The Final Countdown

This post may be my last for a while. I can honestly say I have enjoyed writing this blog and I may come back to the blogosphere at some point in the future. This semester has flow by faster than any one I can remember, but along the way this blog has developed and taken some twists and turns. The middle of the semester marked a change in our blog structure that shook things up a little bit.

The early part of this blog was dedicated to response to classes issues, articles, and other short readings that were part of our day to day class schedule. I do feel like I learned from these readings, and I enjoyed having the blog as a free space to respond, in my own way, to all the different topics we discussed. I have a much greater appreciation for rhetoric and its extensive presence in our culture today. Its nature was so accurately discovered early on by many of the greatest rhetoricians, but its manifestations seem to be new each day. I hope that as a result of reading and responding to these different pieces about rhetoric I myself will have a much stronger persuasive ability in my writing.

The second portion of the blog gave each of us the ability to explore writings in our specific fields of study. I took time each week to reach the ASME Mechanical Engineering Journal. I found so many great articles on advancements in engineering in various fields of expertise. I found that as I wrote about each article it was vital that I simplified the language used to describe each new break through so that anyone reading my blog could see the value in each invention. I have seen in my experience in the engineering field that many of the smartest engineers lack the ability to communicate effectively with persons in other fields. As I read these highly technical articles I could see how important it is that as an upcoming engineer I learn to write rhetorically to broad audience outside the engineering world.

I have enjoyed this semester of blogging and getting to read and respond to the blogs of everyone in class. I wish you all the best as we approach the busiest and most challenging time in the semester.

Learning to Walk

Today I read an article in the ASME Mechanical Engineering Journal about a new prosthetic foot design. This new design is a breakthrough in prosthetic technology. The article describes that when an amputee walks with a typical artificial leg or foot it would be like you or me walking with 30 pounds attached to our ankle. The human foot produces natural regenerative rebound forces in the ankle as a normal reaction when walking. Currently many prosthetic foot designs use small motors to create this regenerative action. The motors are power hungry and heavy. This new design uses a simple spring to imitate the regenerative action of your ankle. The only powered device in the foot is a small actuator that uses minimal power.

This design is really a much simpler design that the old style motor driven prosthesis. I see many new technologies being developed that are simpler than old technologies. Technology in general has come so far that things are easily over complicated. I believe that the simplification of multiple technological systems will be a huge focus of engineering and development in the coming years. This simple new foot design will provide great freedom for amputees.

This is the article...
Artificial Foot