scott wrote:

> It seemed during my degree (Engineering) that they expected everyone was 
> going to go out there and design a finite element analysis software 
> package (note I said design, not code), or come up with some new 
> standards for building bridges, or use some exotic material for some new 
> purpose.  Nobody seemed to imagine that some people might want to 
> actually go and work on more mundane things that most Engineers do, 
> hence nobody taught us how to make a complete 2D Engineering drawing 
> (either by hand or on the computer), or how to use a modern 3D CAD 
> package, or how to use any software to help with electronic circuit design.

Heh. Well there *are* a lot of people out there working on novel 
materials these days. (Organic semiconductors?! Whatever next!)

>> During my course, I recall seeing exactly one equation.
> 
> Haha, I recall seeing equations in my dreams (or should that be 
> nightmares?).  Seriously, I think I did the most theoretical Engineering 
> course in existence.

Theoretical... engineering... LMAO!

Ah, but did you implement a 9D Hypercardigan? ;-)

> I really enjoyed my University course, for me most subjects were really 
> interesting.  The only one I really got bored with was Thermofluid 
> Mechanics (all about steam cycles, heat cycles etc, I think we just had 
> a bad lecturer).

I mostly enjoyed mine.

9 AM on Monday morning of my very first day at university and we had a 
lecture about Smalltalk. The guy giving the lecture was a seriously 
smart guy. Like, every lecture or lab lession, after everybody had gone 
home, me and him are still standing there arguing about the merits of 
multiple inheritance or something!

OTOH, the whole module on report writing bored the HELL out of me! >_<

> Kinematics and Dynamics in 2D

Kinematics is a word?

> Mechanical Vibrations

That sounds pretty complicated. o_O

Any idea what a "resonant mode" is?

> Thermofluid Mechanics I & II

Ouch. AFAIK, anything involving fluids or gasses = highly complex.

> Materials I & II

Now that *sounds* quite simple... but I bet it isn't.

(I'm presuming this is about elastic vs plastic deformation and so forth.)

> Physical Principles of Electronics and Electromagnetics

...so, Lorenz forces and so on?

> Electrical Power

OK, I have *got* to be missing something here. ;-)

> Comms Fourier Transforms & Signal & Data Analysis

What a title! o_O

> Mathematics

Oh... so that's specific then!

> Vector Calculus
> Linear Algebra

More like it. ;-)

> Computing

Interesting?

> Engineering in Society

Not interesting??

> Structural Design Project (ie building a bridge!)

LOL!

> The best part was the robot design project.  We were put into teams of 6 
> and told to make a robot that drove around a track marked by white lines 
> on a black board and picked up containers.  The containers would either 
> be empty or full, and we had to move the containers to the appropriate 
> bin.  In most teams 2 people actually made the robot mechanics, 2 did 
> the electronics (motor drive control, interface to PC, etc) and 2 did 
> the software.  Was really good fun, especially as the quicker your robot 
> completed the task the more points you got.

That *is* pretty neat.

The... uh... no, I can't remember the name of it. But there *is* a 
programming contest that's a bit like the IRTC. They set a challenge, 
and you have so many days to write a program that solves it. One of them 
was where your program accepts a track description as input, and 
produces a series of driving commands as output. The car that gets round 
the track fastest wins. (But the car simulation part is an external 
program, with limits on acceleration, cornering, etc.)

One day, maybe I will be skilled enough to complete... but I doubt it.

Post a reply to this message