September Scientiae: What's in your toolbox?

This month's Scientiae Carnival topic is especially appropriate for a pseudo-engineer such as myself. One of the managers here at MegaCorp would regularly ask interviewees: What's in your toolbox? He meant it literally. Not what skills do you have to pull from, but what do you actually have at home in your garage (or apartment) and what do you work on.

 

There's two schools of thought to what makes a good engineer. There's the "you need to be hands on" theory, and the other group that wants you to have top notch analytical and software skills. I'm more on the theoretical side, maybe I'm still in school or maybe leftover from my humanities training. But that means I try to work on my "hands on" side too. So here's my toolbox:

• A good drafting pencil. True we don't use blueprints anymore or do our lettering by hand, but it's still nice to know you have the tools. And can tell the youngsters how it used to be. Oh wait I'm a youngster!
• My TI-83. We all love the calculator we learned on/used the most, and this is mine. No fancy integrations, but a few programs I like and the ability to stack commands.
• A solid modelling program. Essential for any design engineer. If you're an EE of a CivE I guess you can get away with AutoCAD or something, but the rest of us need 3D.
• Matlab. An engineer's friend, or bitterest enemy at times, but unfortunately required.
• Excel. Don't hate on MS, and don't hate my spreadsheets!
• A good toolbox:
• Nice set of screwdrivers, or a screwdriver with a removable tip
• Nice set of wrenches and sockets, metric and US-silly-units
• Hammer, sledgehammer, wire stripper, wire cutters, bolt cutter
• A few good hoses and some fittings. Never know when you'll need to go through your box and rig up a quick hose for something.
• Calipers. Digital might be nice, never leave home without them.
• Miscellaneous parts. Some old servo motors, unused piping, you never know, right?
• Coffee; the day doesn't start without it.

So if you didn't post for the Scientiae, what's in your toolbox?

July Scientiae Carnival: DreamCorp

Summertime and the livin is...well not quite easy, but here we go. JaneB is hosting the July Scientiae Carnival and I thought I'd finally trick my procrastinating evil twin into taking a nap while the productive half of me writes my first entry. The theme is Fantasy Institute.

The rules of the game are simple - you have been selected as the Director of a newly endowed research institute. It is your job to decide where the institute will be based, its codes of conduct, its structure, and who you will hire.

Naturally I work in industry so mine might be a little different from the usual posters, but variety is the spice of life, yes? A good (profitable) engineering company needs a product. Something that sells so that you can keep all your employees gainfully employed. In DreamLand I'd pick something "friendly" that still required some engineering know-how, but something where I thought there was room for improvement. For me, right now, that is wind turbines.

 

Designing a blade is no easy task. And once you get past that hurdle, there's material and size. I keep thinking what with all the development in carbon fiber material there's a real opportunity to make bigger, lighter wind blades. If you get the weight right, you should be able to get more power. Plus being green is so the in thing right now, and it's nice to have something your employees can be proud of. Once I've gotten my successful line of wind turbines off the ground and running (or spinning, as it were) I'd try to make the company a better place for my employees. I'd branch out and have a strong R&D department. DARPA has usually got something kickass going and I'd identify defense and DARPA contracts that wouldn't require a lot of capital investment but would rely on the smarts of my engineers. Then I'd use the R&D department as a reward incentive. You do well, you get to spend more time in it. You do great and come up with an idea you'd like to try, we'll roll with it. So much of engineering is reinventing the wheel and I think managers fail to realize engineers need mental rewards just as much as financial to keep doing well.

 

Work environment would be a maze of offices, rooms and desks. I think cube farms are terrible, but of course where do you stash all your people. It's not always space smart to give everyone an office, but sequestering people into smaller rooms rather than one large one can foster teamwork and positive relationships. On top of that I'd have a few general use spaces; a "quiet" room, and a few open conference rooms anyone could use at any time for group or solo work. There's only so many days a year you can stare at your wall. And definitely would need a lab or two where everyone felt welcome to drop by and tinker on their project. You learn by doing and keeping engineers away from the doing is not creating good engineers.

 

After all that, obviously there'd need to be free coffee for the employees. And maybe a soda fountain machine. I mean, what can that cost compared to employee satisfaction. I'd make an effort not to grow too big too fast. I think it's a mistake to hire too many new people when you could be using the same money to reward your best people already on the project. I'd fire people who don't do their work, have bad attitudes, and lie. Bad eggs bring down everyone else's morale and most managers are cowards who are afraid to deal with them.

 

I know that's a lot more "don't do this" than "do this" but they outline what I see as the dream institution. Formal mentor program, and group/specialty training rotations for new hires rounds it out for DreamCorp.