For ASME Members: The February issue of Mechanical Engineering magazine

The February 2025 issue of Mechanical Engineering magazine has something for just about everyone. It’s one of our best issues ever and we are leaning into the capability of our new enhanced digital platform. 

For our cover story, we had writer Robin L. Flanigan look at the generation gap with regard to engineering companies, which tend to have strong internal cultures that often prized the idea of “paying your dues.” That doesn’t always sit well with Gen Z, the cohort of workers born since 1997 and who have a tendency to eschew hierarchy.
 
Between that and the Gen Z reliance on text messaging rather than face-to-face meetings, managers often feel like they don’t know how to lead teams filled with so-called Zoomers.
 
But Flanigan also heard praise. “One of the pros of Gen Z is their entrepreneurial spirit,” Guillermo Aguilar of Texas A&M told her. And she uncovered ways for better integrating these young workers into companies.

Elsewhere in this issue, Tom Gibson wrote about some of the engineering behind electric bikes, which are transforming not only the bicycle manufacturing industry but also the lives of avid riders—like Gibson himself. The relative simplicity of a bike means additions such as batteries and electric motors need to be optimized to their smallest form factors, but the impact of each of these advanced technologies is enormous. And manufacturers are noticing.
 
E-bikes, according to Chris Carlson, director of e-bikes at Trek Bicycle in Waterloo, Wis., are “getting upward of around 50 percent of our revenue. It’s helping people rediscover cycling. It’s enormous.”

Gibson also spoke to Adam Mercier, a French engineer whose company, LMX Bikes, has developed an e-bike so powerful that it can almost be considered a motorcycle. 

We also had writers investigate work by researchers who developed a new computer model of running shoes to help better design versions that work for different feet, and an implantable device intended to stem the rising tide of opioid overdoses. And Mark Wolverton talked to engineers at Stanford University who teamed up with the Toyota Research Institute to design a control system for enabling a pair of autonomously driven cars to drift around a test track within a few feet of one another—an ability that should one day help self-driving cars avoid out-of-control skids on icy roads.

Also, as an acknowledgement of the passing of President Jimmy Carter, Lee Langston wrote about a personal connection to the famous solar water-heating panels installed on the White House roof. Even if you are familiar with the saga of those solar energy collectors, you probably haven’t heard this story—which includes an alarmed Secret Service agent eyeing a large syringe wielded by young University of Connecticut engineers. 

That’s just scratching the surface of what we have on offer this month. And remember, if you for some reason missed the January 2025 issue, it is only a click away.

Jeffrey Winters is editor in chief of Mechanical Engineering magazine.