Engineering Innovation Podcast and Radio Series

Right Step
Listen	*If you have an unbalanced walking stride, it can cause injury…or prevent proper recovery. So engineers are developing a system to help you adjust, and train, your stride.* 08/29/2010
	Randy Atkins: A treadmill reacts to your movements, using more or less electricity depending upon the way you step. Daryl Cox: If there’s a difference between the load placed on it from your left foot versus your right foot or as your body changes from left to right, there will be changes in the loading on the treadmill. Randy Atkins: Daryl Cox, an Oak Ridge National Laboratory engineer, says even the tiniest differences in current can be detected…and that can be especially useful for those recovering from injury. Daryl Cox: You can put a monitor in front of a person and they can very quickly see the difference between left and right so now they can actively participate in retraining themselves to bring symmetry back in play. Randy Atkins: Another use might be to help athletes perfect their motions. With the National Academy of Engineering, Randy Atkins, WTOP News.
	Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Solar Power Booster
Listen	*In Colorado, they’re herding more than cattle these days. A company there is engineering ways to herd light…with the hope of increasing solar power generation.* 08/22/2010
	Randy Atkins: Melissa Grossman, president of Genie Lens Technologies, says solar power can be boosted more than ten-percent by inexpensive micro lenses…either embedded on solar panel glass or applied with a sticker-like film. It’s not a magnifying glass. Melissa Grossman: We work by bending and manipulating the light so that more of the light that hits a photovoltaic panel actually stays within the panel and has a greater chance of being absorbed by the underlying absorber technology. Randy Atkins: The micro lenses change the angle that light comes in so that less is reflected away, and… Melissa Grossman: …it’s going almost horizontally through that absorber material and gives it a much better opportunity to be absorbed. Randy Atkins: Internal reflectors also keep the light trapped inside to do its work. With the National Academy of Engineering, Randy Atkins, WTOP News. ANCHOR TAG The technology, which actually works best on cloudy days, could be ready in about a year.
	SolOptics - the technology behind the lenses.
The Anti Camera
Listen	*It’s a paparazzi’s nightmare…technologies that can prevent digital cameras from taking useable pictures.* 08/15/2010
	Randy Atkins: Engineers are exploring several potential anti-digital camera techniques. Some shield films from bootleggers. Edward Delp: You can actually insert certain patterns in the movie that you can’t see, but the camera would have a hard time recording. Randy Atkins: Edward Delp, of Purdue University, says other technologies use light rays to both find and disable cameras without damaging them. Edward Delp: They interfere with the way the camera makes the image…so it distorts or doesn’t record the picture. Randy Atkins: Delp says such camera jamming isn’t quite ready for primetime, but... Edward Delp: It’s coming, there’s no doubt about it. Randy Atkins: So paparazzi beware. With the National Academy of Engineering, Randy Atkins, WTOP News.
	Description of a camera-jamming technology from Georgia Tech's Gregory Abowd Photos and video of Abowd's technology at the Ubiquitous Computing Research Group