(soft music) - [Female] This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(soft music) - [Male] "Now That's A Good Question with Phil Oldham" was produced under an agreement with Tennessee Tech.

- You can't predict the future but you can count on Tennessee Tech always putting students first.

Our faculty, staff and students have shown strength, compassion, patience and kindness during these trying times.

I'm a college president and Carrie and I are also the proud parents of a Tennessee Tech student.

We want every student to be treated as we want our own son to be treated.

We understand today's challenges and put the focus on student success.

For us it's personal.

That's what you can count on at Tennessee Tech.

(soft music) (upbeat music) Hello, I'm Phil Oldham, president of Tennessee Tech University.

And welcome to Now That's A Good Question.

It's said that a picture's worth a thousand words.

This show's devoted to exploring the notion that a good question is worth a hundred answers.

So today I'm joined by a couple of very special guests and we're going to be talking about engineering and the future of engineering.

Tennessee Tech is known as a school that produces a lot of engineers and I'm thankful to be with us today, Dr. Joe Slater, Dean of Engineering here at Tennessee Tech.

And also then after the break, we'll be joined by Dr. Pingen Chen, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering to talk about his work with electric vehicles.

So first let me welcome Dean Slater.

Joe welcome and thank you for being with us today.

- Thank you, it's great being here.

I appreciate the invitation.

- That's great.

So you've been, you've been at Tech now for a couple of years, almost not quite two years.

And you bring a great background with you.

An extensive background in aerospace and mechanical engineering from different parts of the country and also a fellow in the Society of Mechanical Engineers, I noted, so you got, you got a great background.

So what, what's it like to be a Dean of one of the best colleges of engineering in the country?

- You know, I, I, couldn't be more excited.

You know coming here when you, you come on campus, you can just you can feel the energy and you walk through the buildings, you can see that these kids, these faculty, the staff they're really getting at it.

They're, they're going and they're creating the cutting edge designs and they can compete with anybody in the world.

And I've seen it in the classroom.

It's, it's exhilarating because these are hardworking kids and they are ready to work when they graduate and up and down it's, it's a great honor.

It's a great honor.

- Well, it's great to have you here.

And I know there's a lot of good things in store for engineering, so but we often hear that we need more engineers.

You know what does it mean to be an engineer in today's world?

And, and, and why should you know the rest of us care about that?

- You know, part of the challenge that we have getting, getting kids interested in engineering is they don't necessarily know what it is.

But you actually do.

Because everything that you look at all around you was, was created by engineers.

Unless it was a tree, and even there it's, you know it could be biomedical or biological engineering.

It is engineers that, that make your, make your phones, make your cameras, make your cars, make your dishwashers, all of that.

They improve our well-being by making the medical devices and instruments.

They make our lives better sometimes by making things safer but sometimes by making them more cost-effective.

So now we can afford to each have a computer where you know, when I was younger, that, that was impossible.

That was way beyond the reach.

So, you know, engineers touch all of our lives and they transform them and being an engineer means you're actually making the future.

And that's, that's what we need to really get across to people.

- So it makes me curious.

I mean, you've been an engineer for a long time, your whole career.

What got you interested in becoming an engineer?

- Well, I spent a lot of my career working in aerospace, but that, that all started back when I was in high school and basically saw a lot of the, the A-10 fighter jets flying, flying overhead.

- Is that the Warhol, is that what they?

- That is the Warhol.

- Warhol, yeah.

- And you know, that, that plane is fascinating.

It is a, an engineering masterpiece way beyond its time.

And I said, you know how cool is it to make something that's that incredible and, and be part of making the next thing that's that incredible?

I mean, because when you design something like that it lasts and it's part of your future and your children's futures.

It echoes.

- So you got interested in engineering from a standpoint of, of aerospace, airplanes, jets.

Do you fly, are you pilot?

Do you have to be a pilot?

- No you don't need to be a pilot.

I actually find, I find the design of those, the creation the more important thing.

It's kind of like the difference between being a baseball player and somebody who designs the bat to make it work better.

What I find fascinating is, is making that tool, making that thing work better and getting that cutting edge.

And I know there's plenty of people that enjoy flying and, and those, but really for me, it's, how can we get more performance?

How can we do better?

That's what excites me.

- So your, your comment about a lot of people just don't know a lot of kids especially don't know what an engineer does, or you know, what, what they, what their normal day is like.

Are there misconceptions, common misconceptions about engineers and what they do?

- Yeah, I think the biggest misconception is people don't know what they do and the more they get an idea, they sometimes go down I think a path that causes people to lose interest prematurely.

There's a lot of math and there's a lot of science and that does attract a lot of people into the field of engineering.

But it's not, it's not there to be an obstruction.

And you can get through that if you want to.

On the other side of that, is a lot of interpersonal skills and working in teams.

I think the common misperception is the engineer works by themselves.

They're, they're, anti-social, it's not fun.

And it couldn't be farther from the truth.

I had the honor of sitting at NASA at a meeting about 10 years ago when I watched a few NASA engineers spec out a spacecraft in about two hours.

- Oh, wow.

- And just from, you know, back of the envelope calculations and these were no harder calculations than what you learn in 10th grade math.

So that, that misconception, there's a lot of real fun stuff that comes through that.

And you have to understand it, but once you get that, they're just tools.

And then you get to the fun stuff and you get to play with a lot of really cool tools and get a lot of cool things done.

- Yeah I think, you know, when I talk to young people a lot of times they think, oh the engineer, that's really hard to do.

Is it as hard, you think, as they perceive it to be?

- So, you know, it is hard, but my observation has always been that it really is how much drive you've got.

It's not really how hard it is.

You know, I've looked at, at some data at one point in time to see what predicted success and the best predictor of success was actually age.

It was maturity.

And what that shows you is that with maturity people make decisions, they know why they're there, that they really want it.

And they're able to bear down a little bit better.

So the important thing to teach younger kids coming in is that you are going to struggle.

You're going to get knocked down and it's a little bit cliche, but it's true.

It's not whether you get knocked down, it's how you stand back up.

And you can get knocked down over and over.

And you're looking at somebody who failed a final exam their first semester.

- Yeah.

- You know?

I did, I did fine.

I failed, you know, I was failing classes in high school but I turned it around.

And so, it is hard.

- So persistence pays off.

- But it's doable.

Absolutely.

So many people, so many more people could succeed if they just decided they're gonna do it.

- Yeah.

So what, in your view what does it take to be a good engineer?

- Well, you know, that does vary by which field of engineering you go into.

But you need to have a curiosity about how things work.

You want to take them apart, put them together.

And this could be a water flow in a channel.

This could be how a dam works.

This could be how a radio works.

You just want to know how these things work and you want to make them better.

When I hear folks complaining about devices not working the way they want, oh, you'd be a great engineer because you need to see the problem and then you have to see, all right now I've got to figure out a solution.

And it's that persistence.

It's still that same thing, that persistence combined with creativity and I think the biggest mistake that people make with engineering is not understanding the creative part of it.

It's not just math.

- Right.

- It's creative because everything that engineers make did not exist before they envisioned it.

- Yeah.

Some natural curiosity goes a long way, doesn't it?

- Yeah.

And that's why actually you find a lot of engineers tied into the arts.

A lot that were musicians, a lot that are artists.

- Yeah, that's, that's interesting.

So, you know, kind of what, the way I look at it, I'm not sure if this is correct, please correct me if I'm wrong, but you know, to me engineers sort of, as you said, we, engineers design things and build things but fundamentally you kind of solve problems.

You recognize problems and you try to work towards solutions.

And we, on a previous episode, we, we talked to some of your faculty about cybersecurity.

I know the college is heavily involved in cybersecurity problem solving.

And later in this show, we'll be joined by Dr. Chen talking about electric vehicles.

So those are two big areas that the college of engineering here is involved in.

What other areas of note would you bring out that the Tennessee Tech College of Engineering is involved in and helping create a better future for people?

- Well, you know, one of the big challenges we face and we're very blessed in Tennessee, more than a lot of places in the world is, is, is environmental engineering.

As populations go up, we have to do more with less.

We have to take care of the environment.

We've had, we have a mixed history in, in this country that it's a lot better than it was back in the 1960s and '70s, we need to stay conscious of that.

And the problem just gets harder and harder every year.

And, and we've got a fantastic water center and we've got fantastic faculty working in environmental engineering in the College of Engineering.

We also, we also know that energy is one of the biggest pressing issues for a multitude of reasons.

You know, for, for the security of the United States, we need to wean ourselves from, from oil and gas, for greenhouse gases, we need to do the same thing.

But also combustion of petrochemicals causes a lot of pollution that causes health issues.

All of those go to how do we create energy in a safer way through solar wind, all of that?

And that's where we've got an energy center that is fantastic at, at doing these things as well.

And that's where, where cars, electric cars are a piece of that, a very critical piece of that.

- So in just a couple of seconds that we have left in this segment, are there any areas of work that are not on our radar right now that, that you think should be?

- I think what's really missing is the sociology around engineering.

How engineers have to learn how to make better with the world, with cultures, they're designed to need to fit.

And we need to communicate better that, engineering does drive the greatest part of our economy.

And so it is a sociological problem to realize that all of us are builders and designers.

- That's great.

Well, Dean Slater, thank you for being with me today.

It's exciting to see what the future holds, that engineers can help us with and creating that, that world of the future.

After the break, we'll be joined by Dr. Pingen Chen, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering to tell us about electric vehicles, please join us.

(upbeat music) Welcome back to Now That's A Good Question.

Since the break, I'm excited to be joined by Dr. Pingen Chen, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering here at Tennessee Tech.

Dr. Chen has an extensive background in the automotive industry and in particular with electric vehicles.

And that's what primarily I want to talk to, Pingen about now.

So help me welcome Pingen Chen to the show, Pingen thank you for being here, welcome.

- Thank you for having me.

- Yeah it's a lot of exciting things are going on in your world right now.

I know, I know you're staying really busy, doing a lot of work with electric vehicles.

So just real quick, I mean, you know most of us hear about electric vehicles and in fact, I, I've heard recently that General Motors for example, has stated they're going to be all electric in the next 10 to 15 years, which is amazing that it's gonna happen that quick.

So what's drawn you to electric vehicles and what are you excited about?

- Yeah you know, recently in, there are a lot of news and talks around electric vehicle.

And there are reason for that, you know the transportation responds about 30% of the energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

And passenger vehicles response for about 60% of the greenhouse gas emissions.

So electric vehicle is a very natural technologies that can help reduce the energy consumption and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions for the United States, as well as in the entire world.

- Yeah.

So it's definitely a cleaner energy source, right, from that standpoint.

But, you know why should we be interested and and go to the trouble of converting to electric?

- That's a really good question.

Electrical vehicle not only reduce the tail pipe emissions, actually they produce zero type emissions.

But there's still some emissions that can be produced in power generations.

So, but that can be more diversified through the solar energies, from other renewable energies.

But they are variety of forms and that we can do to produce electricity in a cleaner way.

From the user's perspective, I think not only it reduce the fuel cost because electricity is really cheap and reduce the maintenance cost because electric powertrain is much simpler.

- Yeah it's a simpler vehicle, isn't it?

- Yeah.

- For most of us in this region, how well are we positioned to transition to this?

- Nissan, Volkswagen and General Motors, they nearly all or put a significant investment in Tennessee to manufacturer electric vehicle and that really positioned Tennessee as the forefront of the electric vehicle manufacturer hub in, in the South Eastern region.

- That's, that's interesting that we'd be in the, in the center of this, this, this that's great.

So as a university, Tennessee Tech is clearly a school that has a strong focus on engineering.

What are we doing to help with this kind of transition to electric vehicles?

- Well, if you look in the electric vehicle powertrain they use very different component.

They use battery more, much more than the conventional vehicle.

They use motors and the the set up, the manufacturing hub in Tennessee, you know we're generate a lot of additional supply chain.

Now we're bringing additional needs of automotive engineers to serve this electric vehicle industry.

I think as the primary technological university in Tennessee, I think Tennessee Tech University our engineering program, need to adapt and to produce the workforce that is needed to meet our industry need.

And that's why we establish a vehicle engineering program at Tennessee Tech University.

This is a unique one of the kind vehicle engineering program across the state of Tennessee.

So we, we will train the students in different areas electric vehicle, automated and connected vehicle.

In addition to conventional power trains.

And we work with our partners like Nissan North America, our partners like Denzel and General Motors to train the students to meet their needs.

That's where we should position ourself and look into the future of the tech engineering.

- You've got a really exciting project going on right now.

I believe it's funded by the department of energy, United States Department of Energy, looking at how to help rural communities understand the opportunities for electric vehicles.

Tell us a little bit about that.

- Yeah, and that, that is a very unique program supported by US Department of Energy, trying to bring alternative fuel in this case, it's, it's electricity, electric vehicle to our rural areas.

I think our rural community is, is historically is, it's lacking of the opportunity to see the newer vehicle technology, electric vehicle.

And, and.

- Yeah you tend to see these in cities, right?

In urban areas primarily.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Not so much out in the country, in small towns.

- Yeah and that's difficult call.

I mean, if you look at the vehicle manufacturers and they're looking to in the big cities as a major market and then that tends not to focus on rural areas, instead they focus on urban areas.

Projects supported by US Department of Energy is really trying to fill in a gap.

We're trying to bring the state of the art electric vehicle technology to the rural community and trying to have them gain experience, gain the knowledge of operating electric vehicle and kind of benefit and the performance and also learn the best practice about charging electric vehicle, maintaining the electric vehicles.

So now it's necessary towards adoption of electric vehicles.

- Yeah anytime you introduce a new product, a new technology, something different, it, it, it takes a while, doesn't it, for people to get comfortable with it, accustomed to it.

I know I had the opportunity to drive one of the electric vehicles for a couple of weeks recently, and, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I had a great experience, but I noticed I had to think about driving a little differently than I was used to.

It wasn't, it wasn't bad.

It was fine.

But I just, I had to change a little bit the way I thought.

Is that, is that typically what you hear from people?

- Yeah we typically hear one benefit of electric vehicle is it's super powerful.

It can outrun a lot of conventional vehicles in a short amount of times.

And that's one, they are very excited.

- I enjoyed that part.

- Yeah, yes.

But at the same time electric vehicle had come with some limitations as well in the range limitation that require the, the users to pay attention to the charging pattern, make sure the vehicle is sufficiently charged when they, when they go for a long distance driving.

And that's why EV adoption is not only about the vehicle itself about, also about EV infrastructure.

And actually I'm going to share here the Tennessee, TVA and T Tech, are three, they just announced a big news two days ago they to partner together to invest $20 millions to build fast chargers across Tennessee.

So in that to help ease the nerve about range anxiety for electric vehicle.

- Yeah so have, to have rapid charging stations positioned conveniently around the state is, is a big deal.

Isn't it?

So it makes it more convenient.

So that's, that's tremendous.

The last time I purchased a car it crossed my mind that this may be the last gas powered vehicle that I actually buy.

And then I thought, well, what happens to all the, all the used gas powered vehicles that are out in use now, is there a way to convert them to electric or or do they get recycled somehow or any, any thoughts about that?

- That's a good question.

We, we are, we are actually talking about a phasing out of the conventional vehicle and then phasing in of the electric vehicle.

And actually for some electric vehicles that can be retrofitted using the aftermarket hybrid or electric conversion kit.

So that you can maintain this the vehicle body but the powertrain can be totally replaced by an electric power train - Okay.

- technologies on that.

- So you could convert some vehicles to electric?

- Yes, there, there is a such a technology available in the market.

And actually in our DOE project, we have one of the pickup truck F-250 pickup truck, that originally was built in conventional powertrain.

But we add in this hybrid, hybrid powertrain, so now they make it a pipe plug in hybrid so that it can, it can plug in the vehicles to the regular wall outlet to receive the electricity from your grid and then put it in a vehicle so that it can help improve the vehicle efficiency.

- Is the range and charging capacity of batteries, is that still kind of a limiting factor in in EVs at this time?

- Yes I, I would like to say two things.

Number one, look at the history.

The battery technology have been through a significant development in the past decades.

And from 10 years ago to now we have seen significant increase of power density.

And that's why we see the maturity of EV manufacturing.

It's really driven by the battery technology and the range of EV is directly tied to the, the, the battery capacity.

So looking into the future, we are really look, we are currently approaching the theoretical limit of the current lithium ion battery.

- Right.

- In terms of the power density.

And we are looking for other next generation battery technology to further improve the power density to break the barrier of the current technology.

So that can potentially significantly increase the EV range.

So that you don't have to worry about the the range when you're driving an electric vehicle.

- That's great.

Well, thank you for being with us today.

I want to thank the viewers for being with us today.

I want to thank Dean Slater and Dr. Chen for their insightful conversation around engineering and electric vehicles.

And remind everybody to continue to ask good questions and keep your wings up.

(upbeat music) (soft music) - [Male] Now That's A Good With Phil Oldham was produced under an agreement with Tennessee Tech.

- You can't predict the future but you can count on Tennessee Tech always putting students first.

Our faculty, staff and students have shown strength, compassion, patience and kindness during these trying times.

I'm a college president and Carrie and I are also the proud parents of a Tennessee Tech student.

We want every student to be treated as we want our own son to be treated.

We understand today's challenges and put the focus on student success.

For us it's personal.

That's what you can count on at Tennessee Tech.

(soft music) - [Female] This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(soft music)