engineering

Why You Used to Have to Use #2 Pencils With Scantron Forms

October 6, 2010 Daven Hiskey

Today I found out why you used to have to use #2 pencils when using scantron forms. Now, you might be saying, “Used to? Don’t you still have to?” It turns out, despite what pretty much all teachers will tell you, not really. Modern scantron systems are quite high-tech, using image sensors and sophisticated image processing algorithms. These algorithms can […]

Articles
Science

Why Men’s Bicycles Have a Horizontal Crossbar and Women’s Bicycles Typically Don’t

September 29, 2010 Daven Hiskey

Today I found out why men’s bikes have a horizontal crossbar and women’s bikes typically don’t. It would seem that having a slanted crossbar like on women’s bikes would make much more sense for men’s bikes, decreasing the chance of racking the guy if he slips off the pedals or the like. However, there is actually a really good reason […]