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Ive been an engineer since 1984, and Im tempted to tell you about the jobs Ive had, the programs Ive worked on, the systems that my engineering teams created, but it would take me all night to even begin.
Briefly, Ive worked for Rockwell International, HRB Singer, and GE Aerospace on military programs - systems that went into the F14, F18 and the A10 (the Warthog) - we created systems that saved pilots lives, enabled them to do their jobs better and more accurately.
Then I switched over into the commercial sector, and worked for Rochester Instruments Systems, Sayette Technology, AB Dick ITEK, and I now work at Xerox. Ive worked on systems that monitor power utility substations so technicians can figure out exactly what happened when the grid goes down, Ive worked on LCD display projectors that you can plug into your VCR or PC and watch Star Trek on your living room wall 8 feet wide, or play video games bigger than life - and Ive worked with image processing systems for scanners and graphic arts printers.
I dont think I can tell you how much enjoyment you get when you take a $100,000,000 program from its initial concept, all the way to a sucessful production, or walking through a factory and seeing hundreds of people employed manufacturing a system that you helped design.
To put it in the frame of reference of a FIRST team, the stuff we do on FIRST is small potatos - the kit of parts they give us is scraping edge technology
work on a big project and you get to work with state of the art equipment and technology, and literally do things that have never been done before.
Is FIRST a scam? does it give students a skewed perspective, unrealistic expectations of what its really like to be an engineer?
Not by a long shot! FIRST is the real thing, its like engineering kindergarden, but its the real stuff.
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