>>>
Making Engineering Accessible Paul Steif Publishes New Textbook for Gen C Students
An innovative new textbook by Professor Paul Steif is targeted to the highly visual and technology-focused group known in marketing circles as “Generation C.” According to Steif, today’s “connected” young engineering students are looking for learning experiences that mirror the ease and agility of the online world.
Steif’s Mechanics of Materials is visually appealing and filled with depictions of everyday experiences with simple objects—designed to help students grasp major engineer- ing concepts quickly. The book helps students relate com- plex engineering concepts to many real-world engineered systems, such as wind turbines and bicycles. “Mechanics of Materials will help demystify subjects such as stress, deformation, and material failure, using an approach more in sync with the learning style of a generation of students who literally grew up on the Internet,” says Steif.
Kara Honored by ASME Award Recognizes Promising Young Faculty
Assistant Professor Levent Burak Kara has received the 2011 Design Automation Young Investigators Award from the American Society of Mechani- cal Engineers (ASME). This prestigious annual award was created to recognize an outstanding young investigator who is making noteworthy contributions in the
area of design automation. Winners must be under the age of 35 and demonstrate significant contributions, accom- plishments, and impact on the field. In his Visual Design and Engineering Lab, Kara and his
team create new theories and methodologies that enhance the early phases of engineering design through novel computational technologies. Kara’s current work involves research in geometric knowledge capture and re-use, 3D geometric design, design synthesis from examples, aug- mented reality, sketch recognition, and human cognition. The primary applications of his research are in the areas of computer-aided design, industrial product design, pen-based computer applications, surgical planning and
diagnostic tools, and educational technologies. One of Kara’s most innovative research projects focuses on developing a sketch-based 3D geometric modeling tool. This work aims to help designers construct, modify, and fluidly interact with 3D geometry through a 2D sketch-based interface. Kara’s techniques enable a rapid creation and manipulation of 3D shapes, and are particularly effective for concept development and styling design. In August, Kara and his team won the “Best Paper
Award” at the Distributed Multimedia Systems International Conference held in Florence, Italy. Their paper, entitled “Sketch-Based Image Editing Using Clothoid Curves,” describes a sketch-based image editing technique that allows users to modify an image using a set of strokes drawn on that image. Co-authors are Kara’s doctoral students Gunay Orbay and Mehmet Ersin Yumer. ASME’s Design Automation Young Investigators Award
was created in 2009, and there were only two previous winners. One of them is a familiar name and face at MechE: Associate Professor Jeremy Michalek.•
CARNEGIE MECH 7
The book, published by Pearson, is complemented by a technologically advanced online tutorial and homework system that also meets the needs of today’s students and faculty. Steif’s new book comes at a time when U.S. government officials are striving to address the nation’s engineering shortage by attracting new students. In August, the Presi- dent’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness announced a commitment to graduate 10,000 more engineering students from U.S. colleges and universities each year. “Engineering is all around us every day,” notes Steif.
“We need students to understand that learning engineer- ing involves gaining greater insight into how the world works, with the prospect that they can play a greater role in improving how things work. We need to make engineer- ing topics more accessible and relevant, and my new book represents an effort to accomplish that goal.”•
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20