June 2006 Mechanical Engineering: Editorial

editorial

striking the right chords

By
John G. Falcioni,
Editor-in-Chief

We write about serious technology all the time, but once in a while we like to look at how technology enables some people to have a little fun.

In this month's Input Output column, Executive Editor Harry Hutchinson has a little fun of his own as he writes about a company that developed a way to actually play a virtual air guitar. For those not in the know, an air guitar is as much an instrument as its user is a musician—not at all. If you've ever been to a rock 'n' roll concert, you likely will have seen 90 percent of the audience pretending to pick the strings of a, well, an "air" guitar, while the musicians on stage play the real thing.

Motion sensing has become increasingly integrated not only into virtual reality for practical engineering, but into the sublime as well. The virtual air guitar uses orange gloves, a Webcam, and analytical software. Many designs use accelerometers and other technologies.

Video game giants Sony and Nintendo are introducing games where the controller, equipped with motion sensors, becomes a virtual fishing rod that must be physically tugged and pulled in order to catch fish and score points.

Other games scheduled for release in the next months include a fighting game, where the controller acts as a sword and points are awarded by slashing virtual opponents through the air, and a football game where the player has to do some physical work in order to earn points. So much for the armchair quarterback!

• • •

Being editor of this magazine has its privileges. One of the highest is meeting someone who, through the years, has become not just a dear friend but also a source of personal inspiration: William Begell, the long-time chair of the Mechanical Engineering magazine Editorial Advisory Board.

Bill, an ASME Fellow, has been the recipient of many awards throughout his life, mostly for his engineering work, especially in the area of heat transfer. In fact, before starting his technical publishing firm, Begell House, in the 1960s, he served as the managing engineering director of the Heat Transfer Research Facility in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Columbia University. This was just one of a number of impressive appointments Bill has earned throughout the course of his life.

Last month, I was invited to attend the Fifth Annual Heritage Luncheon at the Center for Jewish History in New York City, where Bill received the Vilna Award. Bill Begell is a Holocaust survivor and his story, as is true of the tales of other survivors, is one of infinite bravery and determination.

In his sardonic way, Bill said that this is the first award he has received in his life that he hasn't earned: "I was born into it."

His personal story—chronicled by director Stephen Spielberg while gathering information for his film projects—reads like a novel of intrigue. Bill was born in the city of Vilna, then in Poland. Today, known as Vilnius, it is the capital of the Republic of Lithuania. At age 17, after heeding the thinly veiled warnings of Maj. Karl Plagge, a German army officer, Bill jumped out of a window to flee a labor camp and begin a long road toward freedom.

The 61 years that have transpired between that day and today have been filled with a mixture of personal tragedy and professional accomplishments. Through it all, Bill Begell remains a strong advocate for ASME and a stirring role model for everyone.