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Nanotechnology software enables students to design molecular machines

By Christine Peterson, on August 11th, 2006

High school students in the COSMOS program were treated to an early version of the NanoEngineer-1 modeling software for atomically-precise nanotechnology. Foresight Director of Education Miguel Aznar reported to Nanorex president Mark Sims on the nanotech course results:

Success! NanoEngineer-1 greatly enhanced my nanotechnology class. My students were excited to manipulate and simulate the world we discussed in lecture. Thank you and Eric Messick (who helped in five computer lab sessions and attended the final presentations) very much for making this possible. Thanks, too, to Eric Drexler, who fielded my students’ questions by telephone. I would like to repeat this next year.

Eric Messick and I recognized three categories of student achievement with NanoEngineer-1:

Most ambitious (Matt’s conversion of rotary motion to linear)
Most destructive (Zach’s argon gun)
Most fun (Richard, Teresa, Lizzie, and Arille collaborating to create Rube Goldberg style machines).

…I have the animations (posted at http://knowledgecontext.org/COSMOS/projects/index.htm) and PowerPoint slides, but not the design files.

Some of these designs take quite a while to download, but the best one (the first one) loads fast. If high schoolers can do this well, why can’t we grown-ups? We’ll find out when NanoEngineer-1 is officially launched, not long from now.

If the designs seem ambitious and hard to build — and they should — keep in mind the expected lifespans of the designers. They’ve got lots of time to see their designs (and these even more impressive ones) become real.

Nanorex is offering free software and support to qualifying educational programs:

If you are a high school teacher or university professor interested in trying NanoEngineer-1, send us an email at info@nanorex.com. If you qualify for our Educational Outreach Program, you and your students will receive free packaged software and support. We can also assist you in developing tutorials and workbook exercises to introduce students to the fundamentals of 3D molecular modeling and molecular mechanics theory.

Sign up now before they are swamped. Surely they can’t provide free support to everyone. Tell ‘em Foresight sent ya. —Christine

August 11th, 2006 | Category: Artificial Molecular Machines, Molecular Nanotechnology, NanoEducation, Nanotechnology, Productive Nanosystems, Research

6 comments to Nanotechnology software enables students to design molecular machines

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  • NikkyBlakk
    June 8th, 2007 at 10:40 AM

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    Instructional systems design that are effectively incorporated in delivering education to students who are not physically on site to receive their education : college courses . By 2003, more than 1.9 million students were participating in on-line learning at institutions of higher education in the United States.. An abundance of research has been done to determine the effectiveness of online learning. Because t
    he abstractions governing the user’s interactions with a PC were so new, many people who had been working white-collar jobs for 10 years or more eventually took such training courses.
    And… we would like to catch fresh resources about:
    It also awards degrees which indicate that a student has undergone a particular curriculum and therefore displays a certain level of competency.. From this link: http://england-courses.online-courses-education.net/ – england courses .. The distinction between TEE and non-TEE subjects no longer exists under the new courses, since every course can be used towards University entrance if the level of achievement is high eno
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  • Mike2007
    May 6th, 2007 at 9:47 AM

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  • Adam
    August 16th, 2006 at 1:27 PM

    I’m curious if when working on such a precise scale, could Rube Goldberg inspired machines be a workable reality? Since there are no monkeys and no balloons at the nanoscale, I’m sure we could design some productive machines in this fashion.

    On a more academic note. This software would have made my Creative Technologies Class in college (with an introduction to nano) a thousand times more interesting and relevant to non-chemical engineers.