Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1391285
JULY 2021 I DESIGN007 MAGAZINE 77 on one's education, skill set, and experience. My advice is to simply get involved within industry associations such as the Printed Cir- cuit Engineering Association (PCEA), IPC, SMTA, IEEE, etc. I'd even go one step further; I believe senior-level engineers and designers need to step up and volunteer some time in local STEM programs at local colleges or high schools. Because most major universities lack PCB design curriculum or refuse to add it to their existing EE curriculum, the industry is now paying for it and will continue to pay for it as designers head for retirement. e younger generation simply does not know what they don't know, and a career in PCB design is one of those things they simply are not aware of. IPC is heavily involved in many STEM pro- grams throughout the industry. PCEA, a newer organization, has made "Collaborate, Educate, and Inspire" the core of its existence. PCEA has had its printed circuit engineering curriculum and certification program established within the industry, and in several major universities to date. PCEA hopes to get this curriculum implemented worldwide in every major col- lege and university within the respective EE curriculum. Finding those next generation PCB design- ers will be a challenge, especially if major uni- versities and colleges will not implement PCB design as part of their engineering curriculum. So, I feel it's up to each of us senior-level engi- neers and designers to do our part to pass on this knowledge to the younger generations any way we can. Carl Schattke: Pay more. Actually, it's not so much about that as it is about inspiring young people with the joy of solving hard problems that bring useful products to the marketplace. Few people get to go home at the end of the day and say, "I did that." It's one of the key reasons that engineers are some of the hardest work- ing of all professions, but also one of the happi- est of all professions. My core belief is that the more we help others, the more rewarded we are. Engineers can really help a lot of people because we design it once and many can use it, and many can profit from it. DESIGN007 The sentient Magic Carpet from Aladdin might have a new competitor. While it can't fly or speak, a new tactile sensing carpet from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) can esti- mate human poses without using cameras, in a step toward improving self-powered personalized health care, smart homes, and gaming. Many of our daily activities involve physical contact with the ground: walking, exercising, or resting. These embedded interactions contain a wealth of information that help us better understand people's movements. Previous research has leveraged use of single R G B c a m e r a s , ( t h i n k M i c r o s o f t Kinect), wearable omnidirectional cameras, and even plain old off-the- shelf webcams, but with the inevi- table byproducts of camera occlu- sions and privacy concerns. To infer the 3D pose, a person would simply have to get on the carpet, perform an action, and then the team's deep neural network, using just the tactile information, could determine if the person was doing situps, stretching, or doing another action. "You could envision using the carpet for work- out purposes. Based solely on tactile information, it can recognize the activity, count the number of reps, and calculate the amount of burned calories," says MIT CSAIL PhD student Yunzhu Li, a co-author on the paper. Since much of the pressure distributions were prompted by movement of the lower body and torso, that information was more accu- rate than the upper-body data. Also, the model was unable to pre- dict poses without more explicit floor contact, like free-floating legs during situps, or a twisted torso while standing up. (Source: MIT) Intelligent Carpet Gives Insight into Human Poses