GBM #3 10/21/10

For the third general body meeting of the semester, Dr. Bryan Crane from Illumina Inc. came to talk to us about optomechanical and fluidic designs in the field of Genomics. He began by first explaining that Illumina Inc., is a leading developer of genetic sequencing technology whose products are revolutionizing the field of molecular medicine. Their breakthroughs in Genomics (aka the study of an organism's DNA sequence) are aiding in the early detection of diseases and providing improved treatments to cure these ailments.

Dr. Crane is a Senior Engineer whose primary duty is the development of the HiSEQ 2000 sequencing device. He explained how the optical and thermal/fluid systems within the device enable the machine to read and process over 3 Billion clusters of information from the human genome. This "sequencing by synthesis" technology allows the HiSEQ 2000 to deliver the industry's highest sequencing output at the fastest data generation rate.

All of the Officers and members of ASME@SDSU would like to greatly thank Dr. Crane for taking time out of his busy schedule to come down and provide us with such fascinating look into the field of genomics engineering!

GBM #2 10/7/10

Last Thursday we had our second general body meeting of the semester, and once again it was a another massive turnout!

Delicious pizza and drinks were served once again while the ASME Officers spoke about the upcoming Career Fair and SDSU Chiller plant factory tour. Then, Bjorn Johnson, Chief Scientist at Johnson Engineering Solutions, LLC came up to speak about the future of robotics and artificial intelligence. He showed us some of his work with swarm U.A.Vs (unmanned aerial vehicles) systems and the components and technologies that are required for their development. He then showed us cheap and effective ways to get started in robotics and A.I. research. Mr. Johnson recommended using the Parallax BOE-Bot as a good starting point for robotics and coding. Luckily, most mechanical engineering students at SDSU already have used one in some way or another, so we are all headed in the right direction!

The second general body meeting was a huge success. Many thanks and praise go out to Mr. Bjorn Johnson for being such an awesome guest speaker!