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Virtually everything around us and everything we use every day has been designed.

Many different engineers/designers work in our modern society, usually specializing in designing one type of product.

• The pens we use, the chairs we sit on, the rooms in which we spend our time, even the clothes we wear – all of these things are the result of decisions made by engineers/designers.
• In our day-to-day lives we take design for granted. We use pots to cook with, scissors to cut with, we sleep on beds, sit on chairs and climb up stairs.
• We rarely stop to think how these objects came into existence – and what design decisions went into their creation to make them work and look the way they do. 

Design decisions relate to many aspects of an object.

• They include decisions about the use of an object, its size and weight, how it will be constructed, what materials are to be used in its construction, what it will look like, how much it will cost and how long it will last.

It is important for you as future engineers/designers to understand how products are conceived and built, and what design decisions are made in that process.

• “Unpacking” the design of an object will lead you to the design decisions that were made in its conception – you can then use this knowledge in your own design work.
• Make sure you consider the most obvious decisions as well as those that are more subtle.
• For example, a chair must have a height suitable for sitting on (an obvious design decision), but a particular chair may also be designed to fit under a standard table (a more subtle design decision). 

Design Challenge – Asking the Right Questions

Before an object is made, it must be designed.

• Whether this design process is simple or complex, there are a number of questions that must be asked before construction can begin.
• Good design will greatly enhance the success of an object, and asking the right questions in the design process will greatly enhance the success of the design.
• Many design decisions are made according to a design “brief” – the following suggestions of design questions and considerations may already be included in a design brief, or you can incorporate them.

 Use of the object

• How is the object going to be used?
• Who is going to use it?
• How will other design considerations affect its use?
• Determining the use of an object is an important first step in considering its design, but it is also worth checking your design will still work after you have considered all the other design elements.

 Aesthetics of the object

Aesthetics relates to the appearance, beauty and feel of an object and is another important design element. Sometimes aesthetic decisions are purely up to the designer, sometimes they relate to the person who will use the object.

• What shapes are appealing?
• Do the dimensions of the object seem correct?
• Are different parts of the object in proportion to each other?
• What colors/textures are right?
• How will the object fit into its intended surroundings?
• What sort of finish will look best?

Durability of the object

• How long do you expect this object to last?
• Will it be used inside or outside?
• Does it need protective finishes?
• Will it be used for food or liquid?
• Does it need to withstand heat or moisture?
• Will children be using this object?
• Is it decorative or does it need to withstand heavy handling? 

Construction materials

• Asking questions about which materials to use relates to all of the above questions. Once you have a clear idea about the way you want your object to look and work, you can choose a material that will meet your criteria.
• Sometimes designers work the other way round – they find a beautiful material that they enjoy working with and ask what they could make with that material to enhance its qualities. 

Construction methods

There is nothing worse than spending long periods of time designing an object only to discover that it is unable to be built.  Ask questions about how you will construct the object.

• Is the construction method the most suitable for its intended use?
• Will construction methods affect the appearance or durability of the object?

Cost of the object

Asking questions about the cost of an object may be important if you plan to sell it later, and it is also important to know that you can afford to build it in the first place.

• Is the cost of materials or processes a consideration in your design?
• Do you need to investigate cheaper materials for some elements?
• How much will your object cost to build?
• How long will it take to build?
• Could you use recycled materials?
• What about the environmental cost – is this important to you?

Once you have settled on all the elements in your design, sit back and think about it carefully as a whole design.

• Does it give you all the answers you want?
• Could you change anything that would make it work better or look better?
• What do other people think of your design?
• Can you now develop it into a built object?

 Contributor: James W. Orr

I want to talk to you about what the characteristics of a typical engineer are. They can be likened to a picture puzzle where each characteristic is a puzzle piece to be installed to make the final picture..

Characteristics:

Slightly less than 5% of college grads are engineers,

There are about 1.6 million engineers in the current workforce,

They like/are satisfied with their job and want to do it well.

Engineers are seen in many non-traditional opportunities/professions- examples are:

                Engineer                                                Profession

                Neal Armstrong                                    Astronaut/First on Moon

                Herbert Hoover                                   President of the United States

                Jimmy Carter                                         President of the United States

                Alfred Hitchcock                                  Movie Director

                Eleanor Baum                                       Dean of Engineering                           

                Herbie Hancock                                   Jazz Musician

                Ellen Ochoa                                           Space Shuttle Astronaut

                Hyman G. Rickover                              Father of the Nuclear Nay

                Bill Nye                                                   TV Show Host “Bill Nye the Science Guy”

                Boris Yeltsin                                          Former President of Russia

                Montel Williams                                   Syndicated Talk Show Host

                Michael Bloomberg                             Billionaire/Mayor of New York City

                Yasser Arafat                                         Palestinian Leader/Nobel Prize Laureate

                Tom Landry                                           Former Dallas Cowboy’s Head Coach…..

• You are presented with challenging work,
• You will impact society,
• Engineers will be motivated by financial security,
• You will most likely gain prestige in significant ways, such as contributing to the global economy, our standard of living, national security, public health, safety, and policy,
• You understand how things work,
• You will be working in a professional environment,
• Engineering is a very creative profession-rewarded through the issuance of Patents and Nobel Prizes,
• You will work in TEAMS,
• You will work on projects of increasing complexity,
• You will make good use of the time available to complete these projects, and are very conscious of costs,
• You will have an excellent grasp of the design process,
• You will communicate ideas effectively both orally and in writing,
• You will conduct business ethically and legally,
• You will have a life time learning attitude,
• You are always conscious of the need for safety,
• You are tenacious,
• You use a rigid fine tuned multi step design process,
• You will develop the need to grasp the emotional needs/reserves of the profession especially when dealing with people,
• If you are management material then expect to be organized, clear thinking, have excellent people skills, and be able to deal with marketing/customer relations, business/budgeting, operational duties and also handle the stress that goes along with these,

The engineer has succeeded in the classroom by:

• Having a good attitude(s)
• Having made goals,
• Is good at taking tests,
• Making the most of your on campus resources/staff,
• Knows their own learning style(s),
• Uses their time effectively and wisely,
• Can be held accountable,
• Have overcome challenges and grow in the process,
• Has an analytical, creative, personal, problem solving capability,
• Has developed brainstorming, critical thinking and decision making strategies,
• Has excellent visualization, graphics, measurement, proportionality, and  sketching skills especially in 3D space,
• Can develop isometric and orthographic drawings,
• Has excellent understanding of the computer tools such as the Internet,Word, Excel, Power Point, especially 3D CADD- using Industry Std AutoCad/Inventor, Solid Works, ProE, MathLab, CFD, CAE, programming languages, and project management software.
• Has excellent grasp of scientific, math/geometry, chemistry, biology, technology, and business principles and can apply them to solve problems.

Yes, this is a very, very big order, however these can be mastered and developed into a rewarding career.

Contributor: James W. Orr      

 I would like to give you a short history of how I became an engineer. It’s not your stereotypical – get out of high school, go to college, find an engineering job, remain in that job for ever, situation.

I became interested in science first, as I said earlier, in my very early years as an avid reader of science fiction books, especially the Tom Swift series, and of course the comic books of the 60’s. It seems that my interests started to zoom skyward. As I was starting high school a neighbor who was employed at Fermi National Accelerator Lab in Batavia Illinois always talked about his experiences supporting High Energy Particle smashing there. As a result I built my own cloud chamber to hopefully witness cosmic or watch face radiation zoom through the mist that was produced within the device.

The Vietnam war diverted my attention to enlisting in the NAVY for 4 years where I became an engine room operator and Petty Officer on an old World War II diesel electric submarine that supported/trained special forces groups in recon and amphibian type operations.  From the NAVY I went directly into college at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign using my GI Bill and State Veterans Scholarship to get me through.

I was interested in becoming a teacher of Engineering Technology. I received my degree with an emphasis in machine design. I sent out hundreds of resumes to Jr. Colleges only to be told I needed experience before they would hire me. So, I began interviewing on campus for Industrial jobs. I was offered a job at the then Kysor of Byron (Byron, Illinois) – manufacturer of off highway vehicle heating and air conditioning products as a project engineer. I learned how to make production type drawings of parts and assemblies. I designed and tested a new round heater product as a cost reduction of an old square style unit.

The times and economy in the late 70’s began to tank and I was enlightened as to what the term “lay off” meant after almost 3 years there. I had to find a new position quickly as my family was getting larger with my first child. I went out and found a job in Rockford, Illinois at the then W.A.Whitney Co., as a Jr. Draftsman. Whitney manufactures machine tools for the metal fabricating industry and sells their machines all over the world.  I progressed up through the ranks to become my boss’s right hand man, the company’s plasma arc cutting ‘Guru’ and a Sr. Project Engineer. I was there for almost 25 years when another “lay off” presented it self in July of 2001.

I would like to talk a little bit about the Whitney experience as it was the most rewarding.  I gained valuable skills and knowledge through this growth experience- such as: Becoming a lead pencil drawing drafter (eventually as the technology presented itself using CAD to produce drawings), a problem solver (through cost reduction efforts, new product integration into designs, tester of new designs, doing R&D on new designs, builder/installer of machines/equipment that I designed), supervisor/scheduler of drafters, designers, and engineers, project leader from initial concept to the installation of equipment (also had project responsibilities on various contracts, such as with Caterpillar in all their Illinois plants, as well as other customer/vendor accounts), a trainer of internal and external customers of the principles of operation/maintenance of new equipment that I designed, technical writing responsibilities for drafting new equipment operating and maintenance manuals, application/technical product service engineering where proposals, quotations, and  promotional materials were created as well as answering customer questions, I also spent 3 weeks in Germany retro-fitting old plasma arc cutting systems with new technology, and finally the crowning achievement were my 2 patents: 1) an upgraded plasma cutting waste/debris collection device on a new machine, 2) a new scrap collection-exhaust vacuuming device on a new Laser Cutting machine. An interesting side bar here. I was at my grandfather’s house early on in high school. He asked me to come with him to his laboratory which I had no prior knowledge of. I was amazed as he was working on some experiments to condition water. He wanted to patent his idea. He thought I would be interested. He died soon after this, but I believe I was blessed and inspired by this experience.

I now turn to more recent experiences. My high school dream came true to work in a high energy particle physics company. I worked at Fermi National Lab in 2006 during a summer teacher research associate program. I was delegated to build 6 environmentally controlled test chambers to test the acceptability (strain/creep characteristics) of PVC to be used in a new Far Detector for their NOvA project. This detector is to be installed in a mine in Minnesota to detect the results of particle collisions that occur in the main Fermi Lab Collider in Batavia, Illinois. I and 2 other teachers produced hundred of parts that were then assembled/tested and set up for accelerated testing of sample PVC materials. The use of PVC over the 15-20 year life span of the project was in question here, as it was going to be used in a very hostile environment and would be in contact with some aggressive fluids.

Finally, I have also participated in the development of a new SUPERfabLAB in Rockford, Illinois at the EIGER Lab. I helped promote this new Rapid Prototyping facility at their recent RP Fair. Rapid prototyping is used to take CAD drawings of the “IDEA” and make real “PARTS” from them in machines using various types of final product materials and different technologies. This is the “ART TO PART” concept.

As you can see I have not progressed in my engineering experiences in a normal path. However, I have had many, many more experiences then I would ever have imagined early on in my career(s). I am also now fully aware that the old ‘have one job for a life time’ concept is no longer true.

Contributor: James W. Orr

This is my inaugural posting in which I will discuss “What is Engineering”.

In up coming postings I will discuss- in no particular order:

Engineering Technology, CAD (Computer Aided Design)-2D,3D, GD&T (Geometrical Dimensioning and Tolerancing), Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Rapid Prototyping, Engineering Careers/Education, Green Technology, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math), Blueprint Reading, and anything else you the reader is interested in under the “Engineering” umbrella.

I will further address many of these topics from a high school students’, as well as college students’ perspective, and finally to those looking to change careers.

Engineering- What is it?:

The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), the national board establishing accreditation standards for all enginnering  programs  defines engineering as follows (Landis):  “Engineering is the profession in which a knowledge of the mathematical and natural sciences, gained by study, experience, and practice, is applied with judgement to develop ways to utilize, economically, the materials and forces of nature for the benefit of mankind.”

I like James Kip Finch’s (1960) definition of Engineering- “The engineer has been , and [still] is, a maker of history”. When you get right down to really thinking about what the engineer does and has done from the earliest of times does this not simplify the definition. Think about all the items, whether it  is clothing, cars, houses, ships, satellites… we have today, on a global scale and through history, has been from an idea someone had that an engineer eventually designed, into a product or process using mathematics, science, and technology principles. Yes, engineers turn ideas into reality and make a world of difference.

The results of a recent Lemelson-MIT Invention Index Survey shows:
·    77% of teens are interested in pursuing a STEM career
·    53% of teens said they would like to build things and conduct experiments
·    85% said they wished they knew more about STEM in order to create or invent something
·    FEWER than 5% felt that engineers contribute most to society’s well-being

This to me means teens have not seen, met or talked with an engineer but they have some of the same interests as what a degreed engineer probably started with early on in their life. The degreed engineer probably is good in math and science, may have a relative/neighbor/friend who is/was an engineer that worked at a high tech job,  was interested in assembling/disassembling things and also likes to build things- that’s the hands on aspect, or like myself read a lot of SCIFI books/magazines as a child or as kids now a days watch a lot of TV/movies, was counseled by a teacher or school counselor, heard that this field is one of the top paying  career opportunities in our economy today.

What can I do with a major in engineering you might ask?
·    Application Engineering
·    Computer engineering
·    Electrical engineering
·    Electronics engineering
·    Industrial engineering
·    Mechanical engineering
·    Research engineering
·    Product engineering
·    Safety engineering
·    Quality engineering
·    Plant engineering
·    Development engineering
·    Testing engineering
·    Design Engineering
·    Analysis engineering
·    Systems engineering
·    Manufacturing and Construction engineering
·    Operations and Maintenance engineering
·    Technical support engineering
·    Customer support-Sales/Marketing/Consulting
·    Management of any of the above

I will close this session with the following thoughts/facts for next posting:
·    The U.S. is lagging behind the rest of the world in production of needed technical talent
·    This lag could lead to loss of U.S. competitiveness in technical fields that drive our economy.

Contributor: Jim Orr