Engineer's Picks: Can We Completely Redesign the Compass?

[engineering.com]( Engineer’s Picks In the latest issue of the engineering.com communique, we answer these questions and more: • Are robotic bees the key to Martian exploration? • Can we completely redesign the compass? • Why won’t the US follow the UK’s lead on BIM? • And just how do you make a digital twin? May 17, 2018 [Robotic Bees Could Explore Martian Surface]( By: Matthew Greenwood In our efforts to learn more about Mars, we’ve been hurling junk at the Red Planet since the early ‘60s. Some it is has been junk—there have been plenty of failures, after all—but the successful missions have yielded information to tantalize scientists and space nerds alike. The Curiosity Rover is still hard at work, but it could one day be joined by swarms of tiny counterparts. NASA is currently funding a study on the feasibility of deploying small robotic drones to explore the Martian surface. Roughly the size of cicadas, these “Marsbees” would have on-board cameras and sensors, and take full advantage of the reduced gravitational pull compared to Earth. [Read the full story →]( --------------------------------------------------------------- May 17, 2018 [Can We Completely Redesign the Compass?]( By: Tom Spendlove Veteran engineers will remember the days of designing before CAD, when everything came down to drafting tools, paper and pencils. Enabling users to draw circles with ease, the compass was an essential item in this toolkit, and it remains a staple of dollar store drafting kits today. After so much time, could there really be a better way to draw circles on paper? Two industrial designers believe they’ve found one in Rotio, a redesigned compass for drawing circles and curves. Resembling the hand of a clock, the tool contains a ball bearing in its center along with a small o-ring that makes contact with the paper. Countersunk holes along the length of its body are designed to accommodate most pens and pencils. [Read the full story →]( --------------------------------------------------------------- May 17, 2018 [A Tale of Two Countries: Why the Us Won’t Follow the UK’s Lead on BIM]( By: Emily Pollock The United States and the United Kingdom are both great countries, but they aren’t always evenly matched. Unless you like your food boiled and bland, you’re probably not going to rank British cuisine over American. On the other hand, the UK does seem to be ahead of the US when it comes to BIM. The UK government implemented a BIM mandate in 2015, requiring construction companies working on government projects to communicate using common CAD file formats. Meanwhile, the US has yet to establish its own federal BIM mandate and looks unlikely to any time soon, at least with the current administration. That may not be a bad thing though, as states and districts work to establish their own set of minimum standards. [Read the full story →]( --------------------------------------------------------------- May 21, 2018 [ANSYS Launches Twin Builder for Digital Twins]( By: Phillip Keane The phrase ‘digital twin’ is one of those buzzwords that gets thrown around so often you might wonder whether there’s really anything to it, like ‘Industry 4.0’ or ‘blockchain’. In fact, all three of these terms really do connote something significant—but the devil’s in the details. For example, when it comes to digital twins, you might wonder how a digital twin is made. The latest version of ANSYS’ simulation platform—ANSYS 19.1—answers that question with its new Twin Builder feature. This feature is designed to enable engineers to build, validate and deploy digital representations of physical products for the purposes of optimizing troubleshooting, maintenance and product development. [Read the full story →]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [A Special Announcement]( The Sustainable Boston Challenge is looking for designers and engineers to address Boston’s most pressing issues, and to present their winning ideas at [LiveWorx]( in June. Are you up for the challenge? We are looking for concepts rather than full designs. Your idea can leverage cutting-edge technology like IoT, Augmented Reality, or AI. For example, you could suggest using connected sensors to monitor city-wide water use, or Augmented Reality to help city planners develop smarter cities. You can check out the details [here]( and even form a team [here](. Deadline for proposals is May 30th. We hope you enjoy these stories. Here are a few more of our top picks for this week. Enjoy. More Stories [Icon]( Why Move from AutoCAD to nanoCAD? [Read →]( [Icon]( CAD in Space: How CAD is Being Used by the Space Industry [Read →]( [Icon]( How Real-Time Rendering Aims to Disrupt Engineering [Read →]( Resources [Icon]( White Paper: Defining a Technology Strategy to Support Product Development [Read Now →]( [Icon]( Live Webinar: 3DMP Additive Manufacturing Technology: What It Is and Why It Should Be Adopted — May 31, 2PM ET [Sign Up →]( [Icon]( eBook: The Best CAD Software for the Modern Engineer [Read Now →]( That’s it for today. Check back in at engineering.com for more stories about the latest trends and news that are defining the way the world works. Stay In Touch With engineering.com [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [LinkedIn]( [YouTube]( Copyright © 2018 engineering.com, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in at Engineering.com [unsubscribe from this list]( | [update subscription preferences](