Food and Wine (Aug. 15) – Your cheap coffee maker is actually an engineering marvel, according to a video by Illinois professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering Bill Hammack, or EngineerGuy on YouTube.
Related article: Illinois Alumni News (Aug. 17) -- Bill Hammack’s unlikely YouTube career falls into three distinct periods. Each is linked to a shirt. In his first set of video segments—when he started down the road to online fame—Hammack, MS ’86 LAS, PHD ’88 LAS, favored a blue shirt of a vibrant hue, offset by a brown sweater vest. It was a period of wild fun, though that wackiness always remained true to the basic principles of engineering as it is embedded in everyday life. In his second period—which we’ll deem his “classic” phase—Hammack sported highly photogenic red. In his third, and current, period of videos—which draw online audiences of six and seven figures—he wears light blue. In all three, he and his shirts inhabit a persona known as “Engineer Guy.”