This week is a Theme Week and we’re writing about our experiences at some point in the product or company’s lifecycle. My Location : Startup. I’ve always seen design engineering as having two distinct categories. Sustaining engineering and R&D engineering. Since I’d always seen Sustaining as being boring (sorry Chris!), involving designing the same product over and over, tweaking it to make it better, but basically understanding how it works already, I managed to start in R&D nearly right out of college. Seb’s recent post seems to prove me wrong, but maybe “Sprockets” have it better than us “Sparkies”! Some of the companies I’ve worked at on a project basis were similar. They had been in existence for years, eking out a living and had a common trait: No money for New Product Development (NPD). I’ve had many successful projects (I came, I designed, it worked), but the unsuccessful ones are [...]
Back in 2008 I was out on my first co-op working as a production engineer making and documenting custom production test fixtures for a well established household name company. One of the great things about working for this company was that all the departments were housed under one roof – design, production support, marketing, quality control, production itself, and the machine shop – it was great. Whenever I had to ask someone a question or go on a fact finding mission everyone I ever needed to talk to was within walking distance. Not having to deal with pesky issues such as time zone differences like I do nowadays kept communication tight and efficient. I can’t seem to recall a time where I was sitting around waiting for a response from someone so I could move forward on a project. The full-fledged, well equipped, machine shop that was a stone’s throw [...]
Sophi Kravitz is an electrical engineer who enjoys being somewhere near the bottom of the learning curve. Currently, she is pursuing RF engineering, analog engineering and building art based on RF signals. She lives in a workshop containing a kitchen and living room with her husband. I have to say: Frautech’s recent post about Double Speak resonated with me. Nearly two years ago, I moved into a Sales Engineering role out of Design Engineering. Exhilarating, fun, challenging and creative, being a Design Engineer is fulfilling on an emotional level. Making money for the company which can provide a sense of importance, Sales is fulfilling on an egotistical level. My function is to maximize sales for my company by helping engineers and scientists to choose the right product (ours, naturally) for their application. The thermal control products that I sell aren’t very complex, but there are distinct competitors which use other technologies [...]
![The Art of Mathematics [Part 1 of 3] (by Carmen Parisi)](http://engineerblogs.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Graff-Art-150x150.jpg)
Some time ago while stumbling around online I came across a rather interesting essay about the state of mathematical education. Entitled A Mathematician’s Lament, it was written back in 2002 by Paul Lockhart who argues that there is next to no real math being taught at the K-12 level. His essay calls for a radical reform of the educational system to change the way the public perceives mathematics. Years later in 2009 Lockhart expanded the original 25 page essay into a 140 page book which is currently for sale. I find Lockhart’s essay to be thought provoking and though I agree with him on a few of his overall points, I take issue with a decent portion of his argument. In what’s to become a three part series I will discuss Lament and include my own objections to Lockhart’s argument. A Mathematician’s Lament opens with the hypothetical world wherein which [...]
For most of us working as engineers or other technical jobs in the United States, it is a given that we receive paid-for medical insurance. It is difficult for companies to find technical workers, therefore they usually offer health insurance in some form or another as an incentive. This site gives a breakdown of how much insurance costs state by state: http://www.ahipresearch.org/statedata.html So if you work somewhere that asks you to pay say, 50% of your health insurance, you might be paying $2,500 per year for a single person. That is on par with paying to go out to eat lunch every day (and even then, on the cheap). If you’re a family, things get much more expensive; the costs get closer to $6,500 on average. If you have a single-earner family, it’s unlikely you’re eating lunch out every day. If you are self-insured in NY state (where I’m from), it [...]
Sophi Kravitz is an electrical engineer who enjoys being somewhere near the bottom of the learning curve. Currently, she is pursuing RF engineering, analog engineering and building art based on RF signals. She lives in a workshop containing a kitchen and living room with her husband. I am an Electrical Engineer working as a Salesperson. I love engineering, it is my true passion, and I spend lots of time in my home shop building, designing and making stuff. I live in the Hudson Valley, NY, which isn’t particularly desirable for tech people. The only large company here is IBM. There are very few design engineers in the area, which makes getting a generic engineering job at a generic small company pathetically easy. So why did I switch? I worked as a New Product design engineer for 7 years, enjoyably switching projects (and jobs) quite often. As an engineer, I found [...]
This is a guest post from Carmen Parisi of Fake EE Quips, a man of many hats. An engineer by day and blogger by night, he also considers himself an amateur connoisseur of craft beer, coffee, and toasted sandwiches. Recently, he moved down to Raleigh, NC and is experiencing his first winter sans snow. I’m the sort of person who will analyze–and possibly over analyze–damn near anything. I’m forever asking “Why?” and searching for answers. Whether I’m discussing traffic patterns on my way to work, a circuit problem, or pondering the cosmos, once I latch onto a subject I typically pursue it until I find an answer that satisfies my curiosity. My natural curiosity is something of a double edged-sword however; on one hand it doesn’t take much to entertain me and I feel I’m well rounded. On the other hand, I can get stuck on a topic and become “that guy” at a party [...]
This is a guest post from Carmen Parisi of Fake EE Quips. He’s the first of many guest bloggers who will be popping in to Engineer Blogs on a regular basis to add their opinions and insight into the field of engineering. Though I’ve only just recently joined the workforce and am still a pretty green engineer, I’ve noticed some differences between school and work. The differences between the two aren’t necessarily good or bad; they just take some getting used to. From the outset, I can name my favorite aspect: being able to leave work (both mentally and physically) around 5PM. Knowing I do not have to slog through hours of homework once I get back to my apartment is a fantastic feeling. I’d almost forgotten what hobbies were! The rest of the things I’ve noticed so far aren’t nearly as polarizing but still worth noting. Let’s have [...]
This is a guest post from Peter Francis, who can be found on Twitter and DesignSpark. Do you currently exchanged data between systems or are you put off by the complexity? Most modern mechanical CAD (MCAD) systems have the capability of exchanging data with electronics CAD (ECAD) systems however this does have its issues and limitations. I though it might be useful to explore what is possible and hopefully demystify the process. First of all why would you want to exchange CAD data between ECAD and MCAD systems? The one of the main aims of any CAD system is accuracy of design information, for most part a sketch on the back of an envelope would surfice for most design work, however with the increasing sophistication of modern products and ever tighter size and performance constraints the connection between electronic and mechanical parts is ever more important. So why do we exchange CAD data? [...]
This is a guest post from Peter Francis, who can be found on Twitter and DesignSpark. Welcome to my first post on Engineer Blogs. It seems traditional to start with a post describing who you are and how you got into engineering , so I won’t flout the tradition. My name is Peter Francis and I’m Head of Design at ebm papst UK Ltd where I’m responsible for a team of hardware / software engineers designing controllers and fan products for a diverse range of UK customers. I’m a Mechanical Design Engineer by training and have an interest in electronics and software as well as aviation and motorcycles. I’ve even been known to tinker with an Arduino occasionally. Enough about me , how did I get into engineering ? Well it started a long time ago… and by ‘a long time’ I mean 1966. It was the beginning of the [...]
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