Golf Balls
To learn what's inside a golf ball - and to show how clever engineers are - Bill uses a special cutter to chop one open - well more than one.
More details | Watch nowPlasma
Bill cuts a fluorescent light out of his ceiling to show that plasmas and their products are all around us - they're essential in making circuit boards, lights, and even potato chip bags.
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Bill examines the first transistor ever built. He explains how it works, and its impact on our world today. And, also, he even tests it out!
More details | Watch nowThe Thermostat – Why does it look like it does?
Armed with a pair of wire cutters Bill shows how a common thermostat reveals how good industrial designers keep track of the dimensions of a human being.
More details | Watch nowThe Transistor 2
Bill shows how a transistor works by examing a replica of the first one ever build: The Bardeen-Brattain point contact transistor.
More details | Watch nowIBM Selectric Typewriter
Using slow motion video Bill Hammack shows how the mechanical digital-to-analogue converter of IBM's revolutionary 'golf ball' typewriter works.
More details | Watch nowAluminium drinks can tab
Bill uses slow motion video to show the ingenious engineering design of the apparently simple tab of a pop can.
More details | Watch nowBlack Box – A flight data recorder
In designing an object an engineer must choose the proper material. Never is this more important than in the 'black box' flight data recorder.
More details | Watch nowQuartz Watch
Bill takes apart a cheap watch to show how it works. He describes how a tiny quartz tuning fork keeps the time.
More details | Watch nowThe Whiffletree
Bill describes how a whiffletree was used in early calculating devices to do mechanical digital to analog conversion. He shows briefly the device used in an IBM Selectric Typewriter.
More details | Watch nowCoffee Maker: Pumping water with no moving parts
To engineer an object means to make choices. Bill illustrates how the choice of having a single heating element made an engineer find a creative way to pump water with no moving parts.
More details | Watch nowPlastic Electronics.
Plastics have become ubiquitous structural materials due to the ease with which they can be processed at low cost into complex shapes. Imagine a world in which metals and semiconductors have similar attributes ? that is the world of Plastic Electroni....
More details | Watch nowMulti-field problems involving multi-fracturing solids.
For many problems involving multi-fracturing solids and/or particulate media, the system response is governed by the presence of an additional phase, either gaseous, liquid or both, or by the need to consider other physical phenomena, such as thermal....
More details | Watch nowWhat’s going on Underground? Tunnelling into the Future
Urban congestion is a serious problem in many cities, so the creation of underground space and in particular the development of underground transport is environmentally essential. How can tunnels be built in ground sometimes as soft as toothpaste? Wh....
More details | Watch nowMind-reading technologies – with People Sense
People Sense refers to the remarkable capacity of humans to sense and have a commonsense understanding of others' affective-cognitive states and behaviors. The ability to understand and predict people's behavior varies from person to person and even ....
More details | Watch nowSelf-Lubricating Skis
Find out how Professor Peter Styring came up with a design for self-lubricating skis, and discover what stringent tests he performed before realizing the finished product.nA chemical engineer, Styring has devoted much of his working life to designing....
More details | Watch nowOn the Air
Michael Garrett discusses the physical properties of gases and demonstrates how air is liquefied. Liquefied gases are a key resource for survival with an amazing range of applications and there are now few industries which are not in some way depende....
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