Grapes

Are Engineers the Rodney Dangerfields of the corporate world? The CEO of a sizable aerospace company was once quoted as saying, "Engineers are like grapes. If you need some, you go buy a bunch".

Father's Dad

Update on the hovercraft: Took measurements of our gas-powered leaf blower and the eventual pilot, my 10-year old son. The pilot takes up about 22" x 22" in a cross-legged position. Then we weighed the pilot with and without the leaf blower, and calculated the weight of the blower. Next we need to do a layout to determine the size of the craft. And then we will calculate the static stresses we expect to see (not because we need to, but just for fun).

On a random note, I don't know if I will ever buy a 64-bit operating system again. I can't believe how many things won't work properly, and how much annoyance my laptop has caused me over the last year. I knew there were issues, but really thought they would be worked out over time.

Spatial IQ: Ability to mentally manipulate 3D objects. I think this may be my greatest engineering contribution to my family. In other words, I can pack a lot of stuff into small spaces, be they cars, boxes, or whatever.

Entrepreneurship

Can an engineer be an entrepreneur? An engineer applies science in practical ways to solve problems. An entrepreneur manages risk for economic gain.

Do engineers manage risk, or do they avoid it? The success rate of start-up companies or new innovations is extremely low. But the reliability of a bridge or an airplane needs to be extremely high.

I find engineering and entrepreneurship interesting. Stanford has a really nice series of Podcasts available on iTune U that blends both subjects together well. I recommend them as an easy "continuous learning" tool.

I Feel Like I'm Being Followed

I wasn't going to post today, because I'm a bit tuckered out. But in honor of my daughter following my blog, I've got to aim for the stars.

Well, let's see. At work I've got a challenging issue going involving the machining of hand forged parts. Maybe I should have stayed awake during my materials class. But really, can anyone tell the difference between martensite and austenite by looking at the grain structure? Well, of course someone can, but it all looked like a Rorschach test to me. I just saw little sheep jumping over a fence.

Finished another video in the Intro to Java class I'm taking through iTune U. Still enjoying it.

Watched several videos with my son on how to build your own hovercraft. I feel a Tool Time grunt coming on.

21st Century Man

It's Sunday, and my thoughts are a bit scattered, so I think I will just ramble.

Yesterday my 10-year old displayed his genetically prone skepticism regarding the practicality of hovercraft. Well, actually he questioned their existence, and the idea that (according to the Internet) you can build one using a leaf blower. I think we have picked his science project for next year. Time to get started now....

When I was younger I was pretty hard headed. Only knowing me then would allow you to believe I was ever worse than I am now. But I have had a few of my beliefs challenged over the years. I once thought paying 3 times more for an iPod versus any other mp3 player was ridiculous, until I finally tried one. Then I thought the idea of having a phone that surfed the Internet was a little insane (and who wants to put a video screen up to their face?) Now I think my iPhone is the second greatest product of the last several decades. (Excel is my #1 choice for that honor.) So now I'm thinking about buying a Mac to go with the four PC's in my house. After all, it only costs twice as much as other laptops....

And I was very skeptical of NetFlix when I first heard about it. Stream movies through an Xbox? I'm not a gamer, but even it I was I don't think I'd have thought this was a good idea. Until I tried it, of course. Now I'm selling a lot of my DVD's on eBay because I can watch my favorite TV shows any time I want, on any PC in the house or on a laptop while traveling.

Maybe I need to soften up even more. Who knows what else I am missing because of my preconceived notions? Three months ago I no idea that I could learn to program Java, C and iPhone Apps for free direct from Stanford no less!

I use to think I would rather have been born a 100 years ago, so that I could have participated in so many great scientific and engineering developments. Now days, I'm glad to be alive in this age.

Balancing Life

Hmmm, maybe this one will have to be filed under domestic engineering... I'm trying to balance my life. Aside from the Stanford University classes I'm wading through (and really enjoying), I'm also working my way through a Statics and Strength of Materials text. I had the classes 20+ years ago, but most of my experience has been in design. And in the aerospace industry, we tend to be so specialized that the "Stress guys" do the analysis and the designers worry about fit, form and function.

I'm not a fan of this division of responsibility, and it causes a lot of problems. But over the last couple of years, I've actually been in the position of managing a sizable Stress group, and it has been a learning experience. Someday I will expound upon this unique niche of engineers, but not now. For now let's just say I've decided to brush up on my Statics, because given the opportunity, I'd like to shake up the status quo in some small way.

But aside from iTunes U and reading a text book, I've also got to be a father. And just lately I've had some excitement in that arena. I've got four really smart kids, but not one of them has ever shown the slightest interest in anything remotely close to engineering....or math.....or science.... Well, that's not entirely true, my younger daughter is interested in becoming a doctor, so that kind of a science, right?

But the great thing is that about a week ago my 10 year old son told me that he wanted to learn about engineering. And he's smart enough to know that this is not something to say to me on a whim.

In the last few days we have learned about right triangles, Sin, Cos and Tan. We measured a point on our wall within a 1/2" by sighting along a plastic protractor and doing the trig. We defined electricity and experimented with his electric motor to make it a generator. And we learned the principle of an airfoil. The most amazing part of all this is that, with the exception of interrupting with a million questions, he actually paid attention through long, detailed explanations and examples, and he followed the concepts well. Of course I am prejudice, and tomorrow he may revert to one of his previous career choices (fire fighter, donut maker, nursery owner, etc.) But for now, it's great to have another engineer in the house, and I think he will make a fine one.

Continuous Learning

So, work has been pretty hectic the last few years. I've been on a helicopter development program that has had its' share of challenges, and that has translated into very long days and lost weekends. I tend to be pretty committed, so I haven't had a lot of time for hobby's or family, much less learning new things. Which is unfortunate, because learning new things and solving problems is pretty much all I like to do.

But thankfully things have slowed down just a tiny bit, so I've got some spare time. This blog is one testament to that fact. But what I'm most excited about is that I'm spending time on something I have been wanting to do for a long time, which is learn to program.

Of course, with an engineering degree, I've already had programming classes. In fact, I was a computer science major my first year in college. But the school I attended was really focused on business applications, not computer science. I quickly decided that I didn't want to solve some business manager's mailing list problem. (Now I have a much greater appreciation and even interest in data management and manipulation, but as a 19-year old, I just wasn't inspired.) The good news is that drove me to explore other career options, and when I looked into engineering I decided I had been born for it.

Over the years, however, I have often wished I had stronger programming skills, so that I could solve problems more effectively. Sometimes they were engineering problems, but often they were business related. And recently I have even thought that it would be a lot of fun to write an iPhone app. Granted it's unlikely that I will develop the next killer app, but it would be a real kick just to develop something that would work on an iPhone.

Visual Basic would be the most practical language for me to learn, since I could use it at work on a daily basis. But it doesn't get me any closer to an iPhone app, and it doesn't have the power and flexibility of C. Besides, I have toyed with VB over the years, and I can use it a bit when the need arises.

I decided on C, and then found out that I couldn't get into a class during the summer. As it turns out, that was probably a good thing, because I ended up looking into iTunes U, and I was amazed at the classes that are available through podcasts! I have download several complete computer classes from Stanford: an intro class in Java, an intro in C, an iPhone App Development class, plus a couple of others. And these are great classes! They are the complete lectures, with slides. I started the iPhone course, and really liked it. But I decided that I needed to back up and build a foundation before completing that class. So now I am taking the intro to JAVA, and I think the instructor may be one of the best I have ever seen. He really makes me want to take a sabbatical and go get a CS degree at Stanford (as if I could afford it!)

So I'm really excited about the volume and quantity of education that is available for free on iTune U. Maybe it's a good thing I didn't' see this while I was still working 70-hour weeks, because I would have resented not having the time to dive into this. It's great to learn!

A Marvel of Engineering

As I drove home from work today I was listening to one of my favorite Podcasts, Stuff You Should Know. They made a reference to the Hoover Dam being a "marvel of engineering." I find that term a little ironic whenever I hear it, because engineering doesn't get a lot of good press. Engineers are a little bit like offensive linemen; when their name it called, it's almost never a good thing.

I gave a presentation a few years back at my company's internal technical exchange conference. One of my main points was that engineers should rule the world, but they don't. My presentation was on the stereotypical limitations of engineers, and what we need to do to overcome them. The challenge, at least in my view, is that most engineers have self-imposed limitations that they aren't interested in addressing. For example, many engineers feel that they are above working to schedules or worrying about business issues. And most engineers are afraid of conflict, unless it involves a technical discussion, in which case they are likely to seek out conflict. But ask them to confront a peer or subordinate about a work-related behavior, and watch them scurry out of sight.

Engineers should rule the world. But we don't. We let less qualified people make critical decisions, because we are afraid to step up and lead. As a profession, we need to stop acting like disinterested consultants and start living up to our potential.

Alpha

My plan for this blog is to wax poetic about the life of an engineer. From the challenges of a career to the idiosyncrasies of daily life, engineers have a unique perspective that the rest of the world just can't understand. I hope to share my perspective in a way that brings just a bit of understanding and humor to the "human condition" of the oft maligned engineer.