By Maya RectorLeela Tanikella graduated with her MEng degree in Bioengineering in 2015. She currently works at Intuitive Surgical, where she is a Design Controls engineer. Her favorite part of her job is knowing that she is improving the lives of patie…
Category: engineering
engineering
Alumni Highlight: Fu-Chi Shih, Class of 2017
By Maya RectorFu-Chi Shih recently graduated in the spring of 2017 with an MEng degree in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (IEOR). She currently works as a customer and product analyst at Adobe where she utilizes data analytics from custo…
Kate Bell: Artist and Engineer
By Maya RectorKate Bell is a part of the Berkeley MEng class of 2018. Kate’s concentration is in EECS (electrical engineering and computer science), however her background is not that of a typical engineer. With a background in art and a history of bei…
Alumni Highlight: Dayana Hijaz, Class of 2015
By Maya RectorDayana Hijaz graduated in 2015 with an MEng degree in Mechanical Engineering and a concentration in Product Design. She currently works at Tesla, where she develops software tools that aim to automate the engineering and sales designs of …
Alumni Highlight: Tony Chang, Class of 2012
By Maya RectorTony Chang graduated in 2012 with his MEng degree in Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences (EECS). He is currently a senior product manager at Intuit, where he works on expanding the developer platform and connected app ecosystem…
Blum Hall opens state-of-the-art AR/VR lab
By Maya RectorThe new Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality (AR/VR) lab in Blum Hall has students and faculty alike excited about the possibilities that lie ahead given the emergence of AR/VR as an up-and-coming field within the engineering industry. We sp…
Being on the Frontier of Tesla’s Electric Revolution
By Michael Ji WangMichael graduated from UC Berkeley with a Master’s degree in Material Science Engineering in 2014, and started working at Tesla the same year at Palo Alto, California.Earlier this year Tesla Motors Inc. filed with the US Securities &a…
How Teamwork and Friendship Build upon each other
Written by Michael Chai, Edited by Maya Rector
Throughout my term at UC Berkeley and in the Master of Engineering program, my capstone project was undoubtedly where I spent the most of my time and effort. It was an opportunity to work on something that I was truly passionate about; it was also a great relief from the more traditional forms of learning (think homework, midterms, finals, etc.). While all students improve their technical skills and gain a tremendous academic experience by working on a capstone project, I’d like to touch on one aspect of the experience that I feel is just as important — working with your team members and advisers.
Early on in the capstone selection process, students are asked to submit their top choices for projects they would like to work on. Almost all students, myself included, selected projects that they thought were the most interesting and closely-related to their field of study. What we neglected was the fact that choosing a capstone project also meant choosing your team members for the next nine months. Even though it is important to be in a project that you are passionate about, I think it’s equally as important to be with team members that you’d want to be working with for the duration of your M.Eng. program. I personally had overlooked this fact.
However, I was fortunate enough to be placed in a project with two other students that were great teammates who turned into great friends.
Our team for the Point-of- Care Diagnostics for Global Health capstone project consisted of three members: Hui-Ling Koh (BioE’14), Ian Legaspi (IEOR’14), and myself (BioE’14). Although I had never met Ling and Ian before we started the program, we discovered that we actually had a lot in common. Ling and I both attended the same high school, the International School of Beijing, and Ian and I went to UCLA for our undergraduate studies. The three of us also shared an interest in food. Almost all of our team meetings involved exploring the multitude of restaurants in Berkeley and its surrounding areas (Korean BBQ in Oakland is one of our favorites). Above all, we shared a love for Disneyland. One month into our project, we had already made a weekend team-bonding trip to the Happiest Place on Earth. It is fair to say that if you’re willing to spend 15 hours in the car and a whole day running around and lining up for roller coasters with someone, you’re no longer just capstone project team members — you are friends.
Our team made the extra effort to build a relationship with each other outside of school, which definitely paid off and translated into how our capstone team worked as a whole.
Being friends with my team members really made working hard and sometimes going above and beyond much easier for me. Some specific examples I can think of are: running experiments at 1 or 2 AM, attending weekly lab meetings early in the morning, taking turns setting up experiments during spring break, and attending workshops and networking events in San Francisco. It also made me more open to offer and receive criticism, because I knew at the end of the day, they are my friends and have the group’s and my best interest in mind.
As you will learn in the Organizational Behavior class, when you care about someone, you are willing to make compromises for them. Throughout the nine months, conflicts and issues are sure to arise, but when you care for and trust your team members, you will be able to work resolve and through them.
I strongly believe that the M.Eng. program has helped me prepare for the professional world in many ways. Besides improving my technical skills by taking classes at one of the best engineering schools in the world, I have also developed the interpersonal skills that are necessary in any job you will take after graduation. However, what I’m truly grateful for was the chance to meet my capstone team members and all the other wonderful people in the MEng program.
Hui-Ling now works as a R&D Engineer at Teco Diagnostics. Ian works at Connora Technologies as the Director of Operations. Michael works as a Technical Sales Engineer at COMSOL.
How Teamwork and Friendship Build upon each other was originally published in Berkeley Master of Engineering on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Flex is Changing the Innovation Game
Written by Suneesh Kaul, Edited by Maya Rector
Flex is a Fortune-500 supply-chain solutions and manufacturing firm with operations in over 30 countries offering design, manufacturing, distribution and aftermarket services to a variety of global OEMs and other product based firms.
Predictive maintenance, self-optimizing production, and automated inventory management are the top three use-cases driving the Internet of Things (IoT) market growth through 2020 to the amount of $270B. Flex is a big player in the IoT space, producing and helping produce solutions involving tons of connected, intelligent devices that enable IoT in a variety of settings. We call it “Intelligence of Things”.
Internet of Things only means connectivity, but we are also putting a lot more intelligence into the end devices and that means building smart and connected devices — so it’s more than just the Internet. [1]
For instance, recently Flex described several innovations the company has pioneered which mix the sensing and electronic capabilities of a digital circuit with the stretchiness and washability required of a garment through IoT. Smart, connected solutions have enabled the wearable market to move beyond the wrist and become an integral part of someone’s daily outfit. Flex is empowering fashion designers to make technology a part of their vision as more and more customers expect fashion to integrate with their smartphone or connected device.
Imagine someone being able to tap into the power of a solar powered jacket when they suddenly realize that they’re off the path and night is getting closer. Maintaining a GPS signal can use a significant amount of battery as can connecting to remote cell towers in the woods. But if their smartphone has been charging in the afternoon sun courtesy of their solar jacket, they’ll be ready to find their way back home safely and securely.
Solar powered clothing can do more than avoid having to recharge on the go — consider clothing that automatically adjusts tiny vents to make a shirt warmer on a chilly day, or let in more airflow during a hot, challenging run. Clothing that is automatically smarter (and more comfortable) is within reach.
While at Flex, I have been engaged with the Global Supply-Chain organization to develop revolutionary solutions which can support this growth. One of our recent ventures is to transform the application of ‘Blockchains’ from the Finance industry to the Supply-Chain industry.
Blockchains are pegged to be the next internet [2] and will revolutionize the way we conduct business in the future. A Blockchain is a peer-to-peer distributed ledger forged by consensus, which can be used to build a new generation of transactional applications in-order to streamline business processes and legal constraints. [3]
Blockchain is the foundation on which Bitcoin transactions take place; we at Flex are exploring its applicability into recording the movement of goods in a complex global network across 100+ countries.
How’s that for complexity and scale?
Blockchain’s distributed ledger technology would register the transfer of goods on the ledger as transactions and would identify the parties involved, as well as the price, date, location, quality and any other information that would be relevant to managing the supply chain. Consequently, it would be possible to trace back every product to the very origin of the raw material used, its provenance.
Additionally, the decentralized structure of the ledger makes it impossible for any one party to hold ownership of the ledger and manipulate the data to their own advantage. [4]
Simply put, it ensures both transparency and security while building trust among the parties involved.
It’s an exciting time to be working at Flex; and it’s a remarkable feeling to have been given the opportunity to transform the business of tomorrow at this stage in my career.
Check out Flex’s Intelligence (TM) magazine at https://lnkd.in/gXmXhRi
Sources
[1] http://www.pymnts.com/internet-of-things/2016/flex-on-iot-the-5-biggest-opportunities/
[3] http://www.supplychain247.com/article/why_blockchain_is_a_game_changer_for_the_supply_chain
[4] https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/24/blockchain-has-the-potential-to-revolutionize-the-supply-chain/
Flex is Changing the Innovation Game was originally published in Berkeley Master of Engineering on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
M.Eng. Student Perspective: Berkeley Audio Design Challenge (pt. 1)
Written by Shail Shah, Edited by Iris Wu
UC Berkeley’s Audio & Education Design Challenge, sponsored by Bose and Autodesk, took place on Oct. 22, 2016. Shail Shah was on one of the two winning teams.
I was excited to take part in the Berkeley Audio Design Challenge for a few reasons. First, it was my first “hackathon” or design sprint challenge. I’ve never had the experience of taking a design from concept to prototype to pitch within such a short time. Not unsurprisingly — it was really tough!
Second, I was deeply interested in the prompt; I’m kind of a hi-fi audio fanatic. I have a handful of speakers around my house which I designed and built. I like audio because to me it’s a beautiful intersection of engineering/physics and art/creativity.
Third, I was drawn to the target of the challenge — designing an educational tool. I like to be involved in educational extracurriculars, especially focusing on STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) education. As an undergraduate, I volunteered at Richmond High School building electronic bicycles with students after school, and while I worked in Michigan I participated in a program organized by SAE and Toyota, which focused on bringing automotive engineering into the fifth-grade classroom. I benefitted a lot from strong mentors and access to opportunities when I was younger, and I want to be sure I can do the same for others.
A big factor in my team’s success during in the Challenge was how well we worked with one another. We were diverse in that we came from different academic backgrounds, and we had a good spread of seniority (there were two upper-classmen and two lower-classmen). Throughout the challenge, I organized the team’s efforts, leading the brainstorming activity and delegating the workload.
It was pretty nice being able to apply the skills we are learning in the M.Eng. program — not just technical, but also leadership — directly in a fast-paced team-project environment.
One of the biggest coaching moments in my team followed our initial pitch to the judges. My team had essentially made an entire curriculum for our product, and because of that we had trouble conveying a clear message to our judges. Before the judges announced the finalists, I worked with the team to decide what our key story was, and we revised our pitch.
Honestly, at the time we weren’t expecting to make it past the first round.
I just wanted to work through the pitch as a teaching moment, so that we could all learn a little more from the experience. Fortunately for us, we did have a chance to present the revised pitch. I think the succinct user experience we made in the final presentation, along with the allusions to the depth of the curriculum we had thought of, made our product the most compelling, and led to our success.
I’m so happy I got to take part in the Design Challenge. I really appreciated the mix of students that turned out, and how we got to work with people who we don’t usually interface with on campus. Pairing M.Eng. students with undergraduate teams worked really well; I definitely benefitted from the creativity and the energy of my teammates, and I also enjoyed the leadership side of the challenge. Based on the experience, I started looking for more interdisciplinary team projects, and have joined other design challenges across campus. I hope there’s another M.Eng. Design Challenge in the Spring!
M.Eng. Student Perspective: Berkeley Audio Design Challenge (pt. 1) was originally published in Berkeley Master of Engineering on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.