Stories of Most Famous Successful Engineers

Neil Armstrong

Neil Armstrong, the man who first walked on the moon, needs no introduction. He happens to be an aerospace engineer and a man who built the very foundation for all the space expeditions that were later enhanced by the oncoming generations.

Philip Condit

He was responsible for making the first of Boeings, which fly high even today. Philip Condit takes most credit for all the air travel that takes place in the world today. A graduate from MIT and Tokyo University, Philip ranks among the engineers who have changed the world.

Karl Benz

A century and a half ago, there were no automobiles that enabled people to commute from one place to another, except for carriages. This was until Karl Benz, the German Engineer made the first ever modern car. He is responsible for the invention of internal combustion engine which was used in his car.

Steve Wozniak

Co-founder of Apple Inc. Steve Wozniak might not have become as popular as Jobs but he is one of the masterminds behind Apple. This electrical engineer was the man who designed Apple I and Apple II computers all by himself in the early days of the company.

George Stephenson

‘Father of the railways’ George Stephenson was the man who built the first ever inter-city railway. He was a civil and a mechanical engineer who was responsible for the revolution of locomotives that began shortly after his invention. The rail gauge that he invented is named after him and is called the ‘Stephenson Gauge’ to this day.

The world continues to see the rise of more and more life changing inventors and innovators. The best is yet to come!

Engineers create artificial skin that can feel what it touches

Engineers have created an artificial skin that can tell how hard it is being pressed and send that information straight into the brain.
The researchers hope that the creation of the new sensor could be another step towards creating an entire virtual skin — a flexible fabric full of sensors that could be put over a prosthetic limb, making it work something real skin.
"This is the first time a flexible, skin-like material has been able to detect pressure and also transmit a signal to a component of the nervous system," said Zhenan Bao, a professor of chemical engineering at Stanford, in a statement.

Bao has spent the last decade attempting to make a material that matches the characteristics of skin. Our bodies have the ability to flex freely, heal, and can send very fine information about what they touch to the brain — all qualities that have proved difficult to replicate in artificial ways.

The new sensing skin is made up of two layers: a sensing mechanism on top, and a bottom layer that sends the electric signals that are generated to the brain, in a way that it can understand them. It is maed up of “waffled nanotubes”, which are a series of tiny structures that get pushed together when pressure is applied, allowing more electricity to be conducted.
At the moment, pressure is all that the skin can sense — and there are six different sensing mechanisms in the hand. The engineers behind it hope that they can develop others that will allow the artificial skin to feel texture and differentiate between different materials, for instance, or detect temperature.
Because of the two-layer approach, engineers say that they will be able to add more sensing capabilities as they develop them.

Tips for Success for Engineering Students

1. Identify the pe

ople who inspire you, and find out what makes them tick. If you love Apple products, Steve Jobs may be your idol, or perhaps you love the Segway and its creator, Dean Kamen. You can easily find out a lot of information about Jobs and Kamen—or just about any other prominent person in technology—so use it to look into what's helped these people and their companies become so successful. Then emulate their good traits in your personal, scholastic, and professional life.

2. Develop a portfolio of projects. Participate in every hands-on, experiential learning opportunity that a balanced schedule allows. This way, you'll have something unique to show a prospective employer (or venture capitalist) when you graduate, while other students will only be able to list their courses. In addition, you'll be far more likely to retain the knowledge you've gained in classes because you'll be applying it and, in the process, boosting your communication and interpersonal skills.

3. Learn the value of networking. When it comes to being a leader, whom you know is almost as important as what you know. Attend lectures on your campus and introduce yourself to the speakers. Check with your school's alumni association to get a list of alumni from your program who want to connect with undergraduates.

4. Work in teams as much as you can. Whether it's creating a solar-powered car, participating in a sport, or writing for the school paper, get involved with an organization that requires a team effort to produce great results. Throughout your career, you can be sure you'll work in teams, and the skills you develop in school will help prepare you to lead teams when you graduate.


5. Seek informal leadership roles. You're always a leader, whether you're officially in charge of a team or not. Sounds counterintuitive, but you can lead from any position in an organization by influencing how people work together and how they make decisions. Usually people think that the leader is the president or the manager, but if you learn how to recognize and deal with various leadership styles from any position in a team, you'll be seen as a leader when you take on your first job or internship.

6. Find your flaws—and fix them. As with any skill, leadership needs constant improvement. When you are part of a team, try to create a way to get feedback from team members, group leaders, and professors. When you have concrete feedback on how people view you, you can work to improve your skills, including communication and leadership. Plus, you'll learn how to accept—and give—constructive criticism. That's absolutely necessary for your future career.

7. Take a business class. As an engineer, it's not enough for you to be technically proficient; you need to have business savvy. If you're going to be a leader, you need to understand what a P&L is (also known as an income statement), read organization charts, know how to negotiate contracts, and be familiar with the myriad other functions that every top engineer needs to know. Otherwise, you won't understand what to do when an accountant, lawyer, or middle manager gets in the way. A business course or two can take you a long way, and these classes are often easier to pass than your calculus course!

8. Take design and other humanities classes. There's a wide world out there beyond problem sets, laboratories, and theory. Take a visual design course so you'll learn to represent ideas graphically. Take a cognitive science course to learn how people interpret the world and understand it. Take a literature course to develop your knowledge and appreciation of the classic books, which will help you write and communicate more effectively.


9. Make your summers productive. Employers place tremendous value on practical experience. Seek out internship opportunities actively and early in your academic career. Try to demonstrate through your internships a series of evolving leadership experiences, and use the internships to build your portfolio of actual projects/products. New graduates who can show a commitment to using their summer to continue to learn are always viewed more seriously by a prospective employer.


10. Recruit and develop your personal board of directors. As an undergraduate, you might feel alone when confronted with hard decisions about the courses to take, jobs to apply for, or even balancing school work and your personal life. You won't feel alone if you develop a personal board of directors just for you. Just as a company has a board that guides the organization, you can stock your board with professionals from organizations and companies, as well as former teachers and knowledgeable family friends.

LNCTS Indore

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