Thursday, October 20, 2011

Tesla Motors CEO Makes Bold Predictions at UC San Diego Event

Solar power will be the leading source of energy in the United States by mid-century. We will be sending men to Mars within the next 25 years. Within the next 20 years, the majority of cars manufactured around the world will be purely electric.
These were some of the predictions made by Elon Musk, CEO of the renowned electric car manufacturing firm Tesla Motors. Musk spoke during the first night of The Atlantic Meets the Pacific event at UC San Diego this week. The three-day conference is a joint venture between UC San Diego and The Atlantic magazine, a well-known, high-end publication.
Musk also is the CEO of SpaceX, which aims to design a rocket for inter-planetary exploration. On top of that, he is the chairman of Solar City, one of the leading providers of solar energy in the United States.
In case you missed it, here is our live Twitter feed from Musk’s talk, with more interesting tidbits from him.




 UCSD engineering 
This concludes our live tweet from The Atlantic Meets the Pacific event at UC San Diego. 
17 Oct Favorite Reply Delete
 UCSD engineering 
: SpaceX's focus is to transport many people at very low cost reliably to Mars, even when no one else wants to do it. 
17 Oct 
 UCSD engineering 
: Mars is a fixer-upper of a planet. It will take a couple of 100 years to terraform. 
17 Oct 
 UCSD engineering 
: We should spend about 1/4 of 1 percent of GDP on space exploration. Less than health care but more than lipstick. 
17 Oct 
 UCSD engineering 
: The mood ought to improve. Life is really pretty good. 
17 Oct 
 UCSD engineering 
: Daily news should be called "what's worst in the world today?" 
17 Oct 
 UCSD engineering 
: What is the future of US as an arena for innovation? 
17 Oct 
 UCSD engineering 
: the goal is to get the price of moving to Mars below the costs of a middle class home in California: $500,000 
17 Oct 
 UCSD engineering 
: We should try to establish a self-sustaining growing civilization on another planet. Best shot is Mars. 
17 Oct 
 UCSD engineering 
: what originally brought him to CA was the find a high-energy storage device for electricity. 
17 Oct 
 UCSD engineering 
: In 20 years, majority of cars manufactured purely electric. 15 years after majority of cars on the road will be too.
17 Oct 
 UCSD engineering 
: the biggest challenge is to provide solar power at competitive costs without subsidies. 
17 Oct 
 UCSD engineering 
Correction: : Solar power will be biggest power source in US by mid-century. 
17 Oct 
 UCSD engineering 
: Solar power will be biggest power source in US by turn of century. 
17 Oct 
 UCSD engineering 
: How should people think about energy? What role does solar power play? 
17 Oct 
 UCSD engineering 
: Interest in electric vehicles goes back to his college years. 
17 Oct 
 UCSD engineering 
Musk: With Internet, more info than library of Congress on your iPhone. Wanted to add a brick to that edifice. 
17 Oct 
 UCSD engineering 
: in college 3 fields most important: Internet, alternative energy and making life multi-planetary. 
17 Oct 
 UCSD engineering 
: How can you be involved in so many fields: PayPal, Solar Power, Tesla, SpaceX, etc. 
17 Oct 
 UCSD engineering 
: the theme of the event is confluence of various kinds.  maybe has unified field theory of it all. 
17 Oct 
 UCSD engineering 
 and  are on stage. 
17 Oct 
 UCSD engineering 
At  event, waiting for  and Fallows to take the stage.
17 Oct 

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Monday, October 17, 2011

Chancellor's Challenge 5K Is Friday

Come help raise funds for scholarships at this year's Chancellor's Challenge 5K at RIMAC Field this Friday. The event has raised $2.5 million in scholarship funds to date. Online registration is $10 for students, $15 for others. All participants receive a free T-shirt and a free lunch.

For more information, go to: http://5k.ucsd.edu/
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Thursday, October 6, 2011

Meet Switchblade, the Little Robot That Could

It can climb stairs, scoot under cars and generally zoom around on all kinds of terrain. Meet Switchblade, a robot designed by the UC San Diego Flow Control and Coordinated Robotics Labs.The lab has put together a new video showcasing all that the robot can do. Watch it below and let us know what you think.

Switchblade also was profiled in Automaton, one of IEEE Spectrum's blogs. Read the story here.
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Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Will It Shake? Jacobs School Engineers Featured on Earthquake Preparedness TV Show

What would happen to your wine rack during an earthquake? The TV show "Totally Unprepared" set out to answer this question with a little help from one of the shake tables at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego.

Engineers installed two dummies and two wine racks on one of the campus' smaller shake tables. One of the racks was tied to the wall with straps and its bottles were secured with museum putty. The other rack was not secured.

Next, engineers put the dummies and wine racks through a small quake, the kind that happens pretty much every month in California. Nothing moved. But when the intensity of the shaking was ratcheted up to a 7.5 magnitude temblor, the wine rack that was not secured came crashing down on top of one of the dummies. Bottles shattered, scattering broken glass everywhere.

"If you value your wine, I'd secure it," concluded Andy Gunthardt, a structural engineer who oversees the shake tables on campus.

"Totally Unprepared" is funded by the California Emergency Management Agency, the California Earthquake Authority and the California Seismic Safety Commission.

Watch the episode that took place at the Jacobs School:
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