Ask any fan of F1 racing—or, if you can find one, someone who has ever driven a Ferrari to its performance limits—what makes these cars go so fast, and you are likely to get the same answer: the brakes. To the uninitiated, this might seem counter intuitive at first, but it readily makes sense. Nobody would push these 700 horsepower monsters towards corners at blurring speed without the confidence in their ability to slow down rapidly at the last moment. As product developers, we can draw valuable lessons from this simple fact as we seek ever faster means to take concepts from the lab to the commercial market successfully.
Visualizing the inter-relationships between per capita healthcare costs, access, and life expectancy
January 18, 2010
This graphic by National Geographic provides a thought-provoking look at various countries' per capita health care spending, average annual visits to a doctor, and average life expectancy.
Enough said.
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HealthBeat: Outdoor Fitness Playgrounds for the Elderly
January 14, 2010
I was in Hong Kong over the holidays visiting family. Having a young son, it was inevitable that we would visit many playgrounds as part of our adventures in the city. In several of these playgrounds we came across an exercise area dedicated to elderly fitness, branded HealthBeat.
I was intrigued by them on many levels. The metal structures and their accompanying visual instructions are simply designed. They are playful, colorful, curiously compelling and non-intimidating. They were typically sited alongside children’s playground equipment so that a parental guardian might exercise while their child played.
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Beautiful objects for the body…
January 12, 2010
I just stumbled across this lovely prosthetic by designer Hans Alexander Huseklepp, more than just functional, it’s a work of art.
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An Untapped Engineering Field of Surprising Importance (…and it Claims a Connection between Chap Stick and Cereal)
December 23, 2009
If I told you that the actions of writing on a chalkboard, pouring your morning bowl of cereal, and ice skating all have something in common, you’d probably think I was crazy, right? Or at the very least, that I would have a lot of explaining to do. Well it’s pretty simple, actually, if you give me a second.They all have to do with a field of engineering called tribology. Derived from the Greek word “tribo” meaning “to rub,” tribology is the study of 1) interacting surfaces that 2) are in relative motion. By that definition, tribology inherits the study of friction and wear. The ice skate blade running through the ice, the chalk rubbing against the chalkboard, and the pieces of cereal rolling over each other as they are poured out of the box, all are interesting examples of tribology.
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