Author Archives: Matt

Dean Kamen: Designing for the Third World – 1/8/2007 – Design News

Design News has an mp3 interview with Dean Kamen, where he talks about designing for the Third World. If you’re not familiar with Kamen, check out his company DEKA Research. He’s most known for inventing the Segway, but has really done wonders for trying to bring science and technology to the masses, through the FIRST program. He comes across as being one of those exciting, intelligent engineers you’d give anything to work with. Lots of people idolize rock stars and football players, as for me, my idols and heros are people like Dean Kamen and Steve Wozniak. I guess that just makes me an engineer. 🙂

You can find the interview at this link.

Designing with Plastics

Design News magazine has a whole section of information on designing with plastics. It appears to be a compilation of various articles they’ve published through the years. The experienced part designer may not learn much, but it’s great for all you new college grads (or for you experienced engineers, it could be a good refresher read). You can find it over at the Design News website.

Tabletop milling machine

Roland MDX-540 SRP desktop milling machineI think every Mechanical Engineer I’ve ever talked to would love to have their own CNC milling machine. Unfortunately, their size and expense keeps them out of most cubicle farms. To the delight of all, the sophistication of compact, table top mills is increasing while their prices drop. One of the latest is the Roland MDX-540 SRP pictured here, starting around $19k with a maximum build size of almost 20x16x6″. Desktop Engineering magazine has an in-depth review of this unit, and comes away very impressed. Now, how do I justify buying one…?

Google patent search

Anyone who has performed an extensive patent search knows what an arduous task it can be, even with the search features at the Patent and Trademark Office’s website. Well, finally, Google has applied their search technology to the task, in the form of a beta version patent search! You can try it out here. I found it to be worthy of the ‘beta’ moniker – it works well, but some features are still lacking. For example, the ‘read this patent’ buttons weren’t working for me, but if I click on one of the images, I can navigate through the patent pages that way.