On 6/11/2010 6:11 AM, Invisible wrote:

> Seriously... Doing what? Everything seems to be made of off-the-shelf
> parts (which, by definition, already exist). What's to design?

Have you ever opened an electronic gadget and peered inside? That PCB 
isn't off the shelf. It may have off the shelf components on it, but 
someone, somewhere had to design it. There may even be a customized chip 
on it.

For example, my Wacom Intuos3 (RIP) was waterlogged, so it was an 
opportunity to look inside. They have a chip on the board with their 
logo. Probably some customized DSP to translate the signals generated by 
the stylus and tablet grid.

These sorts of things need design all of the time. I work for a company 
in the construction industry. We produce software for a niche market. 
I've worked for an industrial equipment manufacturer (a sister company) 
those machines need electrical design, and software to make them work, 
some of that software is actually rather involving mathematically, and a 
portion of it requires an understanding of calculus to really get a grip 
on how to properly set the tuning parameters.

Somebody needs to design the drives that control the motors. They may 
even want to produce a custom CPU for those drives because an 
off-the-shelf CPU may not fit their needs exactly. Someone needs to 
design the IO controller so each solenoid on the machine can be 
controlled by the host system, someone needs to design the embedded 
computer to command the system. Heck, we have engineers that design the 
electrical systems for the machines. They also do the mechanical design 
of the machine.

There are plenty of opportunities to apply your skills. Look at the 
machinery at your company's lab, look at the analysis equipment. There 
are people who design these things, and are always looking for ways to 
improve the design, implement new features and cut costs.

-- 
~Mike

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