The Messy Truth About Composite Engineering: When Disciplines Collide
Wed, Jul 15, 2026
Imagine a conference room with three engineers inside it. One is a chemist who passes her days wondering how molecules meld themselves together. One is a physicist with an ability to describe exactly how a wave of stress propagates through a solid. T... Read More
By Mentis Sciences
Research on Reality: University Labs Tearing Down the Walls
Wed, Jul 01, 2026
Labs at universities had been quiet places. Heavy doors. Perhaps the door had some kind of little window. Inside was a professor, and a few grad students doing things nobody outside the walls understood and most of them were fine with it that way.
T... Read More
By Mentis Sciences
Field of Streams: The Hidden Struggles of RF Engineering
Mon, Jun 15, 2026
You probably have never even thought about the radio waves passing through your living room. They're being hurled at you by your Wi-Fi router. Your phone is grabbing them. Some of them come from your neighbor and their baby monitor. The garage door o... Read More
By Mentis Sciences
Your Apartment Can Be a Laboratory: Remote Lab Access Explained
Mon, Jun 01, 2026
It's 11:47 p.m. on a Tuesday. You're in pajamas. There is a bowl of half-eaten cereal next to your laptop. You’re using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) that costs more than your house.
The microscope is at a lab in North Carolina, but you... Read More
By Mentis Sciences
Faster Than Sound Was Yesterday: The Hypersonic Engineering Challenge
Fri, May 15, 2026
It was scary to break the sound barrier. Engineers reasoned the shockwaves would rip an airplane to shreds. They were wrong, obviously. Chuck Yeager made the X-1 go past Mach 1 in 1947, and supersonic flight eventually became so routine that the Conc... Read More
Extreme Engineering: High Temperature Composites Explained
Mon, Apr 13, 2026
Nickel superalloys are tough. Seriously tough. For decades they have been the workhorses of jet engine hot sections, withstanding temperatures that would melt most metals into puddles. They’ve earned their reputation.
But they’ve hit a w... Read More
By Mentis Sciences
When Companies Really Listen: STEM Partners That Understand Education
Wed, Apr 01, 2026
A company pays an engineer to go to a middle school for Career Day. The engineer speaks about rockets for forty-five minutes. The kids clap. Everyone takes a photo. The company states this on LinkedIn.
That’s not a partnership. That’s a ... Read More
By Mentis Sciences
Braided Composite Manufacturing: Crafting A Better Future
Tue, Mar 10, 2026
In traditional composites, the kind designed around layers placed next to one another, like sheets stacked up on a table, that crack has an easy route. It glides between layers, like a letter opener through an envelope. The technical term is delamina... Read More
The Cardboard Box Problem: What Engineering Toolkits Get Wrong
Mon, Mar 09, 2026
Give a kid a STEM kit with step-by-step instructions and just see what happens.
They follow directions. They assemble parts. They reach the predetermined outcome. And then... nothing. The kit goes on a shelf. The learning stops. Mission accomplished... Read More
