3-D printing: A means of producing physical items — including toys, foods and even body parts — using a machine that takes instructions from a computer program. That program tells the machine how and where to lay down successive layers of some raw material (the “ink”) to create a three-dimensional object.
degree: (in geometry) A unit of measurement for angles. Each degree equals one three-hundred-and-sixtieth of the circumference of a circle.
denticles: Microscopic, toothlike scales covering the bodies of sharks and rays.
develop: To emerge or to make come into being, either naturally or through human intervention, such as by manufacturing.
drag: A slowing force exerted by air or other fluid surrounding a moving object. It involves friction. But unlike simple friction, it increases with an object’s speed.
drone: A remote-controlled, pilotless aircraft or missile.
engineer: A person who uses science and math to solve problems. As a verb, to engineer means to design a device, material or process that will solve some problem or unmet need.
environment: The sum of all of the things that exist around some organism or the process and the condition those things create. Environment may refer to the weather and ecosystem in which some animal lives, or, perhaps, the temperature and humidity (or even the placement of things in the vicinity of an item of interest).
force: Some outside influence that can change the motion of an object, hold objects close to one another, or produce motion or stress in a stationary object.
lift: An upward force on an object. It may occur when an object (such as a balloon) is filled with a gas that weighs less than air; it can also result when a low-pressure area occurs above an object (such as an airplane wing).
link: A connection between two people or things.
mechanical engineer: Someone trained in a research field that uses physics to study motion and the properties of materials to design, build and/or test devices.
model: A simulation of a real-world event (usually using a computer) that has been developed to predict one or more likely outcomes. Or an individual that is meant to display how something would work in or look on others.
navigate: To find one’s way through a landscape using visual cues, sensory information (like scents), magnetic information (like an internal compass) or other techniques.
prototype: A first or early model of some device, system or product that still needs to be perfected.
recall: To remember.
rudder: Something used to help steer a ship or boat. It’s usually on the outside of the bottom of the vehicle, at the back end. It can be as simple as a nearly flat, smooth beam of some type that’s hinged at one end. It works on idea that when one side of this beam is more exposed than the other to the force of the water flowing past it, the push of that extra force will cause the boat to swerve. To steer the direction of that swerve, someone usually moves the front edge of the rudder with a handle called a tiller (or helm).
shark: A type of predatory fish that has survived in one form or another for hundreds of millions of years. Cartilage, not bone, gives its body structure. Like skates and rays, sharks belong to a group known as elasmobranchs. They tend to grow and mature slowly and have few young. Some lay eggs, others give birth to live young.
steer: To guide the movement of something (a vehicle, a person or an idea) in some particular direction. (in agriculture) A castrated male bovine raised for meat.
submarine: A term for beneath the oceans. (in transportation) A ship designed to move through the oceans, totally submerged. Such ships — especially those used in research — are also known as submersibles.
system: A network of parts that together work to achieve some function. For instance, the blood, vessels and heart are primary components of the human body’s circulatory system. Similarly, trains, platforms, tracks, roadway signals and overpasses are among the potential components of a nation’s railway system. System can even be applied to the processes or ideas that are part of some method or ordered set of procedures for getting a task done.
technology: The application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry — or the devices, processes and systems that result from those efforts.
vacuum: Space with little or no matter in it. Laboratories or manufacturing plants may use vacuum equipment to pump out air, creating an area known as a vacuum chamber.
wind tunnel: A facility used to study the effects of air moving past solid objects, which often are scale models of real-size items such as airplanes and rockets. The objects typically are covered with sensors that measure aerodynamic forces like lift and drag. Also, sometimes engineers inject tiny streams of smoke into the wind tunnel so that airflow past the object is made visible.