Nathan "Nate" Ball is an American mechanical engineer, entrepreneur, TV host, children's author, pole vaulter, and beatboxer.
Nathan "Nate" Ball is an American mechanical engineer, entrepreneur, TV host, children's author, pole vaulter, and beatboxer.
He was born on May 13, 1983, and grew up in Newport, Oregon. He moved to Boston in 2001 to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he studied mechanical engineering and earned two degrees: a Bachelor of Science (2005) and a Master of Science (2007). At MIT he was a two-time NCAA All-American pole-vaulter with a personal record of 16' 8+3⁄4". [1]
Ball has served as a host on the PBS Kids show Design Squad since its first aired in 2007. Ball has also appeared in an episode of MythBusters , a History Channel special on Batman technology, an insurance advertisement, and in a Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman season 4 episode. Ball was featured in the Nova episode The Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers. [2] He is the author of the Alien in my Pocket series of science-adventure chapter books for kids. [3]
In 2005 he co-founded a business to develop the Atlas Powered Ascender, [4] a tool he helped create that enables "reverse rappelling" up vertical surfaces at high speed. [5] He was awarded the Lemelson-MIT Prize in 2007 for his work on the Atlas Powered Ascender, [6] an improved needle-free jet injector system, and his work in engineering outreach with children. He is listed as the co-inventor on six patent applications, including for the Powered Rope Ascender. [7]
Dean Lawrence Kamen is an American engineer, inventor, and businessman. He is known for his invention of the Segway and iBOT, as well as founding the non-profit organization FIRST with Woodie Flowers. Kamen holds over 1,000 patents.
The Lemelson–MIT Program awards several prizes yearly to inventors in the United States. The largest is the Lemelson–MIT Prize which was endowed in 1994 by Jerome H. Lemelson, funded by the Lemelson Foundation, and is administered through the School of Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The winner receives $500,000, making it the largest cash prize for invention in the U.S.
Michael James Massimino is an American professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia University and a former NASA astronaut. He is the senior advisor of space programs at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum.
Jacob Rabinow was an engineer and inventor. He earned a total of 229 U.S. patents on a variety of mechanical, optical and electrical devices.
Paul Beattie MacCready Jr. was an American aeronautical engineer. He was the founder of AeroVironment and the designer of the human-powered aircraft that won the first Kremer prize. He devoted his life to developing more efficient transportation vehicles that could "do more with less".
James McLurkin is a Senior Hardware Engineer at Google. Previously, he was an engineering assistant professor at Rice University specializing in swarm robotics. In 2005, he appeared on an episode of PBS' Nova and is a winner of the 2003 Lemelson-MIT Prize.
Arthur Ganson is a kinetic sculptor. He makes mechanical art demonstrations and Rube Goldberg machines with existential themes. His moving sculptures have been exhibited at a number of science museums and art galleries. Ganson's work appeals to viewers of all ages, and has been featured in an animated children's television show. He has invented mass-produced children's toys, and hosts an annual competition to make Rube Goldberg chain reaction machines.
Amy Smith is an American inventor, educator, and founder of the MIT D-Lab and senior lecturer of mechanical engineering at MIT.
John A. Rogers is an American physical chemist and a materials scientist. He is currently the Louis Simpson and Kimberly Querrey Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Neurological Surgery at Northwestern University.
In science fiction, a shrink ray is any device which uses energy to reduce the physical size of matter. Many are also capable of enlarging items as well. A growth ray typically only has the ability to enlarge.
Mária Telkes was a Hungarian-American biophysicist, engineer, and inventor who worked on solar energy technologies.
Daniel John DiLorenzo is a medical device entrepreneur and physician-scientist. He is the inventor of several technologies for the treatment of neurological disease and is the founder of several companies which are developing technologies to treat epilepsy and other medical diseases and improve the quality of life of afflicted patients.
Angela M. Belcher is a materials scientist, biological engineer, and the James Mason Crafts Professor of Biological Engineering and Materials Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. She is director of the Biomolecular Materials Group at MIT, a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and a 2004 MacArthur Fellow. In 2019, she was named head of the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT. She was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2022.
Meredith Charles "Flash" Gourdine was an American athlete, engineer and physicist. His nickname, "Flash" Gourdine, is a reference to comic strip character Flash Gordon.
Design Squad is an American reality competition television series targeted towards children ages 10–13. Contestants are high school students who design and build machines to compete for a $10,000 college scholarship from Intel.
Hugh Herr is an American rock climber, engineer, and biophysicist. When he was young, both of his legs were amputated below the knee during a blizzard in a rock climbing trip. After months of surgeries and rehabilitation, Herr began climbing again, using specialized prostheses he designed for himself, becoming the first person with a major amputation to perform in a sport on par with elite-level, able-bodied persons. He holds the patents to the Rheo Knee, an active ankle-foot orthosis, which is the world's first powered ankle-foot prosthesis.
Wild Kratts is an educational children's television series that uses a hybrid of live action and animation. The series was created by the Kratt brothers, zoologists Chris and Martin, and produced by The Kratt Brothers Company and 9 Story Media Group, with it being presented by PBS Kids in the United States and TVOKids in Canada. The show's aim is to educate children about species, biology, zoology, and ecology, and how small actions can have a big impact. It has ties to the Kratts' previous shows, Kratts' Creatures and Zoboomafoo, and features several characters from the latter.
Squid Labs was an American independent research and development company founded by a group of four MIT graduates. In 2004, Colin Bulthaup, Dan Goldwater, Saul Griffith, and Eric Wilhelm moved from the East Coast to California to found the company known as Squid Labs. During its years of existence from 2004 to 2007, Squid Labs added three more members to its team: Geo Homsy, Corwin Hardham and Ryan McKinley. Working out of a warehouse in Emeryville, the group adopted the slogan "We're not a think tank, we're a do tank." and created a handful of patents and inventions including an electronically sensed rope, portable pull-cord generators, and a machine that could manufacture eyeglasses of any prescriptions at extremely low cost. Squid Labs was also the birthplace for many companies still running today, such as Makani Power and Howtoons. Although the company no longer exists, Squid Lab's co-founder, Saul Griffith created a similar company in San Francisco named Otherlab.
Ready Jet Go! is an animated educational children's television series produced by Wind Dancer Films. The series aired new episodes on PBS Kids from February 15, 2016 to May 6, 2019, although re-runs continue to this day. It was created by animator and Hey Arnold! creator Craig Bartlett, and is produced in cooperation with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The show teaches science and astronomy.
Joshua Siegel is an American mechanical engineer, inventor, and professor known for his work in emerging technologies. Siegel has received recognition for his innovative research in vehicle data analysis and diagnostics, including the Lemelson-MIT Student Prize. He currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Michigan State University.