Earlier this month, National Instruments (NI) held its annual NI Week conference, a gathering of the company’s customers, prospects, etc. Can you think of a better place to be than Austin in August?
One of the best parts of this event, for me at least, is the opportunity to sit down with NI co-founder, president, and CEO James Truchard, more commonly known as Dr. T. We talked about a variety of subjects, from the general business outlook to educating our up-and-coming engineering students, and what it’s like to work at NI.
NI is clearly committed to having an impact at the university level. It sponsors contests for college students, makes its tools available at significantly reduced prices, and even gets involved with professors to the point of helping with curricula. Putting a stake in the ground such as this certainly comes at a price. You must be willing to invest in the universities for a payback down the road. Because NI has been at it for some time, it's definitely seeing results. Graduates are quite familiar with LabVIEW and other offerings from NI when they start their engineering careers.
“We know that software is a lot about psychology. If we can get these students comfortable with LabVIEW, there’s a high probability they’ll remain loyal to the products,” Truchard told me.
Another area of investment for NI is wireless technology. “Wireless is a big part of the total revenue of a system, and it’s a long-term investment for NI," said Truchard. "The wireless decision is now made much earlier in the design process, sometimes even first. And WiFi is very prevalent in the industrial space."
Along those same lines, robotics are gaining the smarts they need to make a bigger impact on our lives. For example, I saw a video at NI Week showing a “smart gangplank,” designed using LabVIEW. This is a gangplank that’s attached to a boat and used for getting people from the boat onto a wind turbine that’s miles out in the ocean. The boat pulls up to the turbine, but the sometimes rough seas make it very difficult, and often dangerous, to reach the turbine platform. The smart gangplank moves in the same directions as the ocean, thereby making it easier to climb. It sounds simple, but it requires a huge amount of processing power.
A final tidbit from Dr. T made an impact on me. He stressed how important it is for NI to be a fun place for people to work. I certainly agree with that philosophy.
Maybe I'm getting taken in by the hype, but it appears to me that NI has succeeded in making the company a "fun place to work." Whenever I've attended NI Week, the engineers have struck me as genuinely enjoying their jobs. It's a contagious sort of atmosphere, which is why NI week has become so popular, I think.
Many manufacturers offer a wide range of sensors for biomedical applications. Listed below are selected transducers proven to work with this system from manufacturer Thought Technology Ltd, a partner with National Instruments.
Respiration Sensor, Model SA9311M
Goniometer Adapter, Model T9545
Blood Volume Pulse Sensor, Model SA9308M
Skin Conductance Sensor, Model SA9309M
Temperature Sensor, Model SA9310M
EEG Fkex-Pro Sensor, Model T9305M
EMG MyoScan Sensor, Model T9503M
EKG Sensor, Model T936M
Consider the use of the Thought Technology Ltd Sensor Isolator, Model SA9405AM. This is a four channel optical isolator for use with Thought Technology sensors.
Thought Technology Ltd products are sold through distributor in over 45 countries. Contact the company for information concerning distribution in your country.
Good point on the CAE vendors, Naperlou. NI is definitely on to something and many of the vendors in the CAD space are aggressively pushing similar student- and university-focused efforts. The earlier you can get kids comfortable and familiar with your software, the more likely they will be to want to leverage that tool set as they move into their professional careers. No one likes to switch tools, especially when those tools are continually evolving to meet your needs. Graduating engineers exposed to professional design tools come into the workforce better prepared to to do their jobs more effectively plus act as evangelists for their preferred tool set. All goo--for the design tool manufacturer, for the manufacturers, and for the incoming workforce.
I have noticed that many tool vendors do not do enough to address the education market. This is especially true of CAE vendors. Most schools have little of the software that engineers will use in their careers. Those vendors that do support the market often make evangelists out of the students that come into contact with their products. Apple is one that has targeted the education space and it helps them stay in the game (I am talking about the MAC).
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