Engineering

August 10, 2012

Student-built rocket with experimental motor blasts to 1st-place finish

A team of University of Washington students designed a unique rocket motor and launched it 5 miles up to claim first prize this summer in the Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition. The UW students built a new type of motor powered by a combination of solid paraffin and liquid nitrous oxide. So-called hybrid propulsion systems are a nontoxic, safer alternative to space agency rockets that use hazardous liquid propellants such as hydrazine, nitrogen tetroxide and fuming nitric acid. Safe but powerful…

July 24, 2012

‘Control-Alt-Hack’ game lets players try their hand at computer security

Playing the game in the UW Security and Privacy Research Lab

Do you have what it takes to be an ethical hacker? Can you step into the shoes of a professional paid to outsmart supposedly locked-down systems? Now you can at least try, no matter what your background, with a new card game developed by University of Washington computer scientists. “Control-Alt-Hack” gives teenage and young-adult players a taste of what it means to be a computer-security professional defending against an ever-expanding range of digital threats. The game’s creators will present it…

July 20, 2012

Engineering students race first 3-D printed boat in Milk Carton Derby – with slideshow

Mechanical engineering students last weekend braved uncharted waters as they paddled to the finish line at the annual Milk Carton Derby at Green Lake, in what they believe is the world’s first boat made using a 3-D printer.

June 12, 2012

Novel scientific equipment will unlock ocean secrets for decades — with slide show

University of Washington engineers and scientists are one step closer to deploying sophisticated equipment that will collect important information about ocean properties like currents and temperature and send the information via the Internet in real time to scientists around the world.

September 20, 2011

Proton-based transistor could let machines communicate with living things

Materials scientists at the University of Washington have built a novel transistor that uses protons, creating a key piece for devices that can communicate directly with living things.

February 1, 2011

New center aims to dramatically lower barrier to making silicon photonic chips

The University of Washington has launched a new program, co-funded by Intel Corp., to make it easier and cheaper to build silicon photonic circuits. Sending information using light, instead of electrons, will allow for faster, lower-power and more versatile microchips.

January 26, 2011

Engineers Without Borders hosts dessert and wine fundraiser, silent auction

The UW chapter of Engineers Without Borders hosts its biggest fundraiser of the year, a dessert and wine tasting and silent auction, on Monday, Jan. 31. See a slide show of the group’s work in Bolivia.

January 20, 2011

Encouraging women scientists in industry, government to enter academia

The On-Ramps into Academia workshop at the UW aims to lure women researchers working in government, industry or as consultants to academic positions. Applications for the second workshop, this spring, are due Feb. 15.

January 3, 2011

Engineering students hack Kinect for surgical robotics research

Students in the Biorobotics Laboratory hacked the Kinect, a motion-based controller for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 gaming system, for research on telerobotic surgery.

December 13, 2010

Assessing the environmental effects of tidal turbines

UW scientists are helping to prepare for a tidal energy project in Puget Sound. Researchers say this pilot project will have the most comprehensive environmental monitoring of any tidal energy installation to date.

Calculating tidal energy turbines effects on sediments and fish

Engineers are developing computer models to study how changes in water pressure and current speed around tidal turbines affect sediment buildup and fish health.

August 21, 2008

Underwater scout: New robot searches out best locations for components of undersea lab

Like a deep-sea bloodhound, Sentry — the newest in an elite group of unmanned submersibles able to operate on their own in demanding and rugged environments — has helped scientists pinpoint optimal locations for two observation sites of a pioneering seafloor laboratory being planned off Washington and Oregon.