Engineering and Technology Studies at Illinois

Just a reminder that the first movie, Radiant City, in the film series Movies Even an Engineer Would Love will be held to night starting at 7:00 pm in the Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory St., Urbana, IL.  A discussion will be held after the showing.

Radiant City. Across the continent the landscape is being leveled—blasted clean of distinctive features and overlaid with zombie monoculture. Politicians call it growth. Developers call it business. The Moss family calls it home. This look at urban sprawl through the eyes of one Canadian family also asks fundamental questions about design, planning, and technology. Covering topics from traffic and infrastructure to childhood, family, and ennui, it ultimately asks: How can we build sustainable systems that can grow gracefully as they age?

iFoundry, AE3, with some advertising help from ETSI, announce a Workshop on the First Year in Engineering to be held in Room 1122 NCSA, on Thursday, September 25, 2008, starting at 8:30 am.  More information is available here.

The flyer for the FA08, ETC movie series, Movies an Engineer Would Love, is available here.

Dean Ilesanmi Adesida has formally announced the launch of the Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education (iFoundry).  See the press release here, the iFoundry web site here, and the YouTube channel here.

This Fall, ETSI in cooperation with Science and Technology Studies (STS) presents a series of films entitled Movies Even an Engineer Would Love: Stories about Culture and Technology.  Three films, Radiant City, The Tailenders, and Bush Mechanics will be shown from 7-9 pm on three Wednesday evenings: 10/8, 10/29, and 11/12.  All screenings will be held in the Knight Auditorium in the Spurlock Museum. Current information about the series is available here or by contacting Christian Sandvig.

Earlier in the spring semester, Georges Harik, employee number 7 of Google gave a terrific talk drawing on his experiences at Google.  We finally have permission to show the video from that talk, which is available here.

Joe Pitt’s talk on W(h)ither STS will be held today, April 21st, in 2405 Siebel from 4-5 pm.  From the announcement:

Just when Science and Technology Studies (STS) emerged as a distinct field of study is unclear. . . Pitt will review the early years, consider some of the factors that colored the development of STS, both from a disciplinary point of view and institutionally, and finally speculate on the future. Does STS have a future (whither?) or will it wither on the vine? Pitt believes STS will not wither, but it will also not continue to have the form (if it in fact does have one) it has today. The underlying theme here is, beware making a good thing into a discipline.

See the flyer here.

Joe Pitt will engage the students in ENG 491, Designing the Engineering Curriculum of the Future, in a conversation on the integration of humanities and engineering at 12 noon, Room 212 Engin Hall, Monday, 21 April.  ETSI friends and family interested in the discussion are welcome to attend.

Christian Sandvig has forwarded this announcement to ETSI.  A flyer on the event is available here.

If you are interested in WIRELESS technology, SERVICE LEARNING courses, COMMUNITY INFORMATICS, or COMMUNICATION POLICY to please join us for these very brief presentations with discussion and a reception to follow. Free pizza will be served!

Monday, April 21, 2008 from 3:30 - 4:50 p.m.
314 Altgeld Hall
Free and Open to the Public

SELECTED TOPICS:
- Can you build an AM radio receiver using only household objects?
- Why does the U.S. have a third world cellular infrastructure?
- What Countries Have the Coolest Cell Phones, and Why?
- If you had only $10,000 to build a municipal wireless broadband network, how should you spend it?
- Is unlicensed spectrum full? Where? When?
- How are wireless standards made?
- WiMax: Vaporware or the real deal?
- What is the government up to? A summary of government use of spectrum.
- A successful solar rural broadband system for remote Indian reservations.
- Does the availability of unlicensed frequencies promote economic development?
- What are the global wireless policy priorities for 2009?
- Could we “build” a large-scale wi-fi network just by encouraging cooperation with existing equipment?
- Is campus wireless emergency notification via SMS effective?
- What are the bottlenecks in bulk SMS delivery?
- How do universities use wireless systems for emergency messages?
- What’s the long-term future of broadcast television?
- The Spectrum Spectator

(*) “broadCAST” is the broad Collaboration for Advanced Spectrum Technology, and consists of the members of the seminar SPCM 496CS: “Making the World Wireless: Service in Technology and Policy.”

This event is also a class meeting of SPCM 496CS and the Coordinated Science Laboratory Communications Group Seminar. It is free and open to the public.

Joe Pitt from Virginia Tech will speak on Monday, April 21, 2008 from 4-5 pm in 2405 Siebel. The topic of his talk, W(h)ither STS?, considers the past, present, and future of Science and Technology Studies (STS). The talk flyer is available here.