Texas Industrial Engineering Blog

Micro/Nano Assembly Workcell Via Micro Visual Sensing and Haptic Feedback

Program Overview:  The Engineering Technology Department of the TAMUCC College of Science and Technology is pleased to offer a 10 week summer undergraduate research experience sponsored by the National Science Foundation. This REU program is co-sponsored by Texas State University, offering its 10,000 ft² certified cleanroom for the summer research activities. The objective of this REU is to provide hands-on training in micro-manufacturing research to a total of 20 student participants over a two-year period starting June 2008.

Participate in cutting edge research in micro-robotics and automation projects:

o   Research in micro/nano electro-mechanical system material and structure

o   Research in micro-manufacturing technology

o   Research in micro-gripper system

o   Research in infrared 3D sensor technology

o   Research in feedback control systems for rapid assembly

o   Research in micro-robotic arm kinematics/dynamics and motion control

v  Attend weekly workshops on research methods, research ethics, project management and related issues

v  Attend field trips to high-tech companies and research institutions in the Austin and Dallas areas

v  Receive a $6,740 stipend for the 10-week duration of the project, in addition to a one-time $1,250 for housing, $15/day for meals for 50 days

v  Program starts on June 1, 2008 and ends on August 2, 2008

.

Requirements

Application, current transcript, two letters of recommendation, personal statement

Minimum GPA of 2.75

Engineering, science, and technology students who are in the junior year of college

Women and minorities are highly encouraged to apply

U.S. Citizen or permanent resident

APPLICATION DEADLINE: APRIL 15, 2008

Application documents, program requirements:

http://sci.tamucc.edu/~duganum

Contact & information:

Dr. Dugan Um ~   dugan.um@tamucc.edu

Learn how to make the most of meetings, interviews, and networking events or of entertaining clients at conventions, trade shows, and other work-related functions.

Do you dread receptions, banquets, and other business-related social events? Does attending another open house make you want to run inside your own and lock the door? You’re not alone. Many of us are apprehensive about these situations, because most of us either hate entering rooms where we don’t know anyone or hate spending time with people we don’t know well. Keeping a conversation going during such occasions is an ordeal.

But for business professionals, these occasions represent opportunities to develop business friendships and broaden networks. Whether you realize it or not, networking happens all the time. During an awkward social gathering, demanding sales presentation, or a tough interview, small talk can turn a challenging situation into a success. Small talk connects us, whether the setting is business or social.

Everyone learns the technical skills required for their jobs, but not everyone places importance on conversational skills. The ability to talk easily with anyone is a learned skill, not a personality trait. Acquiring it will help you develop rapport with people and leave a positive impression that lasts longer than an exchange of business cards.

Here are a few tips business professionals can use to improve their small-talk skills:

Be the first to say hello!

Introduce yourself. Act as if you’re the host and introduce new arrivals to your conversational partner or partners.

Smile first and always shake hands when you meet anyone.

Take your time during introductions! Make an extra effort to remember names, and use them frequently in the conversation.

Maintain eye contact in any conversation. Many people in a group of three or more people look around in the hope that others will maintain eye contact on our behalf. But people don’t feel listened to if you’re not looking at them.

Get somebody to talk about why they’re attending the event, and you are on your way to engaging them in conversation.

Show an interest in every person. The more interest you show the wiser and attractive you become to others.

Listen carefully for information that can keep the conversation going.

Remember: People want to be with people who make them feel special, not people who are “special”. Take responsibility to help people you talk to feel as if they’re the only person in the room.

Play the conversation game. When someone asks, “How’s business?” and “What’s going on?” Answer with more than “Pretty good” or “Not much”. Tell more about yourself so that others can learn more about you.

Be careful with business acquaintances. You wouldn’t want to open a conversation with: “How’s your job at ________?” What if that person just got fired or laid off? Be careful when you’re asking about an acquaintance’s spouse or special friend; you could regret it.

Don’t act like you’re an FBI agent. Questions like “What do you do?”, “Are you married?”, “Do you have children?”, and “Where are you from?” lead to dead-end conversations.

Be aware of body language. Nervous or ill-at-ease people make others uncomfortable. Act confident and comfortable, even when you’re not.

Be prepared. Spend a few minutes before an anticipated event preparing to talk easily about three    topics. They will come in handy when you find yourself in the middle of an awkward moment... or    while seated at a table of eight where everyone is playing with their food.

Show an interest in your conversational partner’s opinion, too. You’re not the only person who has opinions about funding the space program or what will happen to the stock market.

Stop conversation monopolists in their tracks. If possible, wait for the person to take a breath or to    pause, then break in with a comment about their topic. Immediately redirect the conversation in the     direction you wish it to go.

Be prepared with exit lines. You need to move around and meet others.

Don’t melt from conversations. Make a positive impression by shaking hands and saying goodbye as you leave.

Debra Fine, is the author of The Fine Art of Small Talk (Hyperion 2005). She presents keynotes and seminars on conversational skills and networking techniques internationally. Contact Debra at 303-721-8266 or visit her web site at www.DebraFine.com .

1. Spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.
2. Generic opening objectives.
3. Personal attributes.

Key ideas from the Harvard Business Review article by Frances X. Frei

The Idea

If you run a service business, your customers aren’t just open wallets at the end of your supply chain. They disrupt every step of your core operations with their unpredictable behavior—requesting service at inconvenient times, asking for a bewildering array of things, changing their minds.

This customer variability spawns costly inefficiency. How to manage it? Frei suggests diagnosing the type of variability you’re dealing with—such as “arrival variability” (demanding service at inconvenient times) and “request variability” (asking for many different things).

Then decide: will you accommodate or reduce the variability? Typical methods for managing variability work well but carry trade-offs. For instance, a restaurant that accommodates “off the menu” orders (“request variability”) enhances patrons’ fine-dining experience—but must charge premium prices to cover resulting cost increases. If the restaurant reduces request variability by accepting only menu-listed orders, it improves efficiency—but compromises diners’ experience.

Yet some strategies avoid trade-offs—by ensuring a positive customer experience and maintaining efficiency. Consider Starbucks’ uncompromising reduction: the company reduces “capability variability” (ability to state orders clearly and quickly) by training customers to order complicated drinks in a prescribed way—without detracting from their experience.

Augment typical accommodation or reduction strategies with more creative ones, and you seize competitive advantage.

The Idea in Practice

Diagnosing Customer Variability

Customer variability takes five forms:

Looking Beyond Classic Accommodation or Reduction

Consider these strategies to accommodate or reduce customer variability—without trading off efficiency or the quality of customers’ experience.

• There are 1 billion nanometers (nm) in one meter. A meter is approximately 3 feet.
• The original transistor built by Bell Labs in 1947 could be held in your hand, while hundreds of Intel’s new 45nm transistor can fit on the surface of a single red blood cell.
• If a house shrunk at the same pace transistors have, you would not be able to see a house without a microscope. To see the 45nm transistor, you need a very advanced microscope.
• The price of a transistor in one of Intel’s forthcoming next-generation processors -- codenamed Penryn -- will be about 1 millionth the average price of a transistor in 1968. If car prices had fallen at the same rate, a new car today would cost about 1 cent.
• You could fit more than 2,000 45nm transistors across the width of a human hair.
• You could fit more than 30 million 45nm transistors onto the head of a pin, which measures approximately 1.5 million nm (1.5 mm) in diameter.
• More than 2 million 45nm transistors could fit on the period (estimated to be 1/10 square millimeter in area) at the end of this sentence.
• A 45nm transistor can switch on and off approximately 300 billion times a second. A beam of light travels less than a tenth of an inch during the time it takes a 45nm transistor to switch on and off.

• A nail = 20 million nm
• A human hair = 90,000nm
• Ragweed pollen = 20,000nm
• Bacteria = 2,000nm
• Intel 45nm transistor = 45nm
• Rhinovirus = 20nm
• Silicon atom = 0.24nm

New Technology Will Improve Performance and Energy Efficiency of Future Intel Platforms