, Shodor multiplies the impact of its work by teaching others to adapt and use Shodor’s online tools and student workshop curricula alongside other NSDL resources.
Shodor is a Durham non profit serving students and educators to improve math and science education nationwide through the effective use of interactive computing and communications technologies. Their website receives more than 3 million web page views per month. For more information, visit www.shodor.org/about.

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More information is available at:

www.shodor.org

http://www.shodor.org/cyberpathways/

www.ncsmt.org

Today in History – April 22, 1970 – First Earth Day. Senator Gaylord Nelson, founder of Earth Day, says that the idea for Earth Day evolved over a period of seven years starting in 1962. He wanted President Kennedy to give visibility to pollution and the environmental degradation that was appearing throughout the country, but was going unnoticed by the political establishment. The anti-Vietnam War demonstrations called “teach-ins” were popular on college campuses and he decided to organize a huge grassroots protest over what was happening to our environment, tapping into both the energy of the student anti-war movement and the environmental cause. A Sunday, November 30, 1969, New York Times article by Gladwin Hill forecast that this was going to be a massive event:

“Rising concern about the environmental crisis is sweeping the nation’s campuses with an intensity that may be on its way to eclipsing student discontent over the war in Vietnam…a national day of observance of environmental problems…is being planned for next spring…when a nationwide environmental ‘teach-in’ …

Senator Gaylord Nelson explains that Earth Day worked “because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. We had neither the time nor resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated.”

Today with global warming and another energy crises, sustainability is a top international concern and an estimated 1 billion people will do something to observe the anniversary of the first Earth Day. People will participate in marches and protests, family and community activities, clean-up days, tree-planting events, saving water, saving energy, nature walks, and sustainability events.

Expressions like “Green is the new black”, “Green is the new red, white and blue” and “green commerce”, such as that highlighted in ABC’s “Green Gadgets for Earth Day” news, demonstrate that green design is big business today. Even President Bush has announced it a day to “celebrate and accelerate” on a website that merges the planet and the U.S. flag. Alas some of these efforts are really “green washing” and are more effective at ringing up sales than in helping the environment. We should encourage life cycle analysis thinking with our students to seriously look at the long term environmental impact of new products, energy options and strategies.

The Engineering Pathway has a number of resources on green design, manufacturing and sustainability as well as on environmental ethics. For more educational resources, see our agricultural engineering education, environmental engineering education and chemical engineering education community pages. The Engineering Pathway also hosts Engineering Education communities in all ABET-accredited disciplines.

Today in History – April 4, 1975 – The Microsoft Company founded.
Well actually, Microsoft’s archivist has no record of a noteworthy Microsoft event that might have happened on April 4. The closest event appears to be a hand written tax form dated on April 1 that may have reached the IRS on April 4. As a number of websites lists April 4 as the founding date for Microsoft, I thought I’d write the blog anyway. But this date may be an urban myth, possibly started with a Wikipedia error on the date. Do stay tuned to Amy Stevenson’s more informed blog on July 22, the date that Bill Gates and Paul Allen Licensed BASIC to Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS). BASIC was the first computer language program written for a personal computer. This really was what launched Gates and Allen as a viable business entity.

Bill Gates and Paul Allen grew up in Seattle and started programming while still in elementary school. Paul Allen went was a bit older and took a job at Honeywell. In 1973, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, now Microsoft’s chief executive officer, were both undergraduates at Harvard University. All three were totally blown away by the possibilities offered by the MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems) Altair 8800, based on an article they had read in the 1st January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics.

Gates had developed a preliminary version of the programming language BASIC for the MITS Altair and left during his junior year at Harvard and moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico to devote his energies to continue working on BASIC. Gates and Allen are reported to have worked in marathon 24-hour sessions to complete the BASIC programming language to the level at which it could be licensed to MITS. Gates and Allen were driven by the belief that computers had the potential to be a powerful tool for everyone, not just dedicated hobbyists. It was only in later licensing agreements with MITS that the informal partnership called Micro-Soft, was formalized.

The Microsoft history website provides the following overview of significant events that shaped the company in 1975.

• Revenues: $16,005
• Employees: 3 (Allen, Gates and Ric Weiland)
• MITS promotes Altair BASIC, the computer language developed by Gates and Allen for the Altair computer. Hobbyists are ecstatic, despite the fact that, even with BASIC, there is little you can actually do with the Altair.

I love the picture above of Microsoft on December 7, 1978 (upper left photo) with Steve Wood (left), Bob Wallace, Jim Lane. Middle row: Bob O’Rear, Bob Greenberg, Marc McDonald, Gordon Letwin. Bottom row: Bill Gates, Andrea Lewis, Marla Wood, Paul Allen. Clearly they of the 70’s generation.

Check out the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on Microsoft, the Altair and history of computing. For more educational resources, see our electrical engineering education, computer science education and computer engineering education community pages. The Engineering Pathway also hosts Engineering Education communities in all ABET-accredited disciplines.

Today in History – April 1, 1976 – Apple Computer Company formed and released the Apple I computer - the first with a single circuit board. There was no assembly line as each Apple I was hand-built by Steve Wozniak in Steve Jobs’ parents’ home and required further assembly by the purchaser, including providing AC input voltages, wiring an ASCII keyboard to a DIP connector and wiring the video output pins to a monitor or to an RF modulator if a TV was used. Steve Wozniak showed the first one to the Homebrew Computer Club to get sales going. He had to sell his Volkswagen bus to help keep the company afloat.

Steve Wozniak designed the Apple II personal computer that was released on April 16, 1977, featuring a central processing unit (CPU), keyboard, floppy disk drive, and a $1,300 price tag. The Apple II launched the personal computer revolution. He left Apple in 1981 and went back to the University of California at Berkeley and finished his degree in electrical engineering and computer science there. Since then, he has been involved in various business and philanthropic ventures, including improving computer capabilities in schools.

So how do you build the first personal computer? Wozniak says when he teaches Personal Computer 101 he asks students to go to the Apple I Owners Club, founded in 1977 by Joe Torzewski. The site contains over 120 pages detailing the Apple I computer. It shows you what it was like to actually buy and assemble one. If you’ve never seen an Apple I, check this site out and see how the personal computer revolution began. Want to know more, read Wozniak’s book: iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It.

Check out the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on Apple computers and history of computing. For more educational resources, see our electrical engineering education, computer science education and computer engineering education community pages. The Engineering Pathway also hosts Engineering Education communities in all ABET-accredited disciplines.

Also, today April 1, 2008, the Engineering Pathway completed a comprehensive user study of customer needs and has developed the following prioritized list of new features:

For Faculty:

• Tag educational resources guaranteed to boost teacher evaluations by at least 20%.
• Develop tool to automatically create homework and exams for each course in ABET-accredited computing and engineering curricula.
• Develop obfuscation tool that will take a simple concept and make it seem so complicated that faculty will be guaranteed to impress students and colleagues with their brilliance.
• Implement mind reading search tools (such as UC Berkeley’s brain scan or the MentalPlex developed by Google) to improve the user interface so that typing is no longer required.
• Develop chat bot for faculty to help them find good educational materials and boost their confidence in teaching.

For Students:

• Tag educational resources guaranteed to increase their grades by at least one letter grade.
• Provide a collection of homework and exam solutions for each course in ABET-accredited computing and engineering curricula.
• Develop a de-obfuscation tool that will take a complicated lecture from a “brilliant professor” and make it easy to understand.
• Tag the parts of computing and engineering courses that will be useful for a student’s first job. We plan to modify Google’s gDay tool that can search content on the internet before it’s created.
• Develop a database that allows students to enter their courses and return their “dream job” or “graduate school”.
• And the reverse. Students should be able to enter their “dream job” or “graduate school” and be told which courses to take.
• Create tool to create automatic “Cliff Notes” for any educational resources in the Engineering Pathway.

Today in History – March 31, 1889 – Eiffel Tower opens. The 300m Eiffel Tower was commissioned to commemorate the French Revolution. Amazingly, all of the elements were prepared in Gustav Eiffel’s factory located at Levallois-Perret on the outskirts of Paris. There were 18,000 pieces used to construct the Tower. Each piece was designed and produced with an accuracy of a tenth of a millimetre. The construction crew of 150 to 300 workers assembled the tower on site like a gigantic erector set. The foundation work began in January 1887 and was completed in five months. The tower was assembled twenty-one months later on March 31, 1889. Eiffel received his decoration from the Legion of Honour on the narrow platform at the top.”

Eiffel’s accomplishments over a century ago are amazing considering the technology of his time. Yet there is still a lesson for us today in the benefits of lean construction techniques, an approach that maximizes value to the customer and minimizes waste.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on the Eiffel Tower and Construction Engineering. For related educational resources, visit the Civil Engineering Education, Construction Engineering Education, or Architectural Engineering Education community sites.

Also today in 1966, the U.S.S.R. launches first lunar orbiter.

Today in History - April 6, 1938 - Amelia Earhart is first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. She was one of the most famous women aviators in history. Earhart worked as a nurse’s aide in a military hospital in Canada during WWI and became a social worker after attending college. She took her first flying lesson on January 3, 1921, and managed to save enough money to buy her first plane soon afterwards. Although not an engineer, Amelia Earhart inspired many of us to go into engineering and to appreciate cutting-edge technologies. Although Amelia Earhart lived in a time when women were rarely associated with technology, she distinguished herself by bettering both women’s and men’s aviation records.

March is Women’s History Month. Below I highlight some of the Engineering Pathway’s blogs on women’s contributions to engineering, computer science and entrepreneurship.

Patricia Galloway, first female president of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), blogs on Elsie Eaves - first female engineer in ASCE to be elected as a full member on March 14, 1927.

Lucy Sanders, CEO of the Center for Women in Information Technology blogs on the unveiling of the ENIAC on February 14, 1946, the world’s first digital electronic computer, as well as on the contributions of women in computing.

Jasmina Vujic, Chair of the Nuclear Engineering Department at the University of California at Berkeley, blogs on Lise Meitner and her groundbreaking publication that first introduced the world to nuclear fission on February 11, 1939.

Chad-Eric Montgommery blogs on two African American women. On March 1, 1864, Rebecca Lee Crumpler became the first African American woman to receive a medical degree. Also see the blog on Sara Breedlove Walker, the first self-made millionairess hair product inventions for African American women.

Pediatric cardiologist, Dr. Helen Taussig, was one of the doctors at Johns Hopkins who performed the first open heart surgery on November 29, 1944.

I enjoyed researching for the blog on November 13, 1913 – Mary Phelps Jacobs invents modern bra. And also on Dr. Mary Walker, the first female army surgeon to be awarded the Medal of Honor on November 11, 1875.

Check out the Engineering Pathway’s many educational resources on women in engineering, women in information technology, women inventors and gender equity. Also read and comment on our most commented resource - the National Academies’ Beyond Bias and Barriers report.

As attention continues to turn to polar environments a coalition of specialists from science, literacy and educational organizations nationwide is pleased to announce the launch of Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears, an online professional development magazine for elementary teachers. This issue features content-rich web sites, interactive videos, animations, articles written specifically for K-2 and 3-5 students that are available in text-only versions as well as in printable, foldable book versions, photographs that highlight polar beauty and mystery, and even a poetry lesson plan that features work contributed by elementary school students in Anchorage, Alaska. The magazine focuses on developing teacher content knowledge about the Arctic and Antarctica and enabling teaching of polar science concepts in already-crowded curricula. By integrating inquiry-based science with literacy teaching, developers aim to increase students’ science knowledge, academic language, reading comprehension, and written and oral discourse abilities.

Jessica Fries-Gaither, elementary resource specialist and project director for Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears notes, “As a former elementary teacher in Alaska, I understand the difficulty of finding time for quality science instruction. Yet in the face of issues such as global climate change and dramatically changing polar regions, it is essential that science, specifically polar science, is included. We are particularly pleased to offer this new online magazine that transfers current polar research and best practices in science and literacy instruction to classrooms nationwide.”

Science instruction in the elementary years has historically been limited or even omitted entirely. However, No Child Left Behind-mandated testing in science increases pressure on schools and teachers to devote time to quality science instruction. The intersection of mandated science testing, International Polar Year research and outreach initiatives, and a growing awareness of worldwide climate change make Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears a timely and relevant undertaking.

Twenty thematic issues of the online magazine will include standards-based science and content-rich literacy learning across five departments (In the Field: Scientists at Work, Professional Learning, Science and Literacy, Across the Curriculum, and Polar News and Notes). Engaging science activities, compelling images, rich text, and multimedia resources such as podcasts and videos and even a browseable Virtual Bookshelf that includes quality children’s literature for classroom use are designed to capture the interest of both teachers and students. Strategies for integrating technology, addressing misconceptions, and ensuring equity in the classroom are topics of emphasis.

In a time of observable and measurable climate change, it is vitally important to understand the science of the polar regions. Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears helps teachers go beyond a superficial understanding and foster deep, meaningful scientific understanding at a critical time-both in their students’ development and for the planet’s well being.

Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears is funded by the National Science Foundation Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL). Kimberly Lightle, Principal Investigator for the NSDL Middle School Portal developed by The Ohio State University College of Education and Human Ecology and also Principal Investigator for the Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears magazine coordinates a team of collaborators including an interdisciplinary team from Ohio State University College of Education and Human Ecology; the Ohio Resource Center for Mathematics, Science, and Reading; the Byrd Polar Research Center; The Columbus Center for Science and Industry; the Upper Arlington Public Library; and the National Science Digital Library (NSDL). Content and education specialists are creating content as well as adapting and contextualizing existing content from NSDL. NSDL is also adapting Fedora-based tools to facilitate editorial workflow, dissemination, and promotion of the magazine. The Evaluation and Assessment Center at Miami University in Oxford, OH is conducting ongoing project evaluation including teacher focus groups and usability testing that will inform iterative design going forward.

Today in History - February 17, 1998 - Voyager 1 becomes the most distant human-made object from the Sun. Voyager 1 was launched on September 5, 1977 and it passed Saturn in November 1980. It continues a trajectory that takes it out of the solar system, making it the most distant spacecraft from Earth and our Sun (as far as we know). It has passed the “ termination shock“, the place where the solar wind abruptly slows down, and traveled through a zone called the “ heliosheath“ where the Sun’s magnetic field and solar wind dominate the environment. Its boundary, called the heliopause, is where the interstellar wind takes over. A second spacecraft, the Voyager 2, was launched earlier on August 20, 1977 but Voyager 1 reached the outer solar system and interstellar space earlier due to its trajectory design for outer space and gravity-assist from Jupiter.

Sharing Carl Sagan’s belief that Earth is not the only planet with advanced technology, I find the “Golden Record “ one of the most interesting parts of the Voyager mission. This gold-plated copper “phonograph record” is a kind of time capsule, intended to communicate a story of our world to “extraterrestrials”. Assembled by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan of Cornell University, these sounds and images were “ selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth“.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on the Voyager 1 and space exploration. For related educational resources, visit the Aerospace Engineering Education Community site. The Engineering Pathway also hosts Engineering Education communities in all ABET-accredited disciplines.

Also on this date in 1901, Kettering’s first electric self-starter was installed on automobile, allowing drivers to start the automobile engine without having to crank it. Kettering was involved in a number of research projects at Delco Automotive, inventing a portable electric generator and other important automobile innovations, such as electric lights for automobiles for night time use. General Motors purchased Delco in 1916, much due to Kettering’s inventions and commercial successes. Kettering led a research and development division at General Motors and became a vice president in the company in 1920. He continued to develop new technologies for automobiles throughout his life, including spark plugs, leaded gasoline, automatic transmissions, and four-wheel brakes, diesel engines, safety glass, and the refrigerant Freon.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on the Kettering and automotive design. For related educational resources, visit the Mechanical Engineering Education Community site.

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