APSS NEWSLETTER

5th December 2010

MeCHaNiCuS
Issue 1 Volume 1

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FEATURED

NEWS AND EVENTS

WORLD OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

A WORD FROM THE EDITOR

Here is the first newsletter of A.P.S.S under the new administration. Finally! After a long hiatus The ASME Boys/ Girl (s) are back in business. The new chair person Mr. Adeel Hassan (Semester VIME) has been elected and he won with a huge percentage of 85.8% votes. Apparently his promise of CHANGE was cherished by the general public up to such an extent that more than a hundred and fifty people registered over night just to participate in the elections.

ARTICLES AND OTHER STUFF

CONTENTS
A WORD FROM THE EDITOR NEWS AND EVENTS
THE ASME BOYS\GIRL[S] LITRARY RESOURCE CENTRE KARAOKE NIGHT CONVOCATION GAMING COMPETITION ZABMUN

THE WORLD OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

MICROSOFT NOW IN AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY ROAD PRINTING MACHINE THE NEW MADE IN CHINA

It does make one wonder whether it was the charismatic personality of the new chair person or the promise of a tea party (that followed the elections) that really motivated almost every mechanical walaa and some of the non mechanical walaaz to register and vote for him. (Hope that later ones not the case) Well people!! The much awaited CHANGE is finally here and its hopefully a good one! **fingers crossed** As far as publications is concerned we are going to make it as interesting as we can for you and at the same time we want it to be a good learning experience for you guys. If you want to share anything regarding publications (articles, news, jokes, ideas etc) please feel free to contact: Secretary publications: Khurram Mehmood Janjua (Sem VI-ME) (room 138) Asst. sec. publications: Yawar Bakht (Sem V-ME) (room 105) Publications design: Raffay Bin Hussain Hashmi (Sem IV-ME)
(room 133)

ARTICLES AND OTHER STUFF

HAPTIC TECHNOLOGY MEDICAL ASPECT OF ROBOTIC ENGINEERING A SITTING WITH THE CHAIRPERSON THE FIRST GIRL/WOMAN VICE CHAIR

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NEWS AND EVENTS

Literary Resource Centre (LRC) is a new feature added to the APSS room. It has a wide range of engineering magazines, both old and new. By going through these magazines you can keep yourself up to date with the fast developing engineering sector. You can also have look into the past as we have issues as old as 1984. Many of these magazines have been donated by Dr. Johar and Dr. Ali Hassan. In fact for those of you who are interested there are some very good magazines on nuclear physics and aerospace engineering. Miss Sherbano Fatima of semester 2 M.E is in charge of LRC. To have access to LRC please contact her.

The new executive committee (excom) has been appointed by the chairperson and following is the list of the new appointees:Chair Vice chair Secretary resources Secretary programs Adeel Hassan (He is married with 5 children, did you know that?) Maira Rafiq (The first ever female appointee
in APSS board)

Sameer Ahmed (ganjaa) S/Lt. Fahim Yousaf (Uncle)

Secretary Communication Ali Abbas (Semester IV ME) Secretary Digital Media Secretary publications Secretary Treasury Riaz Saad Durani (Cheeku) Khurram Mehmood Janjua (sorry! you
dont get my nick)

Syed Junaid Jamal (Disco molvi) / Zuhair Mehmood Salman Saleem (Jutt saab, a.k.a the
infamous Chowdhary saab)

Secretary memberships

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NEWS AND EVENTS

On the eve of 26th of October 2010, the newly found Media and Creative Society arranged an event, the Karaoke Night which was the very first of its kind here at PNEC. It was held at the Jauhar lawn right outside the gun room mess. Not only the students but also the admin and the faculty members along with their families were among the audience. Several musical bands from various universities of the city including Aga Khan University, SZABIST and IBA participated in the event which made it grand. The students were all over the place, banging their heads and dancing like crazies. Later dinner was served to the audience and I must add that it was quite well managed. The main highlights of the night were the Dholl Wala and a freezer full of icecream. Well! In short the event was just awesome.

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NEWS AND EVENTS

PNEC, NUST SHINES AT ZABMUN 2010

Four students from PNEC, NUST including Syed Muhammad Ali of Semester V Electrical Engineering and 3 students from the IME Department: M.Faisal Amjad, M.Zeeshan Raja and Rida Shazli participated in the simulation of the United Nations Organization, ZABMUN 2010, held at the Regent Plaza, Karachi from 8th to 11th November 2010, organized by Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Institute of Sciences and Technology, Karachi (SZABIST). Various teams representing prestigious institutions from all over Karachi and other parts of the country participated in the event. The team from PNEC, NUST exhibited an exemplary performance at the event winning all the awards including 4 Best Delegates, 2 Honorable Mentions and The Best Delegation Award. The team was praised by the president of ZABMUN and the chief guests which included a leading industrialist and entrepreneur and a veteran Pakistani diplomat.

On Friday, 5th of November the convocation was held at the Bahria Auditorium with Rector (NUST) being the chief guest. The passing out students along with their families, the faculty members, and the admin including the commandant himself were among the attendees. It was a full- house with some people getting a little emotional with tears in their eyes and others just hanging out. There was a picture session and lunch afterwards.

Later that night convocation dinner took place at the NUST Boys Hostel lawn where the passing-out students spent their last memorable hours with their beloved juniors. The night was further livened with a jugat session from MAO and Mohid.

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NEWS AND EVENTS

The gaming competition was held at the NUST Boys Hostel on the 23rd October 2010 to satisfy the gaming enthusiasts. The champions of Tekken, Counterstrike and Street fighter came face to face to test their skills. It was time for the devotees to rumble!! The announcement of Drinks on the house for everyone attracted even those who had no interest in gaming. Though the winners never received the prize money (because the participants did not pay the registration fee!) but still this event which was anxiously awaited for was a success because the people enjoyed it thoroughly!!

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THE WORLD OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

THE NEW MADE IN CHINA A JETLINER

These days china is everywhere and now the Chinese are out to conquer the aviation industry too. The Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) recently showed their model for a large jetliner called COMAC C919 in Air Show China 2010 and whats more so far COMAC has got orders for about a hundred such planes from various airlines. It is150-seat passenger aircraft and will be comparable to Boeings 737 and Airbuss A320. Construction work on its nose started in September 2009 and its first flight is expected to take place in 2014 with deliveries scheduled for 2016.While most of the COMAC C919 will be built in china its engine (LEAPX1C) and avionics will be imported from western companies.

Microsoft has joined hands with Ford to create a new cloud based system (i.e. it works via internet) for electric cars that will enable customers to determine the best time to recharge their cars in order to save on the electric bill and battery drain. This new system will use Microsoft Hohm as a platform. In order to achieve this Microsoft and ford will work closely with utility and municipal power companies to ensure that their customers are getting best charging at lowest possible costs. While most of us living in Pakistan may be unaffected by this news right now, it would not be farfetched to expect shipments of second hand branded cars with Microsoft logo on them in the next one or two decades.

Here is something that we could most definitely use in Pakistan. Tiger-Stone is a Dutch made paving machine that uses gravity and an electric motor to print stone and brick roads. Its a six meter wide machine that is capable of laying 300 square meters of road a day. The printing width is adjustable from the width of a road to as narrow as a bike lane or walkway. There are no moving parts within the machine, it simply uses a shelf that is fed bricks and they are automatically sorted arranged and packed together by gravity, each stone will associate with the link previously made. There is a quiet electric motor that moves the machine along a bed of sand creating consistent results with a simply operated paver.

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ARTICLES AND OTHER STUFF

HAPTIC TECHNOLOGY
MEDICAL ASPECT OF ROBOTIC ENGINEERING (AISHA JILANI SEM 6 ME) The field of robotics engineering is a sub field of mechanical engineering and it design robots and develop new applications use in a wide range of industries. Medical robots are one of the most useful applications of robots. One of its major applications is in medical field and may be used in various medical procedures e.g. they are also used to assist patients in recovery and in the performance of daily routine tasks for patient care. Research is going in medical robotics that will create new robotic technologies and benefit the healthcare industry. Advancements in this technology have made life much easier for thousands of patients who were dependent on others due to their physical limitations. Some of the applications of robotic engineering in medical field are: ROBOTIC ARM: A robotic arm can be used to give people in wheelchairs more independence. It may be manual or automatic but both are sort of life saver. But according to the conclusion of a research, manual mode would be more appreciable, because it could give instructions before hand through keyboard or verbally. IN SURGERY: Robotic surgery is a new revolution. It is basically computer assisted surgery. Three major advances aided by surgical robots have been remote surgery, minimally invasive surgery and unmanned surgery. Robotic assistants can also decrease the fatigue that doctors experience during surgeries that can last several hours. Even the steadiest of human hands cannot match the precision of a surgical robot. FOR STROKE PATIENTS: Engineer uses robotics to help stroke victims regain motor functions. According to new research even if a stroke had occurred years back patient can regain some stability. Hermano Igo Krebs, a principal research scientist in MITs Department of Mechanical Engineering started developing the

(by Zuhair Mehmood 6 ME)

Haptic Technology is a tactile feedback technology that takes advantage of a users sense of touch by applying vibrations or motions to the users body. The word haptic comes from Greek verb haptesthai meaning to contact or to touch. The scientists have studied haptics for decades and they know quite a bit about biological system of touch but they have failed to transfer this basic understanding of touch into their simulations. When the aircrafts became more advanced they started using servomechanism operated systems due to which they could not feel the environment around them as it lacked previously used springs and weights with cables. In older models the pilots could tell when they were entering a dangerous flight condition of when the plane is about to stall due to vibrations that were felt in pilots control. To replace this feeling they installed a vibrator in the pilots stick, and it was controlled by sensing the angle of attack of the wind and other anomalies, which simulated the effect of the older systems. This is known as haptic feedback. Alternatively the servo force may be measured and then the signal could be transmitted to a servo system on the control. This method was known as force feedback. Though the haptic feedback systems were incorporated in physical systems like gaming joysticks or steering wheels it was difficult to incorporate in virtual reality. How could a person feel something that is not there like a gun for a gamer or a space rock for a training astronaut? To overcome this, haptic virtual objects were created in 1993 by artificial intelligence laboratory at MIT. These were known as computer haptics. Force feedback systems allowed operators to feel and work around unseen obstacles and forces, enabling significant increases in productivity.

Current applications
Teleoperators and simulators: Teleoperators are robots that are remotely controlled and their contact forces are reproduced at the operators. The first of these were built in 1950s in United States to remotely handle radioactive substances. Force feedback systems were useful in simulations that were used in operator training devices as they provided actual feel to the virtual objects. They are currently used in medical simulators and flight simulators used for pilot training. Computer and Videogames: Haptic devices are commonly being used in homes in the form of game controllers, in particular joysticks and steering wheel. These devices made the gamers get the actual feel of the game without doing the actual thing, for instance racing games.

Future Applications
Holographic Interaction: Researchers at university of Tokyo are currently working on adding haptic feedback to holographic projections. This feedback system will allow the user to interact with holograms and receive tactile response as if they were real objects. This will be the first prospect of the technology where the user does not have to be fitted with a special glove or to wear a special suit to control any application of haptic technology. Medicine: Currently developing medical innovation is a central workstation that surgeons can use to perform operations remotely. Rather than travelling to a room a surgeon becomes a telepresence. This allows expert surgeons to operate anywhere within a country. The goal is that as the surgeon makes an incision he feels the ligaments coming apart as he would feel in actual operation. Special simulations are created for surgical training so that the same effects can be felt when surgical students perform procedures on a virtual body. Education: Virtual Reality Worlds can be created of different subjects this would enhance the students ability to grasp a concept and to have a good base for further studies. Through this students can also learn how to apply their knowledge to real world.

Conclusion
In the end I would say that the Haptic Technology is one of the most upcoming technologies which can not only enhance the learning of individuals whether be it engineer or doctor it works everywhere. If incorporated in Pakistan it can reduce the mortality rates in surgeries and it would help improve the caliber of the output of engineers and doctors in the future generation as they will be able to apply their knowledge to variety of things much easily. I agree that it may reduce the current jobs but it will provide newer opportunities meaning new Jobs and may help in reducing unemployment rates in future.

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ARTICLES AND STUFF

(Continued) robotic system, dubbed MIT-Manus, more than 20 years ago. OTHER APPLICATION: Doctors can view the patient, ask questions, read patient records, view Xrays, and test results using these robots. The robot does not examine the patient physically but allows face-to-face contact between the doctor and patient with the help of a screen attached to it. They are also used in ward rounds when doctors are away from patients, which allow patients to establish direct contact with doctors. CONCLUSION: Robotic engineering rules the world. In the field of robotic engineering new robotic technologies are introducing that would be very beneficial in the healthcare industry. An introduction of Wi-Fi technology in the medical robots allows a medical expert to visually examine and communicate with a patient from anywhere in the world. REFRENCES: http://scienceblog.com/38940/robotic -arms-big-flaw-patients-say-its-tooeasy/ http://www.scientificcomputing.com/ News-DS-Engineer-Uses-Roboticsto-Help-Stroke-Victims-RegainMotor-Functions-061110.aspx http://insciences.org/article.php?articl e_id=8763

Q) Tell us something about yourself? I am your average engineer in the making with a very dark side and want to do things differently ;) Q) What are your likes and dislikes? Now answering this would be political suicide but I guess the general public should know that I like simplicity in things and abhor complex procedures ;) I hope you understand Q) Why did you decide to go for the post of chair? Sameeray nay khanay ki maiz per idea HEHEHUHHUHAAAAA!

dia

tha.

Q) What was the reason behind your phenomenal victory in elections? Oooo I had a great campaign manager (Jutt) and the juniors as well as the seniors trust that I could bring about a change. A change for the better! Q) Are you sure the electing process was transparent? Ahm ahm! Transparency you say! We had posted two guards near the ballot box and outside the ASME room to prevent any mischief. The votes were checked in the presence of Dr J :) YEAH! RIGHT. Q) What are your future plans for A.P.S.S (other than misusing your powers)? You mean I have to do something other than misuse my powers?????? :O Kidding..I have a lot of plans which due to some reason or the other are being delayed.We are going to have seminars, events, workshops and interuniversity competition plus Funjaneering events :) Q) Why should people join A.S.M.E? It is a society for the engineers by the engineers and I believe it provides the young engineers of today with a very stable platform to put his/her engineering mind to the test. It will help them professionally and make their university experience a hell lot more fun. Q) When you say fun, what do you mean by it? I mean events where the students break their monotonous routine of study eat, sleep. Events where students feel the zest to do something and dont waste away from studying, e.g. the recent gaming tournament in NUST BOYS HOSTEL, that was FUN.

THE FIRST GIRL/WOMAN VICE CHAIR

Maira Rafiq is the first female vice chair of A.P.S.S. I am sure most of you are familiar with her face. She was a really active participant in last years shell echo project and she recently added some foreign experience to that with an internship in Japan (through I.A.E.S.T.E). With 17 votes she came in second to Sir Adeel to become vice chair of A.P.S.S. While Adeel looks like a healthy 40 year old, Maira is the youngest vice chair at age 16 (AHEM! This is the editor trying to get in vice chairs good books). I am sure she is going to use that young mind of hers to take A.P.S.S to a new level. Being in her class and knowing how dedicated she can be to a cause I see a bright future for APSS.

Donations for Literary Resource Centre (LRC) The Literary Resource centre(LRC) , the newly founded wing of the APSS society devoted to providing literary engineering resources to the students is in need for generous donations in the form of books, magazines, articles and other literary resources related to the field of engineering. Those of you who would like to contribute are requested to please contact Miss Sherbano Fatima of Semester II- ME

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