A couple days ago, a headline in my IEEE Job Site newsletter caught my attention: How a Personal Blog Can Boost Your Career. (Being a blogger, things like that do catch my eye.) The article mentioned several ways in which a blog can help you, a couple of which I believe are more relevant for engineers than others. Let’s start with where I disagree with the post. I am not sure that I buy into the whole “personal brand” idea, but I also take issue with one of the final comments: that your blog probably isn’t going to replace your resume. The first is a matter of opinion, and in engineering, I’m going to guess that more manager-types are going to be interested in results and not your marketing je nes sais quoi. (I could very well be wrong on this, however, which is why I’m an engineer and not [...]
Though I’m an engineer, I don’t necessarily consider myself a natural tinkerer. Sure, I started out that way, as most kids do. My childhood inspirations included Legos, Lincoln Logs, Erector Sets and lots of toys that are precursors to engineering. But as I got older, I didn’t step into many of the other stereotypical “future engineer” activities. I never learned how to change a car’s oil or do regular maintenance. I never framed a house or similar structures. I never built a computer from components at the store (though this is obviously more relevant around the time I grew up vs 20 years prior). I never got a ham license or had a 200 in 1 electronics kit, two things that almost guarantee a future as an electrical engineer. So what gives? My parents were both very supporting and continue to be to this day. And I regularly worked on [...]
“I know how to code,” I said, “but I don’t know how to Code.” “Umm. You just said the same thing twice and said there was a difference.” “Yes,” I said, “but I said it with different emphasis each time.” “Please explain.” So this was how I explained my frustrations to a sympathetic ear. See, I had dabbled and learned all sorts of programming languages: Basic, C, a little Java, Javascript, Scheme, a bit of 8086 assembly and even Zilog-80 assembly so I could try to make calculator games for my old TI. I’d also managed to learn enough HTML and CSS to hack up my personal blogger site. I mean, I know about For loops, If/Then statements, functions, objects, quick sorts, and so on. Despite all that, I was completely flummoxed if I wanted to make anything substantial or real. I didn’t know how to make standalone Windows executables, or set [...]
Ytai Ben-Tsvi is the creative mind behind the IOIO (pronounced “yo-yo”). It is a hobby development board similar to the Arduino, but designed specifically to attach hobby peripherals to an Android phone through the USB port. I recently had a chance to interview him. What is the story behind the IOIO board and what has been your involvement thus far? In the summer of 2010 I was in California on a business trip (I was living in Israel then). A colleague of mine was telling me about the cellbots.com project that he was involved with. They were building little hobby robots based around Android phones. He was unhappy about the hacky ways they were using to connect the phone to motors and asked me whether I have an idea to fix this. After a couple of days, I thought I found a solution and that’s how IOIO was born. Another thing that makes it [...]
All the literature geeks who read EngineerBlogs probably know that today is the Ides of March. *crickets chirping* However, everyone else probably was celebrating Pi day yesterday. Some of us take our favorite constants very seriously. And some of us eat them. (Yes, I baked that. But not yesterday.) One of my favorite stories about Richard Feynman is how he broke into someone’s file cabinets because he guessed this person had a thing for well-known constants. After incorrectly guessing the person was using the value of pi as the code to the numerical lock, he tried e. He gave this person the scare of his life. Pi is one number that everyone seems to know and love, but I wonder: is it your favorite number, or do you have another? I personally like the value of permittivity for free space (because I used it so much in grad school). [...]
This week I’m on my (belated) honeymoon in Hawaii. As I’ve written about before (on my wedding day, no less!), my wife is a wonderful person to put up with my engineering ways. This time, I’m actually writing this post in advance, because I’m attempting to unplug and relax while I’m away. No, not completely. I’ll be in pretty much constant contact with the outside world if necessary, though the plan is to unplug as much as possible. Baby steps, y’know? However, my first big decision was not to take my laptop with me. While I’ll still have access to email and Twitter and the rest of those time-wasters out there, it will be on my phone. And you know what is much easier on my laptop than on my phone? Writing substantial emails and doing work. So I likely won’t do either. In essence, I’m just making it a little [...]
Welcome back! I’m thrilled to be officially joining as a full-time author. I hope everyone had a chance to relax a bit over the holidays, and maybe spend a little bit of time on your favorite hobbies. This fall, one of my lab mates introduced my husband and me to a new hobby : spinning. No, not the exercise class, the yarn-making type. While we started with drop spindles, being the gadget-y people we are, spinning wheels were instantly fascinating. When we talk to spinners, they have regularly commented on how engineers take a very different approach to the whole process. Most spinners do it by feel, and trial and error, instead of evaluating everything in terms of gear ratios and frictional forces. The spinning wheel is hardly a new invention, and operates on fundamentally simple principles. Twist is introduced into the fiber based on the treadle rate, and the [...]
As today is Thanksgiving (in the US, anyway), it seemed appropriate to talk about my favorite kind of engineering: food engineering…more commonly referred to as cooking. I guess you could call it that, but I take my cooking far too seriously to do something like slap some bread in the toaster and claim I just cooked something. Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday because I love to cook. (Washing dishes is a different story, and my husband has been officially designated as chief dish-cleaning engineer.) Since I reached adulthood, I’ve been searching for the perfect combination of dishes for Thanksgiving. Of course, even the perfect dish takes time to perfect. So how you develop the perfect Thanksgiving meal? I think that’s going to change from person to person, so rather than giving you a list of recipes, I’m going to talk a little bit about some of the other things [...]
I haven’t been watching the news about the recent Penn State football scandal, mostly because I can’t stomach it. But I’m very intrigued by the fact that the school covered up some of the horror because of the importance of the football program to fundraising and everything else. And let’s be honest here, folks: It’s not just Penn State where this is the case. Yes, this was particularly bad oversight and judgement on their part; but lots of large schools pin their fundraising aspirations on the ability of sports programs to attract alumni back to the campus. And to say it’s inconceivable that another school would potentially do the same is a bit naive. From the fundraising perspective and the focus on sports, I’m not really surprised. Universities, though non-profit, are effectively a company; their actions reflect what they believe will bring in the most money. But this brings a [...]
Last week I wrote about childhood inspirations and how they affected you as an engineer. First off, I wanted to apologize to those who had responses that were not properly captured. Some people pointed out that I missed biological engineering of any sort (honestly, I didn’t realize we had any bio-centric readers! cool!). And others informed me that I left out certain critical toys to their childhood. One commenter astutely mentioned that I must be younger than them; too right! I based this on my own experiences, I should have thought to poll for older engineers’ favorite toys so we could capture a wider swath of influences. Anyway, it’s hardly a great survey, but information such as this is always interesting. So I hope you enjoy it!
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