Page 4


www.us-tech.com


Tech-Op-ed July, 2022 SOUNDING OFF


By Michael Skinner Editor


Airport Designcraft A


irports, those essential and complex mediators of business — microcities that pack and ship nearly half a billion passengers in a given year. For most travelers, airports should feel almost


invisible, a hand that opens the sky coach door and ushers one in and out.


Airports are enormous economic drivers and cost in the billions


of dollars to design and build. The firm who built Denver airport’s passenger terminal, Fentress Bradburn Architects, expanded the air- port as a visual extension of the Rocky Mountains, with materials and shapes evoking the surrounding landscape. One of the most spectacular airports in the world, Beijing’s Dax-


ing International Airport was designed by Zaha Hadid Architects. The airport has been likened to a starfish when viewed from above and covers roughly 7.5 million square feet. On the other end of the professional spectrum, as part of an ini-


tiative by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration kids are now de- signing airports virtually — in Minecraft. Minecraft is a video game in which the player manipulates identically sized cubes that repre- sent all kinds of different materials. A bit like digital LEGO blocks, the creativity of the participants


is completely untethered, so long as whatever it is can be made of cubes.


Once a year the FAA holds an eight-week airport design chal-


lenge for teams of up to five K-12 student participants. The young de- signers recreate airports in the game under the guidance of FAA aerospace and engineering experts. Last year there were approxi- mately 800 participants. Instructional modules are in-depth, covering everything from


airport layout, pavement, lighting, and room for new structures and growth. The students participate remotely, with weekly knowledge checks and screenshots of designs used to assess progress. A panel of judges reviews the submissions at the end of the chal-


lenge. The most recent winner of the challenge was a high school stu- dent who goes by the online handle “Solo Block Innovations” with a spectacular 1:1 recreation of Will Rogers International Airport in Oklahoma City. The first step was to develop the terrain to match the original


plot, which Mr. Solo did by transcribing details from Google Earth. Complete with foliage, the virtual airport is fully explorable within the Minecraft universe, with functional doors, windows, furniture and signage. Model planes sit on the runway, motionless but to scale. Every so often the weather changes, dampening the landscape with cubic water droplets. During the challenge, students are also exposed to similar tools


and games, including high-quality airport and flight simulators. Combining all these tools and experiences allows the students to fun- nel that flight of imagination into humble cubes. r


PUBLISHER’S NOTE


By Jacob Fattal Publisher


U.S. economy, ramped up from our enormous COVID response, are steadily turning. We are reaching the height of the summer, with its long days and


Hold Steady T


warm nights. Our travel schedule is growing busy again, especially as we look toward the fall. We’ve just gotten back from the inaugural IME South in Charlotte, North Carolina, we have SEMICON West coming up next. Soon after, we hit the road again for The Battery Show, co-locat-


ed with the Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Tech Expo in September in Novi, Michigan. This show has been growing significantly over the past few years, and we expect it to become one of the more important shows in North America soon. The auto industry has been throttled, for lack of a better word,


by the chip shortage, but the pressures are beginning to ease. The chip squeeze is far from over, but what’s on the horizon is such an in- crease in capacity that it is easy to anticipate room for growth in a year and a half or so. We’re also looking forward to SMTA International, which will be


held alongside MD&M Minneapolis again this year. Last year’s event was special, like a family reunion. It was great timing after shows had just begun to open up again in the preceding months. Each trade show has its own character, and the SMTA has always been a core, dynamic part of the electronics industry. Like cleaning up a damaged neighborhood after a tornado, we


are stumbling a little from the blow of the pandemic. Cleaning up is expensive, it takes a lot of hard work and repairing damage even more so. But, do not mistake sparks of friction in the economy for failure, take them for signs that the industry is rolling forward. r


he loudest economic predictions are usually negative. But, the uncomfortable reality is that we notice more when things turn sour than when they stay sweet. However, the wheels of the


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  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76