Motovated > News > Newsletter August 2007

NEWS

Motovated Design & Analysis Newsletter - August 2007

Hello everyone,

We hope you are making the most of the winter weather. In this newsletter we have some more up-coming events for you, another joke and puzzle, and some website updates for you to check out.

Greg Morehouse
General Manager
Engineering Analyst
PUZZLER: Burning rope

There are two lengths of rope.
Each one can burn in exactly one hour.
They are not necessarily of the same length or width as each other.
They also are not of uniform width (may be wider in middle than on the end), thus burning half of the rope is not necessarily 1/2 hour.

By burning the ropes, how do you measure exactly 45 minutes worth of time?

(solution at end of newsletter)


Upcoming Events:

SolidWorks World Australia 2007 is coming up on the 10th of September, which is a great opportunity to meet other users, hear about the latest advances in the technology and attend the launch of SolidWorks 2008.

Also as part of the program:

Meet the Expert
COSMOSWorks

Design verification trends and
development of COSMOS

 Featuring: Greg Morehouse from
Motovated Design

For more information click here:

Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) Forum

The local chapter of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers is planning an open forum on the advantages, disadvantages and challenges of offloading manufacturing offshore, China especially.

We are looking for panel members who have been there done that, to share their experiences prior to an open forum for questions and floor discussion. Please email Greg here if you have some experiences, good or bad, that you would like to share, or follow the link for more info about SME.

SME local 415 http://chapters.sme.org/415/homepage.htm

Summer work for students:

We were recently out at the University of Canterbury attending the Innovation Expo. This was an opportunity for students to see what local engineering companies are involved in and some of the different kinds of work available.

Motovated usually takes on a student over the summer months, so if you have any projects requiring some offload capability or someone working in-house over the summer please give us a call.
Website updates

We have also put up some recent projects on our Gallery page on the website. Take a look at what's new here: www.motovated.co.nz

JOKE: Engineers vs. Mathematicians


A math and engineering convention was being held. On the train to the convention, there were both math majors and engineering majors. Each of the math majors had his/her own train ticket. But the Engineers had only ONE ticket for all of them. The math majors started laughing and snickering. The engineers ignored the laughter.

Then, one of the engineers said, "Here comes the conductor". All of the engineers piled into the bathroom. The math majors were puzzled. The conductor came aboard and collected tickets from all the math majors. He went to the bathroom, knocked on the door, and said, "Tickets please". An engineer stuck their only ticket under the door. The conductor took the ticket and left. A few minutes later, the engineers emerged from the bathroom. The math majors felt really stupid.

On the way back from the convention, the group of math majors had ONE ticket for their group. They started snickering at the engineers, who had NO tickets amongst them.

When the engineer lookout shouted, "Conductor coming!", all the engineers again piled into a bathroom. All of the math majors went into another bathroom. Then, before the conductor came on board, one of the engineers left the bathroom, knocked on the other bathroom, and said, "Ticket please."

Thanks again for your time, we look forward to working with you in the coming months.

Greg and the team at Motovated,

"Engineering Your Vision"


Solution to the puzzle:
If you light both ends of one rope, it will burn in exactly a 1/2 hour. Thus, burn one rope from both ends and the other rope from only one end. Once the one rope (which is burning from both ends) finally burns out (and you know a 1/2 hour has elapsed), you also know that the other rope (which is burning from only one end) has exactly 1/2 hour left to burn. Since you only want 45 minutes, light the second end of the rope. This remaining piece will burn in 15 minutes. Thus, totaling 45 minutes.