From the Editor's Desk

ASME launched new social networking features on ASME.org that enable users to register to become ASME.org Participants, create personal profiles, and network with other engineers in a global community.

The ability to become an ASME.org Participant is open to anyone and is free to join.  Anyone who is interested in becoming part of an engineering-focused online community and wants to network and engage with like-minded colleagues can become an ASME.org Participant.

Other changes to the site that will enhance user experience include a revamped homepage, updated site navigation, and the ability to comment on articles (you must be a registered Participant in order to comment).

Implications for existing members:

• A user does not have to become a Participant in order to purchase a product from ASME; they can continue to access their ASME accounts and use the shopping cart.
• A user needs to be a registered Participant in order to:
  • Participate in a Group
  • Comment on articles or any other interactive activity on the site
  • Appear in the Directory (Note: only registered participants can view the Participant Directory; the public can view the Group Directory)

The new features are: ASME.org Participant, Participant Profile, Dashboard, Participant and Group Directory, ASME Groups.  Here is a description of each new feature:

• ASME.org Participant: Once you register on the site, you become an ASME.org Participant.  Registration is free and you do not need to be an ASME member in order to be an ASME.org Participant.

• Participant Profile: The Participant Profile is the user’s public identity; the profile lets others see interests, work experience, education, and other credentials such as publications, certifications, patents, and projects.  Creating a profile is easy: simply complete the data fields or import information from a LinkedIn or ASME member account. Creating a  complete profile will help you get the most out of your ASME online experience.

• Dashboard: The Dashboard is the Participant’s personalized space on ASME.org. Here is where you manage your ASME account, membership, and benefits; send messages; share links and comments; see your ASME group and committee activities; and receive customized alerts for conferences, events, articles, and publications that are based on your interests.

• Participant and Group Directory: Directory allows you find other Participants to add to your network and search for ASME Groups to join based on your professional interests.

• ASME Groups:  ASME Groups connects engineers with similar interests. ASME Group members can facilitate official Group business; have private discussions; share information and content.

As a registered ASME.org Participant, you can join any open Group by searching the Group Directory and sending a request to join. You can also create your own group based on a topic or industry.

Consider for a moment that you’re on a treadmill (even if that notion seems far-fetched, go with it for the sake of the point I’m trying to make). So you’re on this torture device for a half hour sweating, and you’re tired. You grab your smart phone, wave it over your thigh and, lo and behold, it tells you how much fluid to drink to replenish what you’ve lost.

If you don’t like the exercise example, let’s say you’re lying on the beach or by the pool with a cool drink relaxing and soaking up the sunshine. You reach for the smart phone wave it over your arm and it shows you whether the sunscreen you slapped on a few hours ago is still working.

If you think that’s pretty cool, how about I tell you that the same technology could monitor your baby’s temperature and heartbeat while she’s sleeping. Or that the ultimate vision for this sensing technology is that one day a doctor will take a minimally invasive device—if you need it—go in through your femoral artery, up into the atrium or ventricle of your heart, and deploy a thin conformal monitoring device that would give you and your doctor real-time information as to what’s happening inside of you.

None of this is farfetched at all. This particular biometric monitoring technology comes from the labs of MC10, a Cambridge, Mass., company that late last year signed a deal with sports equipment-maker Reebok to work on helmet-impact indicators and other sensing devices for professional athletes and the casual ones, like you and me.

Same technology used for different applications—that’s smart. But the innovation happened when the founders of the company conceived of taking high-performance microchips out of their rigid boxy packages and molded them to conform to the human body—like an electronic tattoo.

Rightfully, David Icke, the CEO at MC10, whom I met at a conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last fall, is inspiring a legion of supporters. He said his company wants to redefine the interface between electronics and the human body to make “humans more superhuman.” The manufacturing process that gives the chip its flexibility is both electrical and mechanical, he said.

MC10 and other innovative companies that drive transformative technologies embrace the concept of being agile and react to market needs. Much like the organizations we spoke with for this month’s cover story (“Medical Starts with ME,” page 30), which are also blending technology and medicine, MC10, said Icke, relies on the diversity and ingenuity that its employees bring to the design process.

Realizing the strength of this diversity and understanding that, for many, creativity is not a linear process keep companies inspired and innovators motivated.

Dean Kamen, for example, who is an inventor and no stranger to the development of mechanical systems for medical applications (“One-On-One” with Dean Kamen, page 22), has been revolutionizing attitudes about the engineering workforce for decades. He has kept himself inspired by a drive no less imposing than that to improve the world.

“I don’t work on a project unless I believe that it will dramatically improve life for a bunch of people,” he once boasted. The likes of Kamen understand that innovation is a driver to change, and that technology is an uncompromising tool.

To the surprise of some friends who hold the coffee bean as an elixir of religious proportions, on most days I wait to get to the office for my first cup of morning coffee. But on Saturdays I enjoy one of life’s uncomplicated rituals of brewing a pot and easing into the weekend.

The society most of us live in affords us these simple pleasures as well as some that aren’t so simple. Especially in the U.S., we embrace the right to expect a reward for our hard work and the prizes that come from the fruits of our work. The expectation of this quid pro quo doesn’t exist everywhere, especially in many places outside the U.S.

But there’s a growing realization that economic prosperity is tied to science, technology, engineering, and innovation. As our newest columnist, Andrew Reynolds—who works at the U.S. State Department and whose first column appears this month—tells us, these dominant forces of prosperity are ones that ”All nations—large and small—aspire to harness.” The global challenges of the 21st century, Reynolds says, “do not respect national boundaries and require cooperation in science and engineering to address them successfully.”

The magnitude of these global challenges, beginning with population growth, energy, and water, makes the notion of putting even a minor dent in them seem daunting.

Positive reviews of Abundance—The Future is Better Than You Think, co-written by the founder of the X Prize Foundation, Peter H. Diamandis, last year cited the book for its optimistic vision of our own ability to help improve the world.

Diamandis and his co-author, Steven Kotler, make the point that we’re now living in a world of information and communication abundance. For example, a Masai warrior with a cell phone, they say, has a better mobile phone than the president of the United States did 25 years ago.

They write: “In a similar fashion, the advancement of new, transformational technologies—computational systems, networks and sensors, artificial intelligence, robotics, biotechnology, bioinformatics, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, human-machine interfaces, and biomedical engineering—will soon enable the vast majority of humanity to experience what only the affluent have access to today. Even better, these technologies aren’t the only change agents in play.”

It is encouraging to believe that it is within our own ability to create change. For me, Abundance is not so much inspirational as it is reinforcing. But I’m lucky. I’ve got a first-hand view of our own ability to move the needle on a macro scale. A focus on curating the intellectual capital of engineers, designers, and other important stakeholders has turned ASME into one of those global change agents, and has empowered those of us close to the organization to make a difference.

Diamandis (who talks about some of his ideas in this issue’s exclusive One-on-One interview) asks us in his book to “Imagine a world of nine billion people with clean water, nutritious food, affordable housing, personalized education, top-tier medical care, and nonpolluting, ubiquitous energy.”

He believes that the world’s growing population will have the power to solve many of the problems in front of them, and that everyone deserves to expect the fruits of their work—now that’s inspirational.

We’re going to start treating you a little differently this year. We’re not changing the place we’re taking you to, but we are revamping how we’re getting you there.

As far back as 1878, two years before ASME was incorporated in 1880, the Society’s founding fathers—along with the first of my six predecessors as editor—conceived and began publishing what later, in 1919, became Mechanical Engineering magazine. Published for ASME’s illustrious membership, the magazine through the years was read by technology giants such as Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, to name only two. The focus then was on mechanical engineering and allied technologies. It still is.

But mechanical engineering is changing. It is stretching its traditional boundaries. It is becoming interdisciplinary and gaining influence. This is apparent in the broad reach and influential global role ASME has taken on. Today, ASME and its members focus on areas ranging from defining sustainable energy solutions to enhancing the engineering workforce pipeline; and ASME’s influence in the standards world remains largely unsurpassed.

Grounded on the authority we derive from being published by one of the pre-eminent engineering organizations in the world, Mechanical Engineering will begin placing a greater focus on trends and on general engineering and technology content, but as seen through a “mechanical” lens.

To that end, our talented and knowledgeable staff will continue to generate and curate content that is relevant and also thought provoking, but we’re adding a few new twists. We hope to be aspirational as we provide you context for leading edge technologies, and we believe that our new graphic design you are seeing with this issue indicates that.

We’re adding new voices to the magazine through monthly columnists who are leading thinkers in their respective areas; and we’re giving you a platform so others can hear your own voices too, as we now invite you to send your comments for publication as well as your letters.

Our new One-on-One section will spotlight some of the technologists we think you should get to know a little better. This month we feature Dan Mote, who is president nominee of the National Academy of Engineering. Trending, which takes a numerical approach to telling a story, is another new section that we believe will become part of our signature and that you’ll look forward to each month. I’ll let you discover the rest of what’s new on your own.

We’re also rededicating ourselves as a strong complement to ASME.org: we give you more long-form journalism, to our part-ners’ more short form on the cyber side. Together, along with EngineeringForChange.org, we are becoming a prominent digital content platform committed to helping lead the global engineering conversation.

We value the trust you place in us to help guide you through the exciting evolution of technology and its growing influence on government and on the world’s economy. Join us on the ride as we discover new technologies, new ways to positively impact the world, and as we look in on some of those who are leading the way. The time has never been more exciting to be an engineer. We hope that your re-imagined magazine reflects it..

John G. Falcioni

Editor-in-Chief

Post from Harry Hutchinson:

Harry Hutchinson

I got to meet two men who have a bold scheme that is full of entertaining fun and of serious practicality at the same time.

Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg, the president and CEO respectively of Solar Impulse SA, were in New York the other day to publicize their latest plan—to fly their solar-powered airplane on a trip across the United States. (I wrote about the plane for this blog last July.)

They are building another solar-powered aircraft back home in Switzerland, and they intend to fly that one around the world in 2015.

Piccard has made unusual trips before. He and Brian Jones were first to circumnavigate the globe non-stop in a balloon more than a dozen years ago. Now he and Borschberg plan to share the piloting across the U.S. and later all the way around the world.

When I first heard of their circumnavigating intentions a few years ago, I had thought they were talking about a non-stop solar-powered flight. But no, apparently that kind of thing was just for the balloon ride. As Piccard explained it, many people on the ground were probably disappointed that they never got a chance to see the record-breaking balloon.

The Solar Impulse plane will make frequent stops, at least one on each continent it crosses, Piccard said.

The phrase “around the world in 20 days” came up at one point in their presentation during a reception at the residence of the Swiss consul-general.

The aircraft is very lightweight and uses little energy to fly. Piccard talks about “zero fuel,” and sustainability, and will point out that nothing quite like this has existed before. He says, too, that many of the design ideas for efficiency and economy could be applied in homes and vehicles today.

When it comes to flying something so light, there are considerations about winds and weather. Piccard makes another point: You can do a lot if you’re not in a hurry.

The cruising speed for the plane is about 70 kilometers an hour, so speed records are out of the question anyway.

If you are taking your time, and burning no fuel, you can afford to fly south to find better conditions to fly east. Piccard did something like that on a recent flight from Rabat, Morocco, to Madrid, Spain.

The plane was to land in Madrid around midnight so it wouldn’t interfere with airport traffic. Had he flown directly from one city to the other, he says, he would have arrived too early. So to kill time he headed west over Iberia toward Portugal. For a time, the speed of the headwind was greater than that of the plane, so he flew backwards across Spain toward Madrid.

Yes, you can do cool stuff if you don’t have to hurry.