I am intrigued by the ubiquitous use of rusty screws securing toilet seats to the base of toilets. It seems that in an effort to save $0.10 or so, the manufacturers always go with either standard steel or some cheap version of stainless steel that resists corrosion for 1 - 2 years of normal use.
When selecting a material for the mounting screws, I believe any student in a freshman engineering design course would be expected to consider the water laden environment of a typical toilet due to normal use and cleaning. My house is five years old and the primary example of visible corrosion I can point to is that all three of my toilets have rust stains under the seat mounting screws. It seems inexcusable that such a simple material choice could be so wrong so frequently.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
Early in my career, I worked as a draftsman and remember the days of drawing on vellum with numbered pencils and Mylar with plastic lead. This was a fun experience in the sense that I ...
I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
A lasting memory from my first job as an engineer in an auto assembly plant is standing on hard concrete at six in the morning, vending-machine coffee clutched in hand, listening to ...
For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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