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By Bryen Lorenz
The current
dean of the school of engineering at Widener University has undertaken
an aggressive program of remodeling, re-equipping, and modernizing
the engineering laboratories. As I was recently appointed to the
position of the department chair of electrical engineering, the
job of supervising this effort, at least in the E.E. programs,
has fallen to me. As a consequence, this summer has found me wading
through crumpled boxes of “stuff” and sifting through
years of accumulated “things,” which had been left orphaned
in places scattered throughout the laboratories, in an attempt
to clean out these spaces. The dilemma that I faced was whether
to find new locations to store old equipment, which is a creative
and inventive endeavor, sell these items as used equipment for
whatever they will fetch, or simply haul these items to the dumpster
as scrap. The university's position on storage, similar to
policies at other institutions, is that it cannot afford to provide
valuable space as storage since this is not revenue-producing,
whereas classroom or laboratory space is.
As I proceeded
in my task, it occurred to me that I was rummaging through an
attic full of items that must have befallen a similar set of circumstances
years ago, placed there by unseen hands that have long-since retired,
moved on, or passed away. These same hands had faltered in disposing
of these items, feeling instead that they had some redeeming value
for a future generation of laboratory instruction. In some way,
I felt as if I were excavating an archeological site, searching
through the debris of the past, moving ever backward in time.
I had no idea of what antiquities lay before me. (It was rumored
that a milk-separating machine from the 1930s or '40s had been
found in one of the chemical engineering laboratories.) As I dug
deeper, electrical devices with clumsy, bright red digital readouts
with protruding banana plug inputs gave way to analog meters with
squeaky knobs and yellowed instruction booklets. The digital divide
had been crossed. Next, a cache of vacuum tubes was neatly placed,
row upon row, in a drawer. In another drawer lay small power transformers.
In yet another drawer were rheostats and potentiometers. Searching
still further, hidden beneath the clutter, lay “potted”
meters with fitted covers, large white dial faces and long black
pointers for measuring currents and voltages. The manufacturer
had thoughtfully equipped these devices with a partially mirrored
dial face to eliminate parallax errors, as well as large terminal
posts with knurled binding posts to fasten the electrical leads
to the meter. Finally, after some time, I came upon a Gauss meter,
which stood alone in its own sturdy, wooden case. The red instruction
booklet, which came with the meter, was dated 26 August 1944 and
labeled “CONFIDENTIAL.” Inside on the first page was
a rather ominous set of instructions entitled, “Destruction
of Abandoned Material in the Combat Zone.” It went on to
read that the following means were authorized for the destruction
of the device: “1. Explosives, when provided 2. Hammers,
axes, sledges, machetes, or whatever heavy object is readily available
3. Burning by means of incendiaries such as gasoline, oil, paper
or wood 4. Grenades and shots from available arms 5. Burying all
debris or disposing of it in streams or other bodies of water.”
With all this spelled out, a final warning at the end of the page
intoned “DESTROY EVERYTHING!” With this in mind, it
seemed a miracle that the Gauss meter, which stood before me,
was undamaged.
Nonetheless,
I decided to bring this relic to a older colleague who had worked
in the field of magnetism and magnetic materials for many years,
to show him what I had found. He looked at it for about a minute
and went directly to a little-used cabinet in the back of his
laboratory. After rummaging in the cabinet for several more minutes,
he pulled out an almost exact duplicate! It, however, was painted
gray and was labeled TS-15C (mine was TS-15A). We both smiled.
He, for having saved this device for all these years, and I for
believing that I had discovered a truly unique meter. He went
on to speculate that this meter was probably employed to measure
the magnetic flux of magnets used in radar sets during the war.
The reason for the stern warning to destroy the device in the
face of enemy capture was to deny information regarding the physical
dimensions of the magnets used in the radar sets, which this Gauss
meter was designed to measure, as well as what the probable maximum
strength of the magnetic flux was, through the scales printed
on the dial face.
With this
in mind, I offer the following suggestion to the ASEE (or any
other interested party): design an Internet service, which for
a small fee would list used, old, or outdated engineering laboratory
equipment. I feel that removing unwanted but serviceable items
from gathering dust and placing them where they can be best used
would be of great benefit to the technical community as a whole
and specifically to the engineering educators. For example, I
noticed recently that the chairman of the electrical engineering
department at Northeastern University, located in Boston, has
sent out an announcement regarding three used Faraday-Machine
Laboratory benches that were up for sale. Having a Web site with
this information would have been more effective and perhaps cheaper
as well, when considering the cost of duplication, stationary,
postage, envelopes, stuffing, and the like.
In the meantime,
would anyone like to own a collection of slightly used vacuum
tubes or perhaps some handsome-looking meters?
Bryen
Lorenz is a professor of engineering and chairman of the electrical
engineering department at Widener University in Chester, PA. He
can be reached by e-mail at bryen.e.lorenz@
widener.edu.
