Attention engineers...What type are you and why?

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by dictionary.com

engineer n. One who is trained or professionally engaged in a branch of engineering.

Originally Posted by m-w.com

engineer tr. v. to contrive or plan out usually with more or less subtle skill and craft.

Originally Posted by m-w.com

engineering n. 2 a : the application of science and mathematics by which the properties of matter and the sources of energy in nature are made useful to people

The way I read these definitions, every FIRST team there's ever been has engineered (verb). However, very few of us on this board are engineers (noun).

As for the whole credentials thing, let me try things this way. I have no problem with a person engineering (verb) with the oversight of an engineer (noun). Somewhere in the process, I want to see someone with that purdy piece of paper give the bridge I'm driving on their stamp of approval. It tells me that someone who's gone through the whole process has looked at it and declared it safe to the point that I can send my CR-V going over it at sixty miles an hour without fearing that I'm going into the drink within reason.

I'll take that back to FIRST. I've stood around a FIRST field long enough to trust such an arrangement. Of course, such robots are given the twice-over by inspectors, which one could argue are engineers in the field of FIRST robot engineering.

I don't mean to trivially create a new field of engineering with that thought, but when you consider that engineers have to look at a problem and make a solution that is both safe to the general public and environment (how many times did you and your team have to file something while being inspected so that you wouldn't pop balls?) and fit within the time, money, and size constraints, you see the parallels.

I hope that got my point across right...if it didn't, please refrain from throwing rocks at me.