20-06-2011 22:57

MattC9

Re: pic: Graduation Present

The 2 main things you need to fix anything in your house(dorm or apartment)

21-06-2011 10:44

jwfoss

Re: pic: Graduation Present

What's that old saying... "If it moves and it shouldn't use duct tape, if it doesn't move and it should use WD-40"

21-06-2011 12:13

Bob Steele

Re: pic: Graduation Present

I think they forgot the zip ties...

21-06-2011 23:15

Molten

Re: pic: Graduation Present

I always found a hammer to work better for things that don't move and should. I guess mileage will vary.

Jason

21-06-2011 23:45

Andrew Schreiber

Re: pic: Graduation Present

Truth be told, a hammer can make things that shouldn't move and do stop being so darn mobile.

22-06-2011 02:10

Molten

Re: pic: Graduation Present

I guess the perfect engineers solution is to replace the WD-40 and the duct tape with a hammer. No need for 2 things you have to keep replacing when you can use one that just keeps on hitting.

Jason

22-06-2011 20:38

Ian Curtis

Re: pic: Graduation Present

It's funny to joke, but I think it's also worth remembering that engineering IS serious business, and people's lives will probably at some point depend upon your work. My lead likes to say, "We use a lot of engineering judgement. And in a lot of cases, we'll never know we made the right call. But if we make the wrong one..."

(I'm doing commercial jet stability & control)

22-06-2011 23:28

woody

Re: pic: Graduation Present

"If all else fails, get a bigger hammer." - Killer Bees proverb

23-06-2011 00:37

PAR_WIG1350

Re: pic: Graduation Present

But a hammer doesn't work in all cases, often, a hammer could also make things worse

23-06-2011 02:10

,4lex S.

Re: pic: Graduation Present

Not to be a kill joy, but engineering is serious business.

There is a reason we have professional associations. If you screw up, you can, and will get people killed. Many jobs in this profession cause sleepless nights.

This is meant as a reminder for all graduating FIRSTers who intend on jumping into engineering. You will be doing some of the most important work in the world, and it is highly rewarding, but don't forget your duty to protect society from the risks of invention.

23-06-2011 02:43

rwood359

Re: pic: Graduation Present

If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

23-06-2011 09:20

Andrew Schreiber

Re: pic: Graduation Present

Not to sound like I'm blowing you off but I think most of us KNOW engineering is serious business. We also know that sometimes you have to laugh and joke around. The balance between the two is important to keeping yourself being productive and happy.

23-06-2011 11:17

Jon Stratis

Re: pic: Graduation Present

I hate to argue this point, but it really depends on what you're doing. Most engineers won't be working in truly life-critical applications. There are tons of engineers working on designing computer games, productivity apps, consumer PC's, and consumer appliances that don't risk killing someone. I really doubt the engineer that designed my blender at home worried about it killing someone. Taking off a finger maybe (and then only to protect the company from idiots who misuse the product), but not killing. Those that choose to do so knowing the stress involved. I work in an industry were, quite literally, a mistake in one of our products will kill our customer. But fortunately, our products save thousands of lives every day, and increase the quality of life for thousands, which is a rewarding experience all its own. I knew that when I started here. I knew the difference in stress and the affect I would have on people's lives between taking a job here versus somewhere like Microsoft.

Lets try not to scare the kids away before they even know what market segment they want to work in.

23-06-2011 18:51

Molten

Re: pic: Graduation Present

Yes, engineering is serious business. There is potential danger involved with building a machine. That said, sometimes it is appropriate to joke about something that is serious as long as everyone knows it is a joke. Anybody that frequents this forum should know that an engineer needs more then a hammer so I suppose I'm making the assumption that anyone reading this should know I was joking. I've heard many professional engineers say something along the lines of "You only need two things. (blank) if it isn't moving and should be. And (blank) if it is moving and shouldn't". In general, I've found engineers to have a good sense of humor that helps them deal with the stress that they go through every day. That said, this thread reminded me of a video I re-discovered recently when searching youtube for "chiefdelphi" by mistake. Some of you might remember it. I think its pretty clear what part of the video I was reminded of.

Jason

27-06-2011 04:44

Tristan Lall

Re: pic: Graduation Present

Just for the sake of argument, I'm relatively certain that someone thought about the effects of accidentally immersing a blender in the sink, while connected to mains power.

27-06-2011 07:21

Andrew Schreiber

Re: pic: Graduation Present

I dunno, plugs near water have those breakers that trip off if something plugged into them is in water don't they?

27-06-2011 10:42

jmanela

Re: pic: Graduation Present

I don't believe all do, only the ones in my bathroom have breakers apart of the outlet itself.

27-06-2011 14:57

Trent B

Re: pic: Graduation Present

Our kitchen has a few and we also have an outlet in our garage that is somehow connected to a ground fault breaker in the bathroom above it so you might be surprised.

27-06-2011 15:07

Jon Stratis

Re: pic: Graduation Present

That's really not a concern for the engineers. Sure, dropping just about anything plugged into an outlet into the sink or bathtub is bad (and now that I said that, someone's bound to give a counter example). However, at least here in the US, that's completely covered by the National Electrical Code, which is reviewed/amended every 3 years, and is required to be followed by law in most states. GFI circuits have been required on all outlets serving counters near sinks in the kitchen since 1987, and in bathrooms since 1975.

Rather, the results of dropping your appliance in a body of water is usually something that a company's marketing, legal, or compliance department worries about, and simply applies to the labeling materials that accompany the product - something the Engineer might never even see.

28-06-2011 00:18

jmanela

Re: pic: Graduation Present

I guess more of an engineering concern would be when you turn the machine on, the blade will stay safely where it is supposed to be and not hurt the customer.

However, you can try to make something as safe as you possibly can, unfortunately no matter what someone will find someway to hurt themselves. For example, you can make a car as safe as possible. It may get the highest safety ratings in it's class, but if you drive it off of a cliff there really isn't much you can do about that.

28-06-2011 00:20

Tristan Lall

Re: pic: Graduation Present

GFCI protection is great, if your house has it. The electrical code isn't retroactive for ordinary homes in any state that I know of. That means there are millions of dwellings in the United States that can't be counted on to be protected, not to mention hundreds of millions of such dwellings around the world. (For that matter, I wouldn't be surprised if there were 10 million American households that don't even have working safety grounds on some of their outlets.)

The engineer designing the appliance ought to know all of this, and take it into consideration. The blender's designers probably decided against a bare metal case, for example—because an internal fault could enliven the housing. (Or if it is bare metal, I bet they thought about the degradation of insulation inside of the unit, and chose something that would be durable.)

That's not to say every device is designed with the same care: an immersion blender has different insulation and sealing requirements than a tabletop blender. Although nobody needed to lose sleep over a blender, there was likely at least some consideration of the life-threatening failure modes, simply as part of the due diligence necessary to avoid a finding of negligence. You definitely wouldn't want to have to testify that you were relying on the NEC to protect users of your blender.

28-06-2011 18:13

IKE

Re: pic: Graduation Present

Not to kill this otherwise illuminating argument, but most appliances use UL (Underwriter's Lab) certified components and there are standards and test for such components. (Often the Green Shirt Folks at competition have something to do with UL).

This is true of most consumer products in that there are safety standards to be followed in order to be in compliance or to rate your product relative to safety (like crash test ratings for cars). Many large companies are able to self certify and have internal labs that can perform such a test. Often not for profit organizations get together and make the standards in order to not count on the wreckless calculations of an ill-prepped engineer. For instance, most lifting apparatus have some pretty major factors of safety associated with them. A lifting harness may require a 2.3 to 4x factor of safety (depending on standard) for each atttachment point relative to the entire load. These sort of safety factors are often necessary and built from previous bad experiences. for instance, a 4 chain harness without good load distribution could actually lift most (or all) the load with 2 chains. If you used a 1.5x factor of safety relative to all 4 chains for the entire load, It might work, or it might drop a really heavy object. For further reading on chains: http://www.liftingrigging.com/Inform...ain-safety.htm

That being said, you can do your best to build a better product and idiot proof it, but society has a way of building a better idiot.

Very cool graduation present.

06-07-2011 15:39

Navid Shafa

Re: pic: Graduation Present

That's a pretty sweet Graduation Gift package. It's amazing, one seems to pull in a decent amount of cash and some useful knick-knacks, but these type of gifts seem to be the most memorable and the most useful. I.E. props to my coach, who gave me a Leatherman Squirt PS4 for graduation:



I've already been using it a bunch at my current engineering internship and it was a very thoughtful and useful tool. Hope you enjoy and use yours in just as many creative and practical ways

06-07-2011 23:45

jmanela

Re: pic: Graduation Present

I have yet to use the WD-40, however I have already finished off the duct tape with only a few different jobs.

1. Fixing a ripped boat cover
2. Fixing a tube on a pool cleaner
3. LARP foam weapon - i'm such a nerd
- lots of duct tape

07-07-2011 03:43

Navid Shafa

Re: pic: Graduation Present

Jealous

We have a larp-sword which belongs to our CAD sub-team and has been passed down through student generations. It has been restored through the years and we even added a sheath for a nice duct tape transport to be flung over the back:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=77626

What did you make, pics? ...