I-Connect007 Editor's Choice: Five Must-Reads for the Week

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When compiling my Top Five, I tend to let the reader views guide my choices. Oh, sure, sometimes a news item is significant well beyond the reads it receives; that’s why this is an editor’s picks, not a strict Top Five. Still, readership habits inform my choices. That makes it even more interesting when a week demonstrates a theme so convenient as to seem contrived.

Take this week, for example. In this week’s top five, four of the top five are news reports on mil-aero topics. You, dear readers, gobbled up the military and aerospace news this week. The outlier is, as we all would expect, a conference report from our very own Pete Starkey.

We hope you enjoy this digest view of the news from this past week. For those of you in the U.S., enjoy your Labor Day holiday on Monday, September 7.

ACDi Awarded Department of Defense Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity Contract
Published 9/1/2020

American Computer Development Incorporated (ACDi) will, under this contract, “acquire printed circuit card (PCC) assemblies to support a wide range of military projects,” over the next 10 years.

300 Below Selected as Top Team for U.S. Air Force Manufacturing Olympics
Published 9/1/2020

300 Below Inc. earned a spot on the list of 92 top teams in the USAF Manufacturing Olympics, also called the AFWERX Base of the Future Challenge. This challenge is centered, according to the press release, around six topics: “base security, installation resilience, leveraging technology for operational effectiveness, reverse engineering, culture of innovation, and airman and family well-being.” 300 Below brought its cryogenic treatment process, with an eye toward COVID-19, to the improving installation resilience portion of the competition.

TT Electronics Awarded Team Tempest Contract From BAE Systems
Published 9/2/2020

The Tempest project is “tasked with delivering… the Tempest combat aircraft into service by 2035, replacing the existing Typhoon. TT Electronics holds the contract for the “design, development, and qualification of a DC-DC converter.”

Blue Canyon Technologies 6U Spacecraft Deploys as Part of the Deformable Mirror Demonstration Mission
Published 9/2/2020

The Deformable Mirror Demonstration Mission (DeMi) is a collaboration between MIT, Blue Canyon Technologies, Aurora Flight Services, and others. From the press release, “The objective of DeMi is to demonstrate using MEMS deformable mirror technology for adaptive optics in space. The MEMS DMs can be used for a range of in-space applications, including optical communication and wide-field scanning telescopes.”

Promoting a Circular Economy in Electronics Manufacturing
Published 9/3/2020

Pete Starkey, an I-Connect007 technical editor, posts his report on the iNEMI virtual workshop entitled “Electronics Goes Green Conference.” Mr. Starkey’s knack for posting a conference summary so evocative as to feel like a travelogue entry continues with this dispatch. It’s no wonder that Starkey’s reports are so widely read as soon as they’re posted.

 

08/25/2020 | Pete Starkey, I-Connect007

The iNEMI Roadmap is recognised as a valuable tool for defining the state-of-the-art in the electronics industry, identifying emerging and disruptive technologies, and setting industry R&D priorities over the next 10 years. Pete Starkey provides an overview of iNEMI's latest in a series of webinars highlighting the roadmap’s assessments of evolving product requirements, manufacturing infrastructure issues, and technological needs and gaps.

08/24/2020 | I-Connect007 Research Team

First, we asked you to send in your questions for Happy Holden. Now, it’s Joe Fjelstad’s turn! Inventor, columnist, instructor, and founder of Verdant Electronics, Joe has been involved with rigid PCBs and flexible circuits for decades, and he’s ready to share some of his knowledge with our readers. We hope you enjoy “Just Ask Joe.”

07/31/2020 | Nolan Johnson, I-Connect007

On July 30, 2020, Nolan Johnson spoke with Leland Holeman and Amelia Cook, the owners of Goodwinds Composites. While Goodwinds may be a small business, they still pack a heavy punch in the carbon fiber fabricating business. Case in point, the NASA Perseverance Mars rover mission, which had just launched as we captured this interview, carries a helicopter (named Ingenuity) in its payload and contains custom parts fabricated by Goodwinds.