Posted by Matt Leese.
Other on team #73 from Rochester Institute of Technology and None.
Posted on 10/10/2000 10:50 PM MST
In Reply to: EE... I'll give it a shot posted by Andy Baker on 10/10/2000 10:09 PM MST:
As it's even later at night (let's just say it's now tomorrow), I figure I'll give it a shot from a more EE point of view (so I'm studying Computer Engineering....sue me). First of all the point must be stressed that EEs will always out rank MEs. Sure, you can have a great robot designed mechanically by an ME but without the EE it's not going anywhere. And even I can build something remotely mechanical. Okay, now to be a bit more serious....
Okay, what EE's do:
In a nutshell, if it involves electricity (hence the electrical part), EEs do it. More precisely there's both a hardware and a software side to EE. EE topics range anywhere from software to hardware. The software side is usually handle by Computer Scientists, or more appropriately (because they're engineers) Software or Computer Engineers (then again CE's do a lot more on the hardware side). The hardware side of EE includes ICs, microprocessors (which is also more usually handled by Microelectronic Engineers....yeah, the guys in Intel bunny suits), and all other kinds of stuff. Basically, EE's a big topic and I'm too tired to cover it all.
If you want to know what to study (in high school I assume), take math. When you've taken math, take more math. Most schools make engineers take all the way through Differential Equations at least (yes, that includes all Calculus and that's beyond what's offered as AP tests). You always want to take Physics. Colleges like to make you take lots of Physics too (even being a EE you have to know how pendulum works....I guess to take out obnoxious ME's). As it's getting late, I think I'm done for the night.
Matt Leese