‘Tis  the Season! Here is my attempt at compiling a list of best  gifts for Engineers (and other research types) on your Holiday gift list, under $30! (No, I am not in anyway compensated by the after-mentioned companies, nor do they send me free stuff. Although they should.)

No matter what you choose to give your Engineer this holiday season, remember the most important thing about us:

An engineer is always right.

And no, there are no exceptions to that rule. Ever.

1) A perfect t-shirt to demonstrate the above

“It’s not that I can’t explain it…it’s just that you wouldn’t understand”  T-shirt $28

http://www.cafepress.com/+dark_tshirt,97056632

2) Ah…non-engineers… such a nuisance

Mug $18

http://www.cafepress.com/+you_broke_something_large_mug_white,492085411

3) No engineering gift guide would be complete without the PhD comics! They are as funny as they were 7 years ago in grad school

2112 Calendar $17

http://www.phdcomics.com/store/mojostore.php?_=view&ProductID=20220

4) Steve Jobs. ‘Nuf said.

Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson $17

http://product.half.ebay.com/Steve-Jobs-by-Walter-Isaacson-2011-Hardcover/109073110&tg=info

5) OK, technically, these do not fit in the “under $30″ category. BUT these crayon pens are just too cool, so we’ll just say that the extra is a part of the written-in safety factor.

Crayon Pens $33

http://www.penboutique.com/showproduct.aspx?ProductID=7875&SEName=acme-crayon-retractable-rollerball-pen

Have a wonderful Holiday Season and best of luck shopping for all of the Engineers on your list!

Cheers,

Masha

P.S. My 201o Super-Ultimate gift guide:

http://mvpmodelingsolutions.com/mvpblog/2010/12/

Check it out if you’re in the area! Here’s the poster that the UD grad students put together for my talk. I believe the students thought that I did not look cool enough to talk about the Social Media…so they spruced up my photo to make me look a bit “edgier”.

Don’t know about you, but I noticed a trend at technical conferences.

A poor grad student standing in front of an audience, is hanging on for his dear life to the podium while giving a presentation on “Molecular Capabilities of the T3H15C200Rn100 in the Capacity of Potential Implementation in  Electrical Conductivity” or something along those lines… You can barely make out what he is saying, buckets of sweat are dripping from his shaking fingers - you can actually reach out and touch the tension emanating from that poor soul! Finally he is finished - you can actually see the relief, like a giant mountain, sliding of his chest.  That is until the session chair announces: “Does anyone have questions for the presenter?”

Unavoidably, in every large technical conference I’ve ever attended, there is a group of professors who consider themselves to be VERY BIG DEALS. These professors have a FAVORITE saying during Q&A sessions. They especially love to use it on the nervous grad students. In fact the more uncomfortable and nervous the poor student looks, the more likely he is to elicit the favorite BIG DEAL response:

“I would just like to make a statement.”

(This is supposed to be Q&A, but the BIG DEAL professors don’t need to ask questions, just make statements, because they’re brilliant)

“I would NOT make such conclusions, based on this type of data, as this [miserable, obtuse, excuse for a] presenter just showed. In fact,  as I said in Chapter 7 of my VERY IMPORTANT book, I know about how I think, I know how I do things and you are wrong, but I am very smart. I know because I just know!”

OK, granted, I paraphrased but the general meaning is the same. So, just to get it off my chest - the above example is NOT a question. Thus, it would be nice not to hear it during Q&A sections of technical talks.

Cheers!

Masha

Brief video that I had to create out of my love for all things Google…

Stay tuned for next weeks post: E-mail: Productivity Heaven OR Interruptions Hell? Hope it will be helpful to a lot of you!

Cheers!

Today’s interview is with Professor Paul Ronney from University of Souther California.

Here are the questions that Paul, very kindly, agreed to discuss with me during this interview. (If you are having trouble listening to the interview, simply  install a Quicktime plug-in for your web browser).

Talking about what’s new at MVP and more info on CKS software from IBM. (Cant see the video? View it on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxb11X61WGo)

(for more on CKS see this post)

Brief Overview of Sculptor from Optimal Solutions

http://www.optimalsolutions.us/

Today, I want to give a brief background on a cool software tool, called Sculptor from Optimal Solutions. The guys at Optimal Solutions were very helpful in providing me with a webinar and demo of Sculptor in real time. (Thanks John and Taylor!)

Disclaimer for this post: This is not a full review but simply a brief introduction to the software. To learn more, visit http://www.optimalsolutions.us/ .

So what is Sculptor? From Optimal Solutions website:

“Put simply, Sculptor is shape deformation software. It can arbitrarily deform the shape of a computerized object whose shape is defined by the points of a grid. The grid is defined by a CFD [or an FEA] code”

One of the features of Sculptor is its’ geometry optimization ability. Figure below demonstrates really well how this software can save a lot of time and money during the engineering design process.

Figure courtesy of Optimal Solutions:

Sculptor takes out the need to go back and change geometry in CAD itself. The engineering design process becomes much more efficient, since the optimization feedback loop is now much shorter and less complex (see figure above). In addition re-meshing in CFD or FEA is not as complicated as changing geometry in CAD.

The engineer at Optimal Solutions told me that Sculptor works with virtually any CAD, CFD, and FEA software available.

This is a tool designed to save engineering time and company money, while making the design process more effective.

I just found out that my American Chemical Society courses have been officially added to the ACS spring schedule:

Computer Simulation of Reactive Flows: http://www.proed.acs.org/courses/course_overview.cfm?course_code=RFWEB

Essentials of Chemical Kinetics: http://www.proed.acs.org/courses/course_overview.cfm?course_code=KNWEB

This inspired me to write on the subject of teaching – specifically, why most engineering courses are taught in such boring ways, and what can be done about it.

Read more »

Hello all,

Happy, though rather belated, Thanksgiving. Hope everyone enjoyed a good meal and time with family.

I was traveling all last week and am just digging myself from underneath work that piled up during my absence. So I apologize for not getting a post up last week.

Recently I discovered a software tool for chemical kinetic modeling. It’s called the Chemical Kinetic Simulator (or CKS) from IBM Almaden research lab. The code has not been updated since mid-1990s, and I probably would not have given it much thought except for an interesting feature of this software.

The authors claim that CKS does not integrate sets of coupled differential equations to predict the time history of a chemical system. Instead the code uses a stochastic algorithm (type of Monte Carlo calculation) to propagate a reaction.  The authors claim that the stochastic method is much faster for stiff systems.

The  question is, if the stochastic method is much faster for solving reactive systems, why are most other software tools (e.g. Cosilab, Chemkin, DARS, FlameMaster, Chemical WorkBench) use solvers that integrate coupled systems of equations instead of using some form of a stochastic algorithm to solve chemically reactive systems?

I am determined to figure it out. In the next week I’ll be doing some research on the two solver methodologies , the CKS code and other related software. If you are dealing with anything that is chemically reacting,  stay tuned!

On the other hand, if you have some information on CKS OR stochastic vs. integrator methadologies that you would like to share with our readers, either comment below or contact me directly: masha@mvpmodeling solutions.com.

I will be sure to give due credit to everyone contributing information!

Best,
Masha

Why should you care?

If you and/or your colleagues are looking for clean, fast, reliable way to model  an engineering problem (s), contact me. Although not for everyone, outsourcing CFD, CAD and other CAE work might be a great solution for you and your company.

I will be involved in all of your communications with EURO/CFD to make sure that you get the highest quality service and the best possible solution to your problem.

Some stats on EURO/CFD:

Client List:  General Electric, Siemens, INRS, Saint-Gobain PAM, Alcatel, Arcelor Mittal, Constructions Métalliques Florentaises, EDF,  PSA,  TI Automotive, and Valeo. Read more »

The numbers of USA scientists and technologists are dwindling. Our teachers are underpaid and 40% of them are teaching in the areas for which they are not qualified. These factors are directly impacting our industrial innovation.

The Franklin Foundation, a new non-profit organization, is on a mission to change that and you are invited to help lead it (and build your professional resume in the process). Read more »