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Unread 14-02-2008, 21:54
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AKA: Ed Barker
FRC #1311 (Kell Robotics)
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Re: Engineers! Please share you experiences!!!

1. What excites you most about engineering as a career?
The chance to be creative and have that creativity have a tangible impact on society is pretty cool. That is a unique combination and there are not many jobs where you get paid to do both at the same time.

2. What made you decide to become an engineer?
I'm a serial problem solver. The opportunity to apply a wide variety of skills and apply scientific and artistic principles is irresistible to me.

3. In your job, how important are good communication skills (written and spoken)?
Some may disagree but in my view there are two types of 'e'ngineers. Those with a lowercase 'e' and those with an uppercase 'E'. The 'e'ngineer that site in the lone cube doing their thing is certainly important but to be really effective you need to be an 'E'ngineer. This engineer has to have a well rounded education, and be able to communicate ideas and concepts clearly. If you cannot do this you cannot build an effective team, nor acquire investment capital, nor customers, etc.

4. Do you primarily work alone or in teams? It depends on the situation but in general the best situation is a well oiled team working to accomplish a common goal. A team may not be all engineers but a variety of people, just like in a well balance FIRST team.

5. Is it important for an engineer to understand strength of materials concepts (stress, strain, deformations)?
The reality is that most everything you take up through the undergraduate level in college is just the basics of a lot of things. A common mistake too many graduates make is they willfully forget everything they studied and spend the rest of their career being a lot less effective.

It is important that engineers understand the fundamentals of everything, including mechanics. There is even a professional test called the "fundamentals of engineering" that ultimately leads to something called the PE or Professional Engineer certification.

Nothing is more irritating to me than to sit in a meeting with other engineers and listen to nonsense because they chose to forget the fundamentals. I don't expect them to be an expert in a particular subject. We have experts on staff to handle the specialties. But please have basic clue !!

6. What kind of engineering did you study?
Electrical Engineering

7. What kind of engineering do you do now?
During my career I have done some basic Chemical and Mechanical engineering but about 95% electrical, computer, and software engineering.

Today about 10% electrical, 10% computer, and 80% software engineering.
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