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Newsletter 52

Cultivating Progress

We rarely start with a blank sheet of paper. Typically we are building off previous work, often work built up over generations. In aviation that is a history of commercial …

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Newsletter 51

Starting Simply

What do frugal designs, origami, gestures and jellyfish cyborgs have in common? A simple starting point. Origami can literally start with a blank sheet of paper. Engineering inspired by biology …

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News

50th Newsletter Delivery

Fort Langley, February 2024 – The first edition of the Bannerman Consultants engineering newsletter came out in July 2009, a year before Instagram and the iPad were introduced. In the …

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Newsletter 50

Targeting the Goal

Every day we are called on to make decisions, often in complex environments. The core of technical engineering is to develop reliable data on which we can base those decisions. …

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Newsletter 49

Maintaining Competitiveness

The pace of change in engineering is increasing, sometimes frighteningly so. Our end users are demanding more. We need to make sure we choose well in placing our bets on …

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Newsletter 48

Fun and Effective Physics

What makes engineering fun? To be sure, various engineers will consider different things to be enjoyable, which is clearly subjective and can’t be measured. For some, fun would be working …

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Newsletter 47

Integrating Innovations

There are lots of reasons why new technology doesn’t succeed, even if it is good technology. To give something creative the best chance of success, it should leverage previous lessons …

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Newsletter 46

More or Less

Less is more. Less weight and less drag mean better designs. Who knows this already? Bird brains and drug smugglers. The question isn’t if your engineers know about efficiency too, …

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Newsletter 45

Weird Science

Scientists study the natural world and strive to understand innate processes. Engineers take scientific understanding and work within not only scientific limits, but also social and economic boundaries, while also …

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Newsletter 44

Looking More Closely

As engineers, we are often forced to act on assumptions.  We possibly don’t revisit those assumptions often enough.  Electric vehicles are better for the environment, right?  Isn’t the best move …