DING-DONG! THE ROBOT’S HERE WITH THE PIZZAS

RoboCop is so last century. Are you ready for RoboDeliveryguy? Last month, London startup Starship Technologies began rolling out a fleet of autonomous delivery robots on the sidewalks of the British capital, the first step in a large-scale testing program. The six-wheeled robots—which are capable of covering a three-mile radius and chug along sidewalks at walking speed—are making deliveries for two online takeout food companies, Just Eat and Pronto. The robots will also soon begin making deliveries for Hermes, a parcel delivery service, and German grocer Metro, and expanding their base operations into Dusseldorf, Germany, and Bern, Switzerland, as well as one other German city. The plan is to then introduce them into several other European and American cities. The robots drive themselves, but are monitored by human operators in control centers. Deliveries take 5 to 30 minutes and a robot’s progress can be monitored by customers via their smartphones. The robot’s cargo bay—which can carry up to 40 pounds of goods—can only be opened by a customer using a phone app. Before launching this large-scale rollout, the company conducted smaller trials across Europe and the U.S. Its robots have so far covered 5,000 miles, and served more than 400,000 people, with nary an accident — they’re programmed to navigate around people, animals and objects and take heed of traffic lights. Starship Technologies is the brainchild of Ahti Heinla and Janus Friss, who were cofounders of Skype. Although the company is based in London, it has its engineering facilities in Tallinn, Estonia. Just one question: Do you have to tip RoboDeliveryguy?

AFTER LONG DELAY, A SUNNY FINISH FOR SOLAR IMPULSE 2

It took many months longer than planned, but nevertheless the solar-powered airplane Solar Impulse 2 (or Si2) last month successfully achieved its goal of circumnavigating the globe without using any fuel or releasing any emissions. It’s quite an engineering accomplishment and may one day be looked upon as a milestone in human flight. Si2 was the inspiration of pilot Bertrand Piccard, who managed to circle the Earth in a balloon 17 years ago—a journey that made him ponder the amount of fuel he needed to do it. In 2004, he and fellow pilot Andre Borschberg began working on Si2’s first prototype. In 2014, the Si2 was ready for its first test flight. It weights nearly 5,100 pounds and has 17,248 solar cells that power its propellers and electric engines. It has a wingspan longer than a Boeing 747. In March of last year, it set off on its quest, easily covering the first leg between Abu Dhabi and Muscat, Oman in 13 hours. Borschberg and Piccard took turns piloting the one-person craft. However, after completing its longest and most difficult trek in June 2015—flying five days nonstop for 5,530 miles, between Japan and Hawaii—the Si2 sustained damaged caused by overheated batteries. It was out of commission for repairs for months. But it finally reached Cairo last July, and then flew on from there for its 17th and final leg, back to Abu Dhabi. Over the 16- month adventure, the solar aircraft covered 26,719 miles, racked up 23 days in the air and set 19 aviation records. The pair tell Wired that they will next focus on developing solar-powered drones. For now, battery and photovoltaic technologies are not advanced enough to try to develop larger, commercial solar planes.

(Image courtesy of Solar Impulse)

PHYSICS—IT’S A THING IN TRENTON

Trenton, N.J., has become a hotbed for physics. According to educationdive.com, physics is a required 9th grade course in the city’s public schools. That’s amazing in large part because physics teachers are a rare breed, and most school districts have a hard time finding qualified teachers. But, the website says, Trenton benefits from being down the road from the New Jersey Center for Teaching & Learning, which is the country’s top producer of physics teachers. The center has trained 25 Trenton teachers to teach the thorny subject. Its philosophy is that anyone who’s certified to teach any subject can learn to teach physics — it guides them with lesson plans, curriculum materials and assessments for an algebra-based physics course. The executive director, Bob Goodman, who has a B.S. in physics from MIT, thinks the subject is a critical building block for all scientific inquiry, educationdive says. He first developed his course at the Bergen County Technical School when he taught there. Goodman told the website he discovered that projects, like figuring out how to launch a rocket, got students more interested than a sheet of math equations — though the students would eventually need to use those equations to make their rockets fly. His were mainly lower-performing students, but they very quickly improved their math skills. The course also managed to engage girls before they reached an age when they might decide physics isn’t cool, and more of them went on to enroll in AP Physics. Girls now taking physics in schools that use the center’s course were five times more likely to take the AP Physics B exam in 2014 than their peers across the U.S., it says. The course also greatly boosted the percentages of black and Latino students who took and passed AP Physics exams.

THE BRITISH TV SHOW THAT INSPIRED BUDDING ENGINEERS

Can a TV show about battling robots help motivate students to study engineering? Noel Sharkey thinks so. A professor of computer science and roboticist at Britain’s University of Sheffield, he was a longtime member of the judging panel on the late-’90s BBC television hit Robot Wars. The TV competition featured teams of amateur and professional roboticists building bots that would battle each other. The Beeb pulled the plug on the show in 2003, but has now brought it back. And Sharkey has returned for a second stint, as well. In a first-person article he penned for the BBC’s online edition, he writes that originally he was reluctant to join Robot Wars because he didn’t want to damage his reputation as an academic and an educator. Even after the first series, he considering quitting. But that’s when he discovered that when he toured the country giving talks to young people, he realized they were asking him much more savvy questions. “Thanks to Robot Wars, the kids wanted to know about motor types, gearing, torque and about how robots worked. The inspiration to take up innovative engineering was clearly evident.” He adds that he meets “engineers all the time that say Robot Wars changed their lives and set them on a path to engineering. It certainly changed my life and the way I looked at education.” Sharkey says the show reaches students who were a lot like he was at their age: “. . . the rebels, the troublemakers and the comedians.”

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE EXTENDED

The Fall 2016 Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference will be held at Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY on October 21-22, 2016.

The deadline for abstract submissions has been extended to September 1, 2016.

Please see the conference website for more information: www.Hofstra.edu/ASEE2016

ABET CRITERIA 3&5 PROPOSAL MODIFIED

The Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC) Criteria Committee met in Baltimore last month to continue reviewing the EAC Criteria 3 and 5 Proposal. After spending months categorizing, summarizing and evaluating each one of the hundreds of comments, the committee has taken that feedback into consideration and made a number of modifications to the content of the proposal. The Engineering Area Delegation will review the proposal in late October, as it has the final approval authority for these proposed changes. The Delegation has three options: approve the proposed criteria as written and implement, delay final approval for one year and seek additional public comment, or reject the proposal. Click here for more details.

Look for ABET Alerts on the ASEE website.