Joe Groele of Allegany, N.Y., took a flash camera, added a few electronic components and turned it into a coin-tossing gadget. He converted the flash into a strobe, then he ran the electricity through a coil to create a magnetic field. “The changing magnetic field causes an electric current in the coin, called an eddy current, which produces an opposite magnetic field,” says Groele. The nifty current makes the coin repel off the coil and into the air, thus tossing the coin.
The process of turning a camera into a coin flipper came with a few blips. Groele ran a few bumpy tests before a slight nudging of the coin turned into a full toss. Most notably, he discovered that working with high voltages “can be painful.” He also says he should have been “more careful drilling holes in fragile plastic.” Lastly, he found out he didn’t have to destroy nearly as many cameras as he expected. But after numerous trials, he hit pay dirt: a contraption that routinely flips a coin.
Our LinkedIn systems and product design engineering group discusses if they are happy with their decision of remaining a technical contributor instead of becoming a manager.
Against a backdrop of mounting product complexity and a need to keep a lid on development costs, companies are recognizing a need to make simulation a more integral part of the design process. In response, vendors in the CAD world are building out CAE functionality as part of their CAD suites while simulation vendors are building tighter integrations to leading CAD tools. Keith Meintjes, Ph.D., Practice Manager, Simulation and Analysis at CIMdata, Inc., joins Design News CAD Editor Beth Stackpole in this radio program to explore the new face of integrated CAD and CAE, how companies are benefitting from this tighter partnership between platforms, and how integrating CAE earlier in the development cycle pays off in optimized product designs.
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