Whether it’s Christmas or an upcoming birthday, gifts are a fantastic way to show another person you care.

3D volumetric construction is one of the most modern building construction techniques in civil engineering today. It is a form of off-site construction in which units are manufactured in a factory and then transported to site for assembly. The method of constructing within a factory setting ensures that the necessary building materials are brought in just in time and the modules can be constructed irrespective of the weather outside.  The products can be transported to site in various states of finish (modules, basic structural blocks or semi finished) ready for assembly in-situ. The basic idea is that as much of the building is constructed off site (in a factory assembly line) and only brought to site for completion.

Based on all the available evidence, climate change is real and it is happening – the planet is experiencing rising temperatures, melting snow-caps, and increased numbers of floods, droughts, and wildfires. 2019 was the second warmest year ever and 2010-2019 was the warmest decade on the planet – ever. Limiting the global temperature rise to well below 2°C this century is one of the defining challenges from the Paris Agreement.

Mechanical engineering students study the forces and thermal environment encountered by a product and its parts so they can come up with the best designs and manufacturing processes of a product. Most importantly, an in-depth understanding of objects and systems in motion are required, which makes mechanical engineering a broad and diverse discipline of engineering. While it can be difficult in the current climate to move to a new city or country in order to pursue your studies, many universities, including some of those on our list, offer distance-learning online degrees. You don’t have to leave wherever you're holed up and, most importantly, you can stay safe!

The world is beset by intertwined crises: the climate, pandemic, and, increasingly, a crisis in the global food supply. It’s prosaic to say, but as the world’s population increases, more food is needed to sustain it. And regardless of the population size, humanity will only ever have the same amount of land on which to produce its food. This, as one may expect, is a growing tension. Luckily, engineers of all stripes are busy using their expertise, conjuring up innovative solutions to address the issue. Here we take a look at some of the most impressive.

1. The Great Pyramid of Giza While there are several pyramids on the Giza Plateau near Cairo, Egypt, the largest is the Great Pyramid of Giza. This pyramid, built circa 2600 BCE, is 146 metres tall with a base of 230 metres. It is made of two million blocks of stone with an average weight of 2.3 metric tonnes. One of the greatest engineering mysteries is how such heavy blocks were built into a pyramid shape thousands of years ago. Cranes as we know them today were certainly not around.

At first glance, engineering and music may seem worlds apart. But when we look closer, the impact of engineering on the music industry cannot be underestimated. In the second part of a series on “Engineering in Pop Culture”, we look at how engineering has influenced music and what happens when their paths cross. Over the years, engineers have altered how music is created, performed, recorded, stored, transmitted, and heard.

Global water scarcity is a huge problem and one that is not going away soon. In fact, as noted by the United Nations World Water Development Report in 2018, it is an issue that is only going to get bigger, the report stating that nearly 6 billion people will suffer from clean water scarcity by 2050. This shortage is caused by a combination of rising global population (leading to economic development) and a reduction of available water (due to global warming).

Long gone are the days when women were believed to have no place in the workforce. In the United States today, women make up 49% of the college-educated workforce. However, despite this encouraging number, careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) remain severely lacking when it comes to females in the field. Let’s break down why that is, and how it can change.

Although electric vehicles hold just 2.8% of the global market share of vehicle sales, they have the potential to change the world. As people are becoming more conscious of the global climate and how their action affects it, they are starting to scramble to do what they can to minimize their own impact. One way of doing so is to drive an electric vehicle, which produces far fewer emissions than a gasoline-powered vehicle.

It is amazing how often engineering concepts (or engineered products) have been incorporated into popular culture. In this blog, we consider the impact of engineering on popular films and vice-versa.

1. Three Mile Island nuclear accident The Three Mile Island nuclear plant is located near Middletown, Pennsylvania. On March 28, 1979, the Unit 2 reactor partially melted down. Although the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island did not result in death, it remains one of the worst engineering failures in American history. Despite the substantial consequences of the accident, it could have been much worse.

For many years, around the world, it has been recognised that there is a skills shortage in engineering; that there simply aren’t enough engineers required to complete large-scale investments of local, national and international importance.