Renewable energy

By Abdulaziz Khudada


Engineers have big role in saving the environment. They can design, build, process, and develop the concepts in order to help the planet. Engineers built energy savers and energy producers. However, does it help the planet to clean place. The engineers are doing all their best to make our planet safer and cleaner. There are different things they made to make it better place to live in it. Recycling is important to reduce the human waste and make it reusable.The most important thing is energy, but how we can make it more safer.

Engineers built by the years different things to save the energy. The first thing is renewable energy. It is the energy that produced by the nature like sun, wind , rain and waves. This energy helps to reduce the fuel usage. This kind of energy producer is less cost, but need bigger space to produce energy. There is a lot of country use solar power energy. Seaside cities can use Hydropower system. This system is depends on wave power to produce the energy. There is 150 country are using Hydropower. Wind power has development in recents years. Wind power is using wind turbines to produce mechanical or electrical power. It can be renewable energy, safer to use, and cleaner to have. The goal of using these type of energy is to have cleaner world and produce energy in cheaper way. These energies producers can be used in every country.

Word cites:
- Omar Ellabban, Haitham Abu-Rub, Frede Blaabjerg, Renewable energy resources: Current status, future prospects and their enabling technology. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 39, (2014), 748–764, p 749.
[picture 1] http://sites.psu.edu/aps5458/wp-content/uploads/sites/15470/2015/01/environmental-conservation-concept-1024x682.jpg
- world watch Institute (January 2012). "Use and Capacity of Global Hydropower Increases"
- "Wind power is cheapest energy, EU analysis finds". the guardian. Retrieved 15 October 2014.

Wireless Technology

By Boyuan Sun

With an average of 162 minutes each American spends on wireless devices every day, wireless technology is so important to us that some people can’t live without it. [1] The so called wireless devices are just any kind of communication equipment that does not require a physical wire for relaying information to another device. For example, the wireless headphones fitted with a receiver can communicate with a transmitter that is connected to the sound resource. [2]

There are various ways we transmit the signal through space. Infrared technology and radio frequency can be used in the case of headphones. Wireless technology really makes our life easier. Every time you make a call, every time you open the television, turn on the radio, you are enjoying the benefits brought by the wireless technology.

As it is such a important aspect of science and engineering, it is concluded under the category of electrical engineering. Electrical engineers are in charge of the study and design of communication devices. They bend themselves to find the most efficient and the cleanest way to transmit the most information.

[1]Taylor Soper. “Study: Americans spend 162 minutes on their mobile device per day, mostly with apps.” Geek Wire. Geek Wire, Apr 1, 2014. Web. Oct 25, 2015.

[2] Wise Geek. “What is a Wireless Device,” Wise Geek. Wise Geek, n.d. Web. Oct 25, 2015

Chemistry of Fireworks

By Khalifa Alzaabi

Over the decade’s fireworks have been a source of happiness and amazement in different cultures around the world. But what produces their dazzling array of effects? This post will explain briefly about the reaction that happens when launching an air cracker.

Chemicals and colors

The chemistry that is involved in the fireworks is considered to be very essential since it can change the color of the fire. Each compound produces its own color and each color has its own energy and wavelength. Depending on the mixture that is available in the firework, it will produce that specific color. For example, the mixture that creates blue includes varying amounts of copper chloride compounds, while red comes from strontium and lithium salts. Moreover, just like dyes, secondary colors are made by mixing the ingredients of their primary-color relatives. A mixture of copper (blue) and strontium (red) makes purple and so over.


To read more about this, please see the link: http://earthsky.org/human-world/how-do-fireworks-get-their-vibrant-colors

Prompt #8: Engineering is NOT just theory

By Khalifa ALHammadi




There are a lot of required skills for professional engineers that only can be gained from practical working. Practical work skills are obtained by practicing and gaining hands-on experience while the theoretical skills are obtained by memorizing and learning from written or spoken source. Engineers use both practical work skills and theoretical skills to produce and build things; if one of the skills is missing then the product will not be functional. Therefore, engineers must first learn the theory and then apply it practically in order to fully accomplish the learning process. One of the required skills that can only be gained by practical work is team work. Team work can not be taught theoretically because individuals must interact with each other professionally to obtain the skill. Besides that, different people interact differently so there is no one situation that happens always. Another skill is time management, when engineers work on projects that has due dates then they gain the time management skill by managing to finish the work on time. Back at high school I was required to do a graduation project with a team. The most important requirement was that the project has to be related to engineering. The project was a small version of a smart home that had different sensors and LEDs. Based on working on this project I have learned a lot about team work, time management, and dealing with unfamiliar stuff. We managed to stay after school so that we can finish the project before the due date.

Talk topic #2

By: Khalifa Alzaabi, Khalifa ALHammadi, Boyuan Sun, Abdulaziz Khudada

Engineers have many abbreviations that they use during working period. Abbreviations are letters that refer to something that is used frequently, most of the time engineers use abbreviations for long phrases. Each major in engineering has its own terminology and language that are used amongst them. These terminologies are one of the requirements to be a professional engineer.

All students who choose engineering as their major start with a course like EGR 100 and EGR 102 in Michigan state. These types of courses introduce the general concept of engineering with some abbreviations that are used in more than one major. These abbreviations that are taught helps the students understand more about the how communication will be in the future among other professionals. For example, chemical engineers use AFC which stands for Alkaline Fuel Cell. These acronyms help engineers to write less in their reports and research papers. Furthermore, its also used in laboratories and some projects to make it easier for the students to differentiate between different materials. Engineers also use signs to indicate what each material cause. For instance, if the material can cause fire when touching certain things, so it labeled as a highly flammable material and will be kept under certain conditions.

In order for engineers to be efficient in their work, they are required to learn these languages that are used while working. The use of these signs and abbreviations are to either for safety or organization. Almost all engineers know what each sign and word mean, without looking at specific details which saves them time.

Life without engineers

By Khalifa ALHammadi


Imagine things that will not exist if there were no engineers. There will be no phones, cars, and roads because engineers contributed significantly in designing them. Communication will be very hard because there will be no phones and emails. People will use mail that takes months and will have to meet face to face if they want to talk. Transportation will be limited, individuals will only travel to a certain distance. If they wanted to travel to a far destination, then it would take months to reach.




Besides that, safety technology features we have now will not exist, there will be no control cameras and alarms and police help will be useless in emergency situations because it will take them time to be notified and more time to reach. These are few things that will change, there are more stuff that would change; the link below contains things that will change if engineering disappeared for one day.

http://www.nspe.org/resources/media/resources/what-if-engineering-disappeared-day


Works Cited:
Mirdula, Manish. World without Engineers. Digital image. Bin's Corner. Bin's Corner, n.d. Web. 18 Oct. 2015.

Prompt # 3 Exploring Communication

By Khalifa Alzaabi


Interviews are very important since you can get a lot of information by asking the other person about specific things which he is profession at. Interview are also done to recruit new members to their new job, so it can be vital. In this post I will write about the interview that I did with Ahmed Almarzooqi, a professional chemical engineer that has a master degree from United Arab Emirates University (UAEU). I will be asking him a couple of questions regarding his work environment and what he write about in this specific field.

1. what do you write about?
Writing is very important for every engineer, all engineers are required to write about their work plans and much more. In my specific job I’m asked to write about action reviews and recommendations.

2. describe how you write it?
So basically, I have to watch my workmates and write they do in daily bases and how do they progress. Moreover, recommendation paper is a bit hard because you have to be careful for whom do you write this for. Since lots of people are working under me, it hard to choose few people to write about.

3. what are some common misconceptions in your field and how do you use communication (including writing) to dispel around those?
Whenever I ask college students about chemical engineering, the first thing that pops in their mind is that involves a lot of chemistry. However, that’s wrong, the truth is that chemical engineering relies on all aspects of science and math. Although its called chemical engineering, physics and math take majority of sciences. Moreover, chemical also involves biology and material science. I try to explain this to people by giving them real life situations that are written in a power point presentation, so that its easier for them to understand.

Works cited:

Almarzooqi, Ahmed Ali. "Exploring Communication." Telephone interview. 16 Oct. 2015.

GPS or Not?

By Boyuan Sun

In January 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that law enforcement must obtain a warrant before physically attaching a GPS tracking device to a suspect's vehicle. (GPS.gov) This was brought up by a heated discussion on the usage of GSP nowadays. Before the GPS was equipped on the vehicles mobile phones are parent bodies of the GPS. Providing the location information to the companies run the mobile business, GPS is a really handy and convenience way to let find the our way in middle of nowhere and a tool we find our favorite shops and restaurants.

However, with the publicity of the GPS more concerns about the right of privacy have appeared and it really need us think twice about the usage of the GPS. Like mentioned by the Catherine Crump, information provided by the GPS is not only the locations of everyone but also it is information of everything we do in our daily life. With a tremendous amount of information of locations of the people living in the country it is easy to figure out who is your friends, what is your favorite food and even the smallest detail of your life which you may have not realized yourself. It is also controversial that those companies always keep the information over years and this extension of time can reveal more secrets in everybody's life.

GPS.gov. “GPS Location Privacy.” GPS.gov. Space-based Positioning Navigation & Timing, October 9, 2014. Web. Oct 18, 2015.

Catherine Crump. “How GPS tracking threatens our privacy.” CNN. CNN, Nov. 7, 2011. Web. Oct 18, 2015.

Prompt #4 Considering Delivery and Style

By Boyuan Sun

Internet offers us a platform where we can fine different resources from different providers. To make a good use of them we need to know which to trust and what they are providing us. In order to distinguish them deliveries and styles are always involved.

As for us, before we do the serious research we usually tend to type the key words in the search engine and see what do we get for that. Our attentions always caught by some newspaper articles and blog posts. The audience of those articles is the general public.

For instance, the blog post “Six common mistakes that engineering graduates make” by The Open Electrical gives us six possible mistakes may be made by primary engineers saying “In the worst case, that someone could be an expert witness in court assessing whether or not your work was negligent ”. Those kind of articles are provided with pictures(shown in figure 1) and also in first or second person tone which can help reader to grab the idea easily.

Figure 1

However, before we trust them we need to think it twice because these article could wrote by anyone and always be exaggerated.

To support our ideas scholarly articles are required which wrote by professionals with a high level credibility. For example, “The educational and social science literature has documented the influence of parents on the formation of basic educational aspirations (Berger & Luckmann, 1966; Heppner & Scott, 2004; Whiston & Keller, 2004).” said by Willie Pearson Jr. & Jon D. Miller is authentic by the resources given.

Scholarly articles are aiming the audience of people who have some basic knowledge of the field and seek the data. Those articles are always provided with enough tables, figures and detailed references to let us to backtrace the resources.

Work citation:

“Six common mistakes that engineering graduates make.” The Open Electrical Blog. WordPress, February 22, 2011. Web. October 10, 2015.

Willie Pearson Jr. & Jon D. Miller (2012) Pathways to an Engineering Career, Peabody Journal of Education, 87:1, 46-61, DOI: 10.1080/0161956X.2012.642270

Writing as an Engineer

By Khalifa Alzaabi

Do engineers write a lot? Is a question that almost every engineer asks. Of course yes, all engineers from different majors are required to write. Here is a list of what engineers write about:

· Analysis
· Progress reports
· Incident reports
· Forecast
· Plans
· Proposals
· Recommendation
· Action reviews
· Work description
· Etc.
                                                      

In my Engineering class, I am asked to write a memo for every checkpoint I achieve, the memo is 10 pages long and it should includes pictures, graphs, and tables. Moreover, there are some requirements for the paper. For instance, you can only use third person phrases, and the language should be easy for the reader so that they can understand what is going on. These writings are called technical writings. According to Atul Mathur they involve 2 key competencies. The first one is the ability to understand technical language; the second is being able to express that knowledge in a clear, concise, and coherent manner.

Resources:

https://www.asme.org/career-education/articles/business-writing/how-engineers-can-improve-technical-writing.

Why do engineers work in teams?

By Khalifa ALHammadi


Engineering is one of few fields that require team work. Most of the engineering projects require team work because engineers work on many huge projects. These large projects require a lot of work; this is the main reason of engineering teams. Besides that, some projects require more than one type of engineer, so engineers must work in groups to get the work done.






Team work has many disadvantages but it has more advantages. One of the advantages is that working in a group saves time and times now days means money; when engineers work in teams they save money. In addition, working as a group helps to generate ideas and this leads to creative results. More over, team work helps each individual in the team to learn new things by looking at how each team member view the issue or the reason that made up the team. So team work creates higher quality outcomes that are efficient and effective in a faster way.

More advantages/disadvantages of team work:

http://www.hf.faa.gov/webtraining/teamperform/Team008.htm



Works cited:

Berger, Erran. Team work. Digital image. Linkedin. Linked In, 12 May 2014. Web. 10 Oct. 2015.

How oil is priced?

By Khalifa ALHammadi


Oil prices are determined in a very unique way. Firstly, gasoline and diesel fuel that we use are refined from Crude oil or petroleum. Crude oil is a commodity material such as coffee and gold. Commodity material does not depend on the place and the people who get it because it does not change. Commodity price go high and down because depend on the supply/demand of the world. As the supply increase and the demand decrease the prices go down; and as the supply decrease and the demand increase the prices go up.




The thing that makes the oil prices unique is the future contracts. These contracts are agreements to sell or buy oil at a specific date with a specific price. These contracts affect the supply/demand of the world because they can keep the prices high or low depending on the contracts. There are other factors such as crises and disasters but they don’t occur a lot so they don’t affect the prices a lot.



Works Cited

George, Patrick E. "What Determines Oil Prices?" Investopedia, 02 July 2008. Web. 03 Oct. 2015. <http://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/determining-oil-prices.asp>.

Oil Price. Digital image. Oil Boom USA, 10 June 2015. Web. 3 Oct. 2015. <http://oilboomusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/oil-prices1.jpg>.

The Business of Chemical Engineers

By Khalifa Alzaabi

As mentioned in my previous post, chemical engineers apply the principles of chemistry, biology, physics and math to solve problems that involve the production or use of chemicals, fuel, drugs, food and many other products (Lucas).
Chemical engineering jobs fall into two main groups: industrial applications and development of new products. Chemical engineers may spend time at industrial plants, refineries and other locations, where they monitor or direct operations or solve on-site problems. Manufacturing industries that employ chemical engineers include agricultural chemicals like fertilizers, pest control and weed control. Furthermore, they also manufacture textiles, food processing, and consumer products. For example, personal care, lawn care and pharmaceuticals as well as chemical manufacturers that supply products to countless other industries.
Many chemical engineers belong to the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), which is considered to be a certified organization established in 1908 that has more than 45,000 members in over 100 countries.


Works Cited:
Lucas, Jim. "What Is Chemical Engineering?" Live Science. TechMedia Network, 03 Oct. 2014. Web. 27 Sept. 2015.

How to find a free wifi

By: Abdulaziz Khudada




Everyone is using his smartphone almost everyday. Sometimes we cannot find service in a building or in the street to use our smartphone. we need to use the internet because is the most thing we use our smartphone. There is a lot of people are tweeting, snapchating, or using the other social media. Some people have a contract with limited data plan and they do not waste their data on something or they want save their data.

There is a lot of ways to find a free wifi. Using the feature of connecting with the open wifi in the settings is the first way; however, there is a free wifi but you need to have access code to connect with it. Some places always have a wifi around the world like Starbucks, Apple store, McDonald’s. Some places usually they want you to buy anything from them to give you the access code to the wifi. There are places with full coverage wifi like public transportation, libraries, malls, and big stores like BestBuy. There are new apps that can notify you if there is a free wifi around you. The best thing for a person who does not a data for his phone is to find a popular store that provide a free wifi without an access code, and ask for free wifi hotspot around the place.


[Article in CNET]: Purewal, Sarah. “How to find free Wi-Fi anywhere in the world”. CNET. September 30, 2015.

[picture] http://astuceclub.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/wifi-password-cracking-1.jpg

Prompt #6 Evaluating Sources

By Abdulaziz Khudada

Finding information about a specific field as a beginner in that field is not difficult because It's a great way to know more about my field. Using the internet is the easiest way to find informations and details that you want. When you write about your field or other field you need to have some reliable and true information. Deciding which source is the best are the hardest thing to do; however, for the most of the college students their college provide them with the best sources to use and relay on it.
I find a lot of sources describing my field. The first source I found is Wikipedia and it's the most popular source. Wikipedia anyone can edit the information in the website. Sometime you cannot decide if its true or not. I searched a lot in the internet about my field and I found a lot of reliable sources. Usually I use the Michigan State University Library search plus because its easier, and helps you to find what you want like articles and books, also the website can give you a reliable source. MSU search plus helps me a lot to know about my field. Things I have learned about my fields is a lot of big companies needs electrical engineering employees, and those companies cannot develop their work without them. I have a lot of questions for my field and they are: What is the basic things to learn when you at electrical engineering, and how you can develop things by that field, also why is electrical engineering important for the world. All these questions I have answers for it by just searching in the website.

 

MSU Search Plus

Electrical Engineering Leading World’s Communication Revolution

By Boyuan Sun

Checking your cellphone every minute, spending over 10 percent of your time texting and reading on your cell phone do you ever wonder what kind of technology can make the life style so much different from that fifteen years ago?

Communication is a huge part of electrical engineering. With a rapid growth of world’s information transmitting speed mobile phones and other wireless devices are owned and widely used by more and more people. The forth generation of mobile telecommunications technology, so called 4G, is accepted by the market with its impressive transmitting rate. The forth generation products are regulated by the IMT-Advanced requirement used by The International Telecommunication ,ITU for radio-access technologies. [1]





From 1980s, the first generation came out providing service with incompatible standards to the early 1990s the first of the digital second generation was set up with limited circuit-switched data services. It didn’t take long for electrical engineers to make a significant progress.[2]

Nowadays, 4G again is leading people to reach a new level of freedom. Being able to have a data transmitting speed over 1 Gbit/s peak bit rate in their, people now are provided with more options to communicate, to choose entertainments with all the video call, movies and TV shows in their mobile phones.


[1]ITU-R SG5, “Invitation for submission of proposals for candidate radio interface technologies for the terrestrial components of the radio interface(s) for IMT-Advanced and invitation to participate in their subsequent evaluation”, Circular Letter 5/LCCE/2, March 2008.


[2]Agilent Technologies, “IMT-Advanced: 4G Wireless Takes Shape in an Olympic Year”, U.S.A, Agilent Technologies Inc., 2008.9.1, Print.