Features

Electrical engineering is a rich field with challenges for tomorrow’s engineers. Sitting at one of the most interesting crossroads of science and technology, its territory stretches across microelectronics, energy systems, telecommunications, and robotics. Much overlap exists between its different research areas, and that overlap is mimicked in many of the field’s largest potential breakthroughs.

Apple’s A16 Bionic processor has 16 billion transistors. There is no way for a human to design such a chip manually. In electronic design automation (EDA), a field that includes the design of chips and circuit boards, today’s engineers rely on software tools to aid them.

With such a vast area of focus, professionals in this field can tackle numerous problems that impact the environment and people’s health. Projects range from designing water treatment facilities to developing sustainable energy systems. Environmental engineers also use their expertise to address complex socio-environmental problems, like reducing greenhouse gas emissions and promoting environmental justice.

Next year’s coding classes could look very different from this year’s. Advances in AI have rippled into every industry and profession, and the impacts have already been acutely felt in the way code is written and maintained. Today’s engineers can interact with front-ends that resemble ChatGPT, asking natural language questions about code and receiving specific and functional results.

While AI advances seem recent due to increased press coverage, they have been a part of many software programs for quite some time. Computer-aided design (CAD) programs have integrated AI to help streamline the design process, allowing for faster iteration and more accurate results.

Climate change is one of humanity’s most serious threats. The effects of climate change are already being felt worldwide, from extreme weather events to rising sea levels. Discover how geoengineering is being utilized to help combat it.

A drought is a year with a below-average water supply, and it’s a natural part of the climate cycle. But climate change has made droughts more frequent, severe, and pervasive. Europe is currently experiencing its worst drought in 500 years, while parts of the Western US are experiencing a “megadrought” that’s been called the worst in 1,200 years.

This year’s National Engineers Week takes place from February 19-25, 2023. First founded in 1951 by the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), Engineers Week brings together a formal coalition of over 70 engineering, education, and cultural societies and more than 50 corporations and government agencies.

Engineering is an exceptionally dynamic sector. It is continually changing and expanding, and experts, professionals, and academics in the field need to keep pace with all of the latest developments. Conferences provide professionals in various engineering disciplines with knowledge about cutting-edge tools, technology, and skills in the field.

The best gifts for mechanical engineers are tools that help them activate their engineering spirit and build their own creations. Those tools can be knowledge-based, they can be practical, or they can be plain old fun. We’ve gathered a list of potential mechanical engineering gifts that fit every budget and personality.