The iPad, a Must Have Commodity

Picture standing in line for hours, freezing your ears and hands off just to be the first one to own the NEW Apple iPad. Fortunately you won’t be the only Apple obsessed individual willing to sacrifice an entire day to be the first iPad owner. People are sleeping and standing in line for days to be the first to own the new iPad. Right now, you may be asking yourself, what is the iPad? The iPad is the latest invention under the Apple brand. The iPad is a tablet computer developed by Apple Inc., it is considered to be in a category between the Smartphone and the laptop computer. While reading this article, you will find out how great the iPad is and how the iPad will enter your life as a tool that you must have to complete your technology collection. The main characters that the iPad will be aiming towards are college students, business men and women and those college students who have the iPad as a priority to help them with school work and people who are obsessed with any new Apple product.

To give you an aspect from someone who owns an iPad I sat down with my friend Ricardo Carrera who owns an Apple iPad. Ricardo is a freshman at the U of I and is a currently majoring in Electrical and Computer Engineering. I first started off by asking him, why did he decide to purchase the iPad, and I was not surprised when he said “they looked cool and I just wanted to play with it and see how it was.” Ricardo said that the iPad is a great tool for college students because it is a light mini laptop that can be carried anywhere. Ricardo bought the 16G iPad which is $499 and he told me that he stood in line for 10 hours waiting to be one of the first U of I students with an iPad. When I asked Ricardo what does he mainly uses the iPad for he stated “I use the iPad for numerous things, mainly internet while I’m not in my room, of course I have a few albums and movies on there as well as games, but it’s mainly used for internet outside my dorm. He said that the internet is extremely fast on the iPad and that it picks up Wi-Fi just about anywhere on campus. Ricardo said that the best thing about the iPad is its ability to be as powerful as a laptop but a lot more interactive. He also said that the iPad is his new best friend; because he can’t leave it alone for anything as soon as he puts it down he has to pick it back up. I asked him if he was waiting for the new iPad to come out and he said, “no I’m satisfied with the one I have now, I’m sure that the new iPad is going to be better but he would rather spend $630 dollars on the new iPhone that’s coming out soon.” I was shocked how attached he was to his iPad, he said that he would be lost if he lost his iPad. I asked Ricardo what is his most prominent use of the iPad while he is in his dorm and he quoted, “while in my room the iPad has become the main event, my entire freshman year I didn’t have a television in my room and now that I have the iPad, I use it as a flat screen television.” This was the coolest thing to me because he set up the iPad like a television and started playing the movies he had downloaded and it looked so neat. I ended the interview by asking him what’s the best and worst thing about the iPad, and Ricardo said that “the best thing about the iPad is that there’s no worst thing about the iPad, only thing I wish is that the iPad had Adobe Flash Player and had a Microsoft Word type function in which I could save my papers on it.”

Ricardo’s examples are just a few reasons to go nuts over the iPad. Now, to break down the iPad in more detail; the iPad comes with two brand types, one with Wi-Fi and one with Wi-Fi and 3G. (http://www.apple.com/ipad/) Both models may be purchased with three different storage capacities (16 to 64GB) and all models sync with iTunes. The iPad is designed to be controlled by bare fingers. The base model's for the iPad is $499. (http://www.apple.com/ipad/) The iPad has an optional iBooks application that can be downloaded from the app store. The iPad only runs software downloaded from Apple's App Store. The iPad runs almost all third-party iPhone applications. Developers may also create or modify apps to take advantage of the iPad's features. At least 1,000 new iPad apps were available at launch. The iPad comes with these applications: Safari, Mail, Photos, Video, YouTube, and iPod, iTunes Store, App Store, Maps, Notes, Calendar, Contacts, and Spotlight. The iPad syncs with iTunes on a Mac or Windows PC. (http://www.apple.com/ipad/)

I visited to the Illini Mini Apple Center located on 512 East Green Street Champaign, IL, on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus to get some information from a professional and someone who has distinct information on the iPad. I had an interview with Tim Brawn the Interim Operation Director at the Illini Mini Apple Center. Tim was very confident when I asked him was the iPad the best thing on the market today. Tim says that the iPad is a new way to look at movies and apps. The iPad is capable of running all iPod and iPhone apps and that the iPad contains over 3500 apps that are specifically created for the iPad. One thing that Tim says is new and cool about the iPad is that it comes with iWork, which is a type of word processor which comes with a spreadsheet and keynotes. With iWork added to the iPad it gives individuals the ability to type essays, but Tim states “the iPad isn’t here to take the place of the laptop, but it was created to alignment the laptop.” Mr. Brawn told me something I found very interesting about the iPad when he said that the iPad has a 10 hour battery life, and that you can watch movies for 10 hours straight, something that a laptop can’t do. A new feature that the iPad has is the E-book and Tim said having the E-book is like having your own library at home and it beats reading a newspaper or magazine any day. I mention if there was any competition out there going against the iPad, and he states “there is competition, but they all have black and white screens and you can’t watch movies on them, and that they don’t compare to the iPad.” Tim told me that he has an iPad and has already ordered the newest and most expensive iPad that is a new 3G model. The 3G models are coming out soon and they all have the same originally size in gigabits 16G to 64G. I was told that the 3G models are $130 more than the regular iPads. Tim says that the new 3G iPads have a high Wi-Fi connection ability, GPS, and a digital compass which is not included in the original iPad models. A way Tim told me that he convinces people to buy an iPad is first by telling them to sit down and just test the iPad and see how it fits into the individual’s life. The iPads at the Illini Mini Apple Store are all sold out. They sold out extremely fast. There were a total of 75 iPads that have been sold on the University of Illinois Campus. Tim ended the interview by saying “to have the ability to have so much capability in something with such a gorgeous screen is amazing, and you really have to experience the iPad to see how wonderful it really is.”

After conducting all of my interviews I had to try out the iPad for myself. When I first picked up the iPad, I was in total amazement. I was surprise how light it was, but it was also small in frame. In my opinion the iPad is the hottest thing on the market. The internet and the Wi-Fi are extremely fast and reliable. The screen is so clear and soft that it reminded me of a LCD High Definition television. The iPad is the coolest gadget if you are looking for a lot of loathing around and just relaxing. The iPad reminds me of an oversized iPod touch with the power of a laptop and desktop. The iPad is not a standalone device, which means that as soon as it is taking out of the box, it wants to be connected to iTunes. I have concluded that the iPad is a great piece of equipment if you have the spare money. Just some food for thought, go purchases the iPad if you already have all your essential needs and you have a spare $500, if not wait until later this year and purchases yourself the Apple iPad.

Engineering Projects: Just another Course or Revolutionary?

During the Engineering Open House this semester, I went to check out the Engineering Student Project Laboratory, which is home to some of the successful and award winning senior design projects in the past few years. I was awestruck by some of the projects that were showcased in this lab. One such product called the “Audeo” was being demonstrated by a student there. He was sitting on a wheelchair and the wheelchair was magically moving in directions as if it was being controlled by a remote control. Upon further inquiry, I was startled to find out that the remote control in this case was the user’s mind. By mind, I do not mean that the user speaks and the wheelchair moves. Speech recognition is old technology. On the other hand, the “Audeo” can listen to the neurological signals of the brain without the speaker talking as seen in this video.

Upon further research, I found out that the “Audeo” was actually a product built by Michael Callahan (also on the photo), currently co-founder of multi-million dollar Ambient Corporation and back in 2004, an undergraduate student at the University of Illinois. Callahan began building the “Audeo” for his senior design project in 2004 when he was studying Neural Engineering.

Isn’t it amazing that a senior design project started out on a small scale and executed during the course of a semester here at the University of Illinois can go on to become a multi-million dollar idea? The University of Illinois houses a number of senior design/research projects that have immense potential to become business ideas in the future. What is amazing about these projects is that companies both large and small can directly sponsor these projects, pay the minimal costs required for research and then recruit these innovators in their design teams. According to an article that featured Myron Salamon, associate Dean for administrative affairs at the College of Engineering, one of the fascinating features of the senior design/research program is that small and large companies can directly step in and take advantage of the technology that has been invented and then give it the right direction that it needs for continued success in the future. Program sponsors include corporations such as 3M, Boeing, Caterpillar, Ford Motor Co., General Electric, Hewlett Packard, John Deere and many smaller regional companies. But who tracks when these companies come in? Is there an already existing framework within the Senior Design Program at the College of Engineering which networks with companies and connects them with these senior design students?

The University of Illinois has the highest number of research groups in the United States that are involved in specialized research and usually consist of several professors and sometimes alumni and industry specialists. For example, the Bluewaters which will go on to become the fastest supercomputer in the world which will be capable of doing things like advanced image recognition, is managed by a research group consisting of several Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering and Computer Science professors and several industry specialists from IBM. However, besides these specialized research groups, students are also involved separately in senior design/research projects in which the students work in groups to build a new product or solution to an existing problem with or without minimal help from their professors or other specialists in the field.

This kind of “I built my own remote-controlled car using PIC microcontrollers” mindset is what many companies are looking for when they come here to recruit students for jobs. For example, my colleague Ryan Rogowski from the Eta Kappa Nu Electrical and Computer Engineering Honors Society with the help of his senior project mentor Professor Douglas Jones, who is a professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department built a headset that can differentiate moving sound from stationary sound. “My receivers have sound motion sensors in all three directions- x, y and z and this is processed to realize 3D sound” said Ryan. Ryan was very excited to talk about his project which he is planning to turn into a business venture in the future by reaching out to angel investors in the market. He also told me that recruiters from Research in Motion, the creators of Blackberry came down to campus to check out his project and were interested in funding any further research in his project and also offered him a summer internship. However when I asked Ryan whether it was through the Senior Design Program that he got in touch with the recruiters, he replied “Not at all! The only reason I got in touch with these recruiters was because I am involved in Eta Kappa Nu and Research in Motion came here to do an info session with us”.

Other senior design/research students go through the whole phase of putting their idea on the market for angel investors to invest in, marketing their idea to these investors through reports, demonstrations, etc. and then go on to attain money to start a business based on their patented idea. As he approached his senior year at Illinois, Callahan read of a robotic prosthesis that had the ability to intercept neuronal activity at the vocal cords. This inspired his idea to work on a new type of computer-assisted communications system as his senior design project. Callahan began working with a team to develop a system for gathering neurological information detectable near a patient’s head and neck. “By 2005, Callahan and his teammates had produced a successful prototype able to turn signals into language with approximately 70 percent accuracy” reads an article from the Lemelson MIT program webpage, a program which granted Callahan a $30,000 award for his findings and to fund further research in this area. In October of that year, Callahan established his own company, Ambient, to further develop and commercialize the "Audeo" system. The rest is history.

Yet other senior design/research students market their ideas to research groups at the University of Illinois in hopes to generate additional funding. Another potential successful senior design pertains to another fellow Electrical Engineering major, Martin McCormick. He was involved in a senior thesis project where he used a method called Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP) to discover whether a computer can decipher specific human thoughts. To test the method, the subject wears a cap with electrodes that are covered in conductive gel and connected to the computer. The voltage between different electrodes is measured, amplified and converted into a digital signal that the team analyzes mathematically. The computer then prompts the subject to imagine moving either his left or right arm while not physically doing so. Different brain waves stimulate the electrodes depending on the direction an individual is imagining. The computer picks up on this and a ball pictured on the screen will move to the right if the subject is imagining his right arm moving and vice versa. Martin worked on this idea with the Statistical EEG Signal Processing for Brain-Machine Interfaces group and today a major portion of what this group is involved is heavily based on Martin’s initial findings. Martin plans to work on this idea in the future when he will be pursuing his Masters degree at MIT. “We are basically trying to reconstruct models of the brain and eventually want to build a framework that can comprehend simple things that the brain thinks” said Martin. Martin plans to pursue his Ph.D at MIT and then might return to academia or end up becoming an entrepreneur selling a product similar to Callahan’s that uses this discovery which he plans to hone in the future years.

From Callahan’s Audeo prototype to Martin’s mind reading algorithm to Ryan’s cool speakers, there is one evident phenomenon. Senior design projects and research at the University of Illinois have the potential to be revolutionary and to become successful business ventures. Based on the success and value of these senior design projects, the College of Engineering should implement a course or program to further encourage students to become involved in such projects and to develop their interests preparing them for a more successful senior design project in addition or alongside the Senior Design Program. Assistant Dean, Sarah Marie Zehr who is also with the Engineering Career Services agrees but also sees a problem, “I do think it would be nice to connect students to companies directly, but that may not be feasible in that the instructor must ensure the project will fullfull the goals of the course and they would have to approve the project". In addition, engineers should have a better medium to showcase their unique projects and designs to other students, interested research groups, companies, and angel investors. With these implementations in place, not only will the engineering community benefit from successful projects but also the College of Engineering will receive better accolades from reviewing committees that evaluate the curriculum and overall potential of the school.

Handicapped no more - Kazerooni hopes to free those with physical disabilities

The University of Illinois was the first handicap-accessible university in America, and it is still regarded by many as the best and most accessible campus for those with physical disabilities. In every building there are numerous elevators conveniently located and ramps at each entrance and exit. The University was also the first to develop things like wheelchair sporting events and handicap accessible bus systems. 

While all the schools efforts are commended, what if this did not have to be the case? What if everyone was free of physical disabilities? What if each student that is now confined to a wheelchair was able to walk freely about the campus without any hindrances?

This may seem like an unrealistic, utopian idea, but one researcher is working to make this dream a reality. On Friday, April 23 professor Homayoon Kazerooni gave a talk at the Beckman Institute where he spoke about a revolutionary device that could compensate for physical disabilities. 

“We’ve come up with a robotic technology that gives people with disabilities - prosthetic or functional - the ability to walk,” said Kazerooni who is a professor of Mechanical Engineering at Berkeley.

The technology is described as a “powered, human exoskeleton.” The contraption has a back brace that wraps around the person’s waist where a large majority of the robotics are contained. Hanging from this “brace” are thin, jointed metal rods that rest along the outside of each leg. Those rods are attached to each knee with thick, fabric bands. According the Kazerooni, the device does not require the user to exert any strength, but rather the contraption is able to move itself in the direction of the wearer’s choice. 

Alex Shorter, a graduate student in Mechanical Engineering, said he was very excited to hear the world-renowned researcher speak at Beckman

“He studies how people move so well and before the talk I had only gotten to see him from afar,” said Shorter. “His research is really amazing.”

Kazerooni said there are a many benefits to the device. And these extend beyond simply the freedom that comes with walking upright.

“It is a common and well-respected opinion in the field that postponing the use of wheelchairs retards the onset of other types of secondary disabilities and diseases,” said Kazerooni on his web site. “The ramifications of long-term wheelchair use are secondary injuries including: hip, knee, and ankle contractures; heterotopic ossification of lower extremity joints; frequent urinary tract infection; spasticity; and reduced heart and circulatory function.”

The inventor said he hopes to sell the product to a commercial market in “just a few months.” And Kazerooni said he is excited to reach this milestone after over ten years of research.

In 2001, Kazerooni’s device made the front page of “Science News” in a story called “Dancing with Robots.” The story showcased the researchers device alongside other robotic mobility systems in the context of being useful for military purposes.

In these initial stages, Kazerooni admits that his masterpiece has many flaws. For one, the device, that is now runs off of electronics via high-powered batteries, was powered by a 15 gallon fuel engine. It also needed to be refueled every 15 minutes, according to the article. And, what’s more, once the device ran out the fuel the contraption would collapse and the wearer would fall to the ground, pinned by the heavy device. The article also describes the early prototype as “constraining,” like a tight article of clothing. 

Still, though, Kazerooni persevered with his project, always one to push the envelope.

“I’m really into creativity,” he said. “Things that aren’t new are fine, but they’re just not good or useful.”

Kazerooni said the early prototype may not have been perfect, but it did give them hope to keep pursuing a more useful version. 

“It verified some of our control theories, which shows we were going in the right direction” he said. 

Other changes from the beginning of the project include the purposes that the device would be used for. Initially, he thought it would be used to transform a soldier into a so-called superhuman. One project that stemmed from the bionic legs of today was a project called Bleex. This was a project funded by the Pentagon and literally eased the load of American soldiers. The robotics did all of the work, leaving the legs feeling light. A 50-pound load suddenly seemed almost weightless. 

Other projects stemming from this research include a “human assisted walking machine” which a person merely steers and the machine “walks” carrying very heavy loads, as well as electromagnetic geckos, snakes and frogs. 

Now, however, Kazerooni has decided to use it for medical purposes - for the elderly, disabled and injured due to medical problems such as strokes.

The struggle between using technology to cure those with a disadvantage versus giving regular people an advantage is a common one. But Kazerooni said as soon as he realized he could help people with his research, he never looked back. 

“It is one of my goals to see someone who is paraplegic gain the ability to walk freely using our device,” he said. 

And very soon, Kazerooni may get to see this miracle after years of working towards this goal. It may be hard to imagine a world with no ramps and wheelchairs - where everyone walks upright. But this thought is definitely freeing to those who have been burdened with a disability all of their lives. And it may be sooner than you think - by the time we reach old age, bionic legs could be mainstream and tennis-ball adorned walkers, a much dated artifact. 

A New Kind of Remote - Your Mind

Have you ever dreamed of shutting the door while still in bed or moving a chair over to you to put your feet up…just with your mind? Imagine sitting at a desk with wires attached to your head and being able to move an object that is not even in the same building, just by thinking about it. Seem too good to be true? This kind of technology might be reality soon.

Mind control technology has been in existence for a few years, but researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are developing new technology to move large mechanical objects with brain-control technology.

Right now, the current technology can be used by paralyzed patients to move things on a computer screen to answer questions and communicate with the world. The research being done today would change that norm; the technology could be used to operate a remote airplane…but the remote would a person’s mind.

Assistant professor Timothy Bretl and a team of graduate students from the University have been working on this research in the Beckman Institute on the U of I’s campus. Those graduate students include Abdulla Akce and Miles Johnson, who presented the research at conference at the Institute.

The goal of the research isn’t to make commercial pilots obsolete and change the airline industry, but instead to “learn how to design a brain machine interface that controls a dynamic vehicle” Johnson said. “Traditionally people build brain control interfaces to control mouse cursers on a computer screen or text on a computer screen.”

Bretl and his assistants are in the beginning stages of reaching their goal. Akce said that, right now, their interface reacts correctly to brain commands 80 percent of the time.

To control their unmanned aircraft, the researchers use EEG, or electroencephalography. It is not invasive, according to Johnson, but instead goes on top of the subjects head like a bonnet. A picture of an example of an EEG cap can be seen here. The EEG is hooked up to the brain machine interface which interprets the thought of the subject and in turn steers the aircraft.

Simply put, the application of the interface is to “fly an unmanned aircraft that flies south of campus using a pilot (…) at Beckman using only their brain activity.” In order for the interface to interpret the signal correctly, the researchers tell the subjects to think of waving or moving their right hand to turn the aircraft right…but the subject must think about the action without completing it themselves.

The interface interprets the subject’s commands by using the binary code, which consists of only zeros and ones. The interface translates the commands from thoughts of left or right to numbers. For instance, zero would mean right and one would mean left. It then goes onto a map for the aircraft to follow.

“We built a dictionary of paths” Akce said. “We defined an alphabet for describing paths. Our alphabet is a bunch of circular arches.”

Not only did the researchers develop their own alphabet to guide the aircraft successfully, they also came up with a metaphor to make the technology and alphabet easier to understand.

“It’s like searching for words in a dictionary. Say you were to open up a dictionary you are looking for a word you compare the words you see on that page with you word. If it appears after your page you turn forward, if it is before you turn backward,” Akce said. He then compared it to their alphabet of arches. The subject searches for the arch that is closest to the one shown on the screen by the interface.

“At each step we estimate a path which is composed of these arches,” Akce explained further. “What the user does is, depending on his or her desired path, compare the desired path to the path we display which is called the candidate path and then modulates his or her brain activity according to that.”

I saw a picture of the alphabet of arches, and they vary in degree of bend. Each arch, if replicated to make a circle, would make a circle with a different circumference. They are smaller or bigger arches that bend up or down, depending on the degree of turn the subject would like the aircraft to make.

(I tried to include my representation of the alphabet, but the graphics wouldn't post to the website.)


The subjects use the alphabet of arches to direct the plane. Most of those subjects were college aged students for most of the research, but for one trial they used graduate students who worked in the lab. Johnson said that the research is very subject-dependent and said that they plan to conduct many more tests with more subjects soon. They expect to place ads around the Champaign-Urbana area asking for volunteers.

Overall, their research seems to be moving along. The information that Johnson and Akce presented at the symposium was complete and informative, but the research still has a long way to go. The aircraft very rarely followed the set path that it was supposed to take, according to a map on their poster. But remember, Akce said that it is only correct 80 per cent of the time.

So who knows? Maybe in the not-so-distant future, brain-control interfaces could be used by the Air Force for reconnaissance missions, by the physically impaired to move their wheelchairs, or even by you…to shut the door without getting out of bed.

More Than a Minor

Two directions split the city of Chicago in half, as most Chicagoans align themselves with the North or South Side. However, it is more than Madison Street and the Sox-Cub rivalry that divide the city. The varied history, architecture, tastes, and lifestyles help define the mentalities. Likewise, two of the most competitive academic disciplines at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are separated by Green Street and a "downtown" main quad. On the North, the undergraduate engineering program ranked 5th in the America's Best Colleges edition of U.S. News and World Report. On the South, the College of Business boasts the second best accounting program and a state-of-the-art facility, recently crowned "platinum-certified" through Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). Thousands of seniors will walk across a stage next weekend as proud members of the 2010 graduating class. Hundreds will reflect upon European travels, summer internships, and Greek life. However, a select few will leave with a local, Champaign-Urbana study abroad experience. PowerPoint addictions, suit-and-tie wardrobes, strategic thinking caps, and late nights at the Grainger Engineering Library battle ground paint a picture of the undergraduate life of two particular seniors, each with a deep sense of North and South Side pride. Although Alex Campano and Earl O'Hara will participate in different commencement ceremonies, they will reunite under a unique foreign language umbrella. Just two years ago, the businessman and engineer crossed paths and built a strong foundation for management to technology translation services. Today, they may share a toast to each other's language, acumen, and sources of achievement.

Well before Campano and O'Hara completed the second grade, Leonard and Mary Lou Hoeft saw integrative potential across the C-U borders and endowed a $1 million bridge - the Hoeft Technology & Management Program [T&M]. The esteemed minor is built to "prepare engineering and business graduates to function effectively in a technical, interdisciplinary, team-based industry environment." This skill set, as well as the curriculum's focus on corporate involvement and international immersion, is undoubtedly sought after by the global market place. In fact, six graduates from both ends of campus will apply their rigorous minor to Accenture, a management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company. Personal engagement with two of these future analysts left me with profound respect for the value of their degree, corporate edge, and walking materialization of the Technology & Management mission.


Alex Campano, senior in Business, does not fit the stereotypical pencil-pushing, socially-awkward accountantancy stereotype. He entered the University of Illinois with an open-mind to follow his passions - a business-focused curriculum with diverse professional opportunities. An honors seminar class left him with a positive impression of the T&M program, which accepted Campano based on demonstrated academic and extracurricular success. The nature of the 22-hour curriculum was as interdisciplinary as described. Through courses in material science, electrical and computer engineering, and theoretical and applied mechanics, he quickly noticed that those in the North [engineers] "think in a more logical process than most other majors." The new curriculum, challenges, and learning curve Campano confronted in the face of such technical subjects not only accessed a sense of reward, but prepared him for future problem-solving scenarios.


Likewise, a T&M lecture series shaped Earl O'Hara's academic pursuit for "business, tech, and great people." O'Hara, senior in Computer Science, was equipped with the brains to handle data and the personality to engage with new people. Down South, he enjoyed the interactive management courses and applying theoretical analysis to managerial action. As he met with his peers, contributed to e-mail threads, and tackle assignments, a group marketing project challenged his engineering perspective to look at the bigger picture. Whereas his neighbor, the accountant, outlined a broad business plan, he started with the concrete details - demographic market data. "It is one thing to write code, and it is another to fully understand why the business needs it," he added.


From the preschool playground to the Fortunate 500 board room, the ability to play nice with others is constantly developed and challenged through one's personal and professional life cycle. Not surprisingly, 89% of surveyed employers cited the ability to effectively communicate orally and in writing as the skill colleges need to place more emphasis on. A main driver of T&M is to enhance the student's ability to work as a cross-functional team member and to narrow the natural communication gap across disciplines. Diverse backgrounds and perspectives are crucial to sustainable ideas, products, and business developments. In terms of the tech versus business dynamic, Campano referred to the practice as "speaking their language", or explaining qualitative concepts to a quantitative focused audience. Just like little league baseball, practice makes perfect. Hands-on projects and unfamiliar circumstances left him with little choice but to practice active listening, patience, and conflict management. Likewise, O'Hara designed a team-oriented playbook through four years of group work. Social events, faculty involvement, and trip to China added to his development.


The framework, support, and rigorous standards of the T&M program certainly built an environment of tangible, transferable benefits for the students and corporate sponsors alike. Boeing, BP, John Deere, Motorola, State Farm, and Wal-Mart take an invested interest in both the education and training of these young, driven professionals. Even though O'Hara described Campano's major of study, accountancy, as "a bit dull", their excitement to work along side each other shines through the text books, transcripts, and case studies. They will leave Champaign-Urbana with high-caliber analytical abilities, a strong alumni network, and appreciating Big Ten diplomas. Their combined work-ethic, fun-loving attitude, and professional mindset will prove to be a valuable asset class to Accenture's Systems Integration & Technology Practice.


As a technology and management merger, both business and engineering are very different in nature, yet profit maximizing and growth-oriented. Has the bridge re engineered the motives of higher education? The program's track record has certainly set a high bar for future integrative campus initiatives. There are a plethora of creative energies that lie between the Thomas M. Siebel Center and the Business Instructional Facility - all waiting to be harnessed by similar endowments. When asked to point to the common backgrounds or characteristics of his T&M peers, Campano noticed a strong math and science background with an extreme drive to succeed at all costs. As high school seniors consider their own professional and intellectual aspirations, Campano and O'Hara collectively advise the prospective student to "be interested in the courses for the right reasons, push yourself, be very involved on campus, and have good grades!" The future partners exemplify what it means to minimize the culture shock of a top-notch university filled with 30,000 peers, or potential teammates.

The Glamorous Adventures of An Engineer

While the sun set upon the horizon of the South Pacific, a hundred million dollar sailboat effortlessly cut through the waves. The wind whipped through the hair of the sailors, who manipulated the large boat to their bidding. Gracefully, the sails turned the boat in order to face a different section of the blue expanse.

Professor Selig, though, saw none of this. He could only see the interior shell of the boat and the faces of his companions, anchored down to the bottom of the hull.

So what put this professor in the hull of a multi-million dollar sailboat in the South Pacific? Not pirates, but billionaires. Yes, America’s Cup, an international prestigious boat competition, attracts wealthy participants that notoriously spends millions of dollars hiring leading experts to help design sailboats. University of Illinois’ Professor Michael Selig of Aerodynamics was flown out to New Zealand for the 2003 competition by one of these participants where he designed and tested airfoils for the keel. For him, testing the keel, anchored down to the bottom of the boat, was just another day on the job.

America’s Cup is a sailing regatta match that originated in 1851. Think of it as the Iron Chef of sailboat racing, with one club defending their title, and the others challenging to take the trophy. With America’s Cup, though, the defending clubs gets to designate the specifications of the boats for the race, making it even more difficult for the challengers to win. BMW Oracle, founded by the American billionaire and CEO of Oracle Corporation, competed for the first time in the 2003 America’s Cup competition and was the team that hired Prof. Selig.

Now, Prof. Selig is known for airfoils, not billionaire sailing matches. However, the hull, sail, and keel of the sailboats are all airfoils. Prof. Selig said, “I don’t know how to sail, but I do know how to design an airfoil.” Indeed, if you Google ‘airfoil design’ then his name is the first to come up. And in the modern age, what’s a better indicator of prestige than a good Google count?

Specifically, Prof. Selig’s task was to minimize drag for a given lift coefficient of the keel. Hidden in the water, underneath the boat, keels are used in boats in order to help tack upwind. The ocean presents interesting complications to these airfoils, though. Prof. Selig wasn’t worried about the different fluid dynamic properties of the water, that’s simple, but rather, the organisms in the water. Ferocious Great White Sharks viciously ripping off the keel, destroying the boat, and unceremoniously killing the crew. . . is not the problem (sorry Jaws fans). However, little tiny plankton that grow in bursts greatly affect the drag of the keel.

In order to understand the complications that arise from these tiny creatures, we need a brief (brief!) intro to fluid dynamics. Now, there are two types of that flow keel design is concerned with: turbulent and laminar.

The boundary layer of laminar flow is attached to an airfoil (to the left of A) and its friction helps generate lift. The turbulent boundary layer (to the right of B) is separated from the airfoil and produces a counterproductive force that increases the drag. The area between the turbulent and laminar flow (between A and B) is known as the transition period. It’s necessary to know the transition period in order to design the airfoil to generate the most laminar flow, and consequently, the least amount of drag, possible.

The plankton can inhibit this laminar flow. Plankton bloom, explosions in the plankton population due to an increased reproduction, are unpredictable and can become so dense that their presence even changes the color of the water. “In the ocean, little plankton growing in the water cause transition to happen sooner,” Prof. Selig said. “But we never know when it’s going to happen. It’s like trying to guess when the monarchs are all going to migrate. You never know.” The uncertainty of the plankton levels means that the design has to account for all of these effects and become somewhat of a guessing game.

Prof. Selig tried to make this guessing game a bit more predictable (as is the goal of all science). To do this, we revisit to the beginning scene, inside the hull, where his team performed full scale tests on their keels. While the boat was sailing, healing, rolling and creaking, Prof. Selig and his four co-workers were inside the hull, anchored down. “You could hear the sailors working on the deck,” he said. Bolted down with him and his co-workers was all the scientific instrumentation, including a large electric generator, necessary to perform the test.

To discover where the transition period of the flow was located, they used a thin film heat transfer array. It works similarly to space heaters with long copper wires that glow orange. If you blow on one of the wires, it loses heat, and requires more voltage to stay hot. For the tests, the copper wires are wrapped around the keel, embedded in its flesh to avoid creating any additional drag. Then, when the turbulent water hits the copper wires, since the turbulence causes higher friction on the copper wires, the system will require more voltage. “What we found was that transition doesn’t happen at a point-it fluctuates. It happens over a zone.” Once the transition zone for the keel was known, Prof. Selig could design the optimal keel to reduce turbulent flow, and consequently, drag.

Unfortunately, Prof. Selig’s rookie team didn’t win first, but the paid trip to New Zealand made sure his disappointment wasn’t too overbearing. When asked if he would do it again, Selig paused and said, “Been there. Done that. . . There are so many interesting things to do, and keels never really change.” So, Prof. Selig can check, ‘Get paid by a billionaire to work on a multi-million dollar boat in a foreign country’ off his list and move on to a more stimulating engineering problem.

Blogs and Me

I definitely agree with Andrew Sullivan when he says that a writer’s most personal opinions come out in a blog and sometimes he or she might be ashamed of what they revealed in their blogs. This is usually true about celebrities who blog. However, blogging is not the only way of personal insinuations. Both Facebook and Twitter can be so too. I remember myself being really emotional about Barcelona losing a soccer game last week on Facebook. I can only imagine the Facebook statuses of people who are actually from Barcelona after this game.

Blogs do have far greater impact on people than newspapers or magazines can ever have like Andrew says mainly because it is broadcast. The whole question of an article/blog being personal is not important. If you really like Helen Thomas, you are going to read every boring article she ever wrote and at the same time read about her tea parties in her blog as well.

Personally, I would prefer not to have my personal opinion floating around in a blog that anyone can see at any point of time. I’d rather talk about such stuff in Facebook since no one is jobless enough to scroll back to my last week’s status and make fun of me for being such a cry-baby when it comes to soccer. However, I do use blogs when I wan’t my message to reach out to everyone. I have in the past been a part of political blogs discussing about the politics of the Middle East and South East Asia. I also have my entire art portfolio in a blog since that is the simplest way in which other art enthusiasts can easily reach my paintings and critique them.