Good Designs

Good Designs – Here are some designs that I feel are "good".

1. Solar Powered Refrigerator - Emily Cummins, 21, developed a solar powered fridge that uses basic thermodynamic principles to keep items cooled to 6 degrees Celsius. This design is extremely practical and sustainable as it is highly mobile, and does not require electricity. It is very basic to understand how to work it. This refrigerator is meant to be used in parts of Africa where they are very poor and need basic supplies from medicine and food to be cold.

1. Rush Medical Center, Chicago, IL. (link) The Rush Medical center is developing a 10 year improvement upon their current hospital system starting in 2006. This improvement includes a new 14 story building. This building was mentioned to me by my Civil Engineering friend, John Roach. I love the architecture of the new hospital, as form follows function. If you take a look at it, it is butterfly shaped, and this is done so for a purpose. In order to efficiently travel through the hospital, it is laid out this way with a central location in the middle to quickly move patients, as opposed to current hospital setups where the different wings might be all over, and on different floors. With a design like this, it allows for the hospital to more efficiently deal with patients. My mother has been a nurse for over 30 years, and when I discussed this hospital design with her, she agreed that hospital layout is a major problem. The building is also getting LEED certification (how sustainable the building is). Here is a bird-eye view of the hospital:

1. Thrust Vectoring Nozzles. Thrust vectoring nozzles are any type of nozzle where the output thrust is changed by altering the direction of the nozzle away from parallel with the inflowing air. Using nozzles of such are an excellent design, as it allows for the aircraft to preform at a higher level, giving these aircraft a strategic advantage. The picture shown below is the thrust vectoring nozzle of the F-22 Raptor. Thrust vectoring engines are also used in the AV-8 Harrier, which has V/STOL capabilities (Vertical take off and landing), as well as hovering ability. This is done by having 2 separate sets of nozzles, one for the cold flow of the turbo fan (or bypass air), and one for the hot flow (exhaust gas). By moving these 4 thrusters, it is possible to point them normal to any surface, and allow the aircraft to hover, or take off vertically. Not only is this creative and innovative, it's also really cool to see a massive aircraft hovering.

1. SR-71 Blackbird Diffuser Spike, found on the J-58 Pratt and Whitney afterburning turbojet. The J-58 turbojet was the first engine to be certified for Mach-3 flight. In order to achieve this flight speed and still operate as a turbojet, the incoming air needs to stay at a certain speed. To solve this problem, the Pratt & Whitney engineers developed a diffuser spike that corkscrews in and out of the engine, helping regulate the incoming airspeeds, and allowing for sustained high-speed turbojet flight.

1. Mead Flexbinder. This binder is something that I have had since day one of college. I started with one notebook my first semester, and I eventually replaced all of my binders with this binder. What this binder does, is give you a binder with 3 rings, to allow for you to expand upon your notes, all while maintaining a notebook type feel. A major problem of keeping a traditional binder in your back pack is that the binder is rigid, and will take the same amount of volume if it is empty or full. Having a binder that expands with your notes is very nice to have, as you can save backpack space and potentially carry more books. (or reduce the load on your back!)

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