Q&A about Engineering

• Q. What is a biomedical engineer and what does he or she do?
  "It's a tremendous opportunity to bring the field of engineering into medicine. For instance, to help burn survivors gain full function and use of their face through the use of burn masks, to help construction workers remain safe with a fall protection harness, to offer roll-over protection to farmers in their tractors, and to protect firefighters by making their gear fit well, thus preventing injury."
• Q. What's an example of a current biomedical engineering problem you are addressing in your work?
  "Today there are more and more women that are going into firefighting, and as a result we're finding they are not fitting into the standard-sized firefighting equipment and clothing safely: boots are too big, gloves are too loose, and ladder rungs are too far apart."
• Q. What are sustainable buildings?
  "Sustainable buildings are a necessary part of a functioning society. They reduce the use of energy, water, and provide a healthier environment. They are buildings we can operate without excessive use of fossil fuels. They make renewable energy more feasible."
• Q. What does it take to succeed in engineering?
  "What it takes to succeed in engineering is to be disciplined and to always strive to get the best answer and solve the problem in the best way possible. I've found that the right answer isn't always intuitive. You really have to look at things from many different directions. To solve problems and to value others' input to solve those problems is what will really help you be successful"
• Q. Does a robotics engineer build the whole robot?
  "Robotics is a very cross-functional industry. It takes a lot of different engineering disciplines to put a robot system together. There is a mechanical component that requires a mechanical engineer, a computer controls component that requires a software engineer, and an electrical component that requires an electrical engineer. All of these must come together for a robot system to be successful."
• Q. What does a civil engineer do?
  "Civil engineers can be involved with a variety of projects. Civil engineers get involved with the construction of dams, roads, bridges, buildings, and large environmental projects."
• Q. What type of personality is good for an engineering job?
  "All types of personalities are good for engineering. We need people who are disciplined, focused and have a method to their actions. We also need people who are a little off center and can look at things different perspectives."
• Q. What does a systems engineer do?
  "We draw from many fields of engineering to integrate different technologies to develop new gee whiz products that no one's thought of, in order to solve problems."
• Q. What are some of the secrets to becoming successful in this career?
  "You have to be a logical thinker. You need to be able to work though a problem in some systematic fashion. You're going to have to work with others to be successful. And, you must have perseverance. Despite your teamwork and logic, it's not going to work right the first time. You're going to have to overcome obstacles to be successful."
• Q. What skills are most important for engineering?
  "The two most important skills are people skills to get others to help you do what you need to do and analytical skills to understand what needs to be done."
• Q. What high school classes prepared you to become an engineer?
  "Physics, trigonometry, geometry, algebra, algebra 2 and the hard sciences."
• Q. What college classes prepared you to become an engineer?
  "They included linear algebra, statistics and writing."
• Q. What science and math do civil engineers rely upon?
  "Science helps us analyze a problem in a specific way and come up with a way of getting to a solution. Every day we use geometry and trigonometry to figure out how to make things fit together and how to make them work."
• Q. What math principles do robotics engineers rely upon?
  "The mathematical background for robotics is linear algebra and geometry. It is solving problems using matrices to affect a motion in space. So, to do this we go from linear algebra ultimately to geometry."
• Q. Is college absolutely necessary for a job in robotics?
  "A college degree isn't necessary to work in the robotics field. But if you want to be working on the design of robots or robot systems, then you will need an engineering degree from a college."
• Q. What are the biggest challenges in your job as a civil engineer?
  "One of the challenges is not just figuring out what you have to do, but scheduling that and getting it all together. In a building, you'll have hundreds of thousands of different pieces of material and equipment that have to come in on a timely basis in order to be installed without holding up the installation of other pieces. Scheduling all that stuff is really one of the biggest challenges we face in construction."
• Q. Is engineering, especially robotics engineering, a competitive field?
  "Work hard because engineering is a very competitive field! There are many applicants that want to work in engineering, especially robotics. So, if you want to work in the engineering field, especially robotics, you have to exert yourself!"
• Q. Do you use technology in your job?
  "We use technology in our jobs everyday in robotics and engineering. You're going to use computers and will need to be able to work with spreadsheets, design packages, and the internet. Yes, technology is an everyday occurrence."
• Q. Is teamwork important in this job?
  "The days of the solitary engineer solving the entire problem by him or herself are over. We've become so specialized and there is so much to know, that it's going to take several individuals to be able to solve an engineering problem. So, teamwork is crucial if you want to be able to work in an engineering field."
• Q. Is there stress?
  "Any automation field is stressful. You have high demands placed upon you. Systems are expected to be up and running on deadline and operating as specified. So, to be able to put all that together in a timely fashion does bring with it a certain amount of stress. But, we love it!"