5 Top Tips for Engineering Students - Do your maths

5 great tips for students in engineering college [university]. This movie edit was inspired by a great little find on YouTube [here]. In this 'how to' video by UCaccend - they talk of how to refine your study strategy for surviving in university, if you are taking an engineering degree. "Do your maths homework".

Please pop over and tell them how good their videos are ;-)

We decided to add our own personal touches to create our video - a kind of a parody. For fun and your entertainment, we also added a backing track, and spliced in some more engineering video clips which were brought to our attention over the last few weeks. Thank you!

We hope you enjoy this, and it is an experiment - much the same as the crowd funding venture which we kick-started a week ago [here]. Please please click on the link and show your support. Even if it is just a message, we welcome it :-) 

We believe that it is as important that we as engineers not only innovate using building materials, and during the construction process BUT it is becoming more and more important that we engage and support engineering social endeavours too. This being one of them.

So, if you have any questions about what it is I am trying to do - then first have a read of the link above and then email me. 

OK, time for a bit of fun now.... enjoy.

Engine[er]

Do your maths homework

Engine[er]

[Cartoon] Project Pan-handlers

Engine[er]

Teach Yourself How To Run: Part Six [Zombie Armies]

Running without a stopwatch.

This is not the only method I use to 'mix' up my running patterns. My interest in running does wane from time to time - especially when I begin to treat it too seriously.

So I switch off the timer, and I open my eyes to imagine more. Not worrying about the seconds and minutes ticking away as I gather up more tarmac and muddy lanes really does change the landscape.

Here's what I was thinking about on my last run....

As I finished passing over a disused rail bridge near Welwyn Garden City, on my 5 mile jogging route, the view of some beautiful autumnally orange trees opened up to allow me a glimpse one of the surrounding sun bleached fields to my right.

The freshly harvested field puckered up slightly and then dipped into a low valley, before rising again just as harshly and then on into the front of a large copse of trees on top of a hill. It was like a crown of bronzed foliage resting on a well manicured head of dirty blonde stubble. Quite stunning. I thought - if I was being attacked by a zombie army, then that would be a great place to hold out and sniper their heads off, one by one. Now don't ask why I suddenly come up with that, but my mind decided that I wasn't finished with this fantasy quite yet...

My eyes tracked left to what looked like a farm house nestled in a ring of trees, only slightly lower in elevation. Nicely set back to view the killing fields from the second floor bedroom window - the 'dead ground' in front of the copse. I thought - this would be a great place to raise and protect a family if indeed we had to fight off swathes of brain eating zombies night and day. I noticed a tall hedge which led up the side of the valley to the ring of protective trees around the farm house. It formed a secluded path right up to the front door!! A perfectly protected route to attack the house from. If I were a zombie, who had an ounce of sense (zombies from 'I am Legend' probably), then my line of attack would definitely be THAT hedge line. Damn. I quickly counter imagined another spot to lay in wait, this time parallel to the valley...  from there, I can see the zombie hordes protected line of advance. WHAT HAVE I DONE?! I suddenly realised that I had forgotten the golden rule of zombie hunting. Use close quarters weapons which spread destruction over a wide area! More kills, less ammo. For example a shot gun or a flame-thrower could do very well. Why was I happy laying in wait, in a copse and valley, cutting myself off from my family? They would get over run within minutes, and all because I was too busy trying to be clever. I realised that I had over thought the problem.

You may be thinking that I either just had a minor stroke whilst I was running, or at the very least, something strange happened to me. Neither are true.

This little cameo adventure happened in my head in almost exactly 12 seconds. The time it took me to run past the opening. In that time I had imagined a world where zombies crawled over rural Hertfordshire, looking for fresh meat. I had imagined that a tree copse was a great look out post and a perfect place lay in wait. From there I could protect my non-existent family who were held up in a farm house I didn't own... I managed to squeeze off a few shot gun rounds in my head too. A mans got to to what a mans got to do. I even had imagined the music I wanted playing as I discovered my family who had been brutally murdered by zombie jerks. Junky Fight by Lias Gerrard, as found on the Layer Cake sound track. Awesome.

Once I passed the opening in the trees and the view changed, I tried to urge myself to bookmark my little adventure for later... I did, and because of it I probably forgot some other incredible adventure that I had day dreamed. It's true, I probably forgot something very important - but I got to fight zombies. Good trade-off.

Now... isn't that a great way to spend 35 minutes of your day? During exercise and in particular running, we are all able to think more creatively and with incredible clarity*,  this is only ONE of the many advantages to taking up running . My business is constantly benefiting from my running and my little day dreams. In fact, I decided to quit my job and start my own business off the back of a running adventure, on that same run I imagined what my future may hold. I am still chasing those dreams today. I imagine getting what I want, I imagine what I might do when I have it, I imagine winning, and winning and winning. From time to time, I imagine losing too (as above), but I always imagine a way to use this to my advantage. I do not need to make as many mistakes as others in reality, because I am constantly failing and winning in my imagination. Running is what gives me that priceless advantage. You cannot afford to miss out on it - trust me. I have probably lived and died many different lives and existences during my exercise, learning a different lesson from each encounter.

And you thought that all I did was run, when I run....


Engine[er]

A snap shot of the copse described above. You can just see the farm house top left.

The future of Structural Engineering

"It's the old frontier that actually presents the most interesting opportunities, because the shine has worn off. This is your platform for real innovation, innovation in a place or a market or a situation that truly is ready for it..." Seth Godin

I quote Seth an awful amount. Why? Because the future of our industry lies in connections and connecting the dots. Seth's words plants seeds, I will attempt to grow one of those here, and you - I hope, will reap a very special reward.

For many many years our industry has provided a HUGE service to the built environment and society. To coin a phrase which cropped up during one of my discussions on LinkedIn, "we are the understated risk takers of society". To be honest, I do not know where this was quoted from, or indeed if it was the first time to be mentioned... but this is who we are. Structural Engineers... risk taker extraordinares!!

If you are not a structural engineer then you probably would not have heard of the following engineering quote too. It is scary, and I urge you read it: this describes our profession quite eloquently.

"Structural engineering is the art of modelling materials we do not wholly understand into shapes we cannot precisely analyse so as to withstand forces we cannot properly assess in such a way that the public at large has no reason to suspect the extent of our ignorance."

I'm probably not going to be hunted down by a gaggle of engineering ninjas hell bent on my destruction for writing that, as this quote is available on google anyway. BUT I'm sure that sharing this revelation to the general public was not on the mind of the very first engineer to make that statement. Truth is many engineers after that event have also been drawn to similar parallels.

OK, I wanted to share with you a revelation I have had. It has to do with our future, our employers future, the future of our industry. We have been surviving for the last 150 years or so, dining out on the efforts of engineers during the industrial age, such as the Brunels and Telford [to mention only a few]. These incredible engineers were unbound and able to guide a wave of industrious innovation, fed by huge sums of private and public funding. They sold engineering to the masses. The world ate it up.

For this post I will deftly gloss over the historical roots of Engineers - coming to you in a post very soon.

It was not all high 5's and slaps on backs though. During this time many lives were lost due to pushing the envelope and gambling with risk over certainty. Trust me, safety was a high priority, but writing the instruction manual WHILST engineering a new future led to costly delays and fatal mistakes.

So where are we now? Engineering is a technical specialism. The risks associated with our profession have forced even our most talented practitioners to focus like a laser beam on what it is, beneath our noses. Good? Absolutely. Our attention to detail has saved lives, money... and consequently, provided respite to shareholders, the public, and government officials from overburdening themselves with the stress of potential costly mistakes. AND, in a rather melodramatic way, I believe that our greatest gift to construction and society has been strangling the life out of our industry.

It's like this, if you found a thick, rich vein of mathematically minded problem solving gravity defying magicians who - GET THIS - not only loved being shut away to deal with the technical needs of your clients/employers BUT revelled in the risk taking... then you had better hold onto them! You take them at an early age and you teach them to survive in a world of uncertainty. Not only that, you create a system where the best and the most experienced write rule books and teach the new waves to do the very same thing! Sound familiar? Society benefits. Farm after farm of eager engineering students begin their life long journey of learning and enlightenment. Once they are ready, they pass on their knowledge. There you have it, a system perfect at delivering the slightly autistically natured, mathematically minded volunteers to the coal face for another generation of built environmental servitude.

You may be reading this and thinking, WOW, this guy seems pretty cynical about engineering as a whole. Wrong. I love my profession, the opportunities are massive! You may be thinking WOW, this guy has a point... but how would we go about changing any of that? What is the point in discussing it. If you didn't feel that way and were an engineer - then I would be closely scrutinising your qualifications... we are trained very very well.

My answer: nothing needs to be done. It's already happening. Connections, connecting the dots.

Today, I am able to speak more freely with more of my engineering brethren than ever before. But not in that 'false' way were we are mildly interested in what it is that the engineers across the road are doing. I am connecting in a very real way. We are sharing thoughts, we are sharing experiences. It is early days, but the result of this kind of communication and connection is leading us all down a very singular path. We are beginning to share a common goal. For the first time since I have been an engineer, I can see the green sprouts of collaboration on a huge scale! I can visualise that one day I will freely pass work to my specialist engineering neighbours for the sake of education and giving the client the very best possible skills available.

Once engineering again becomes an infectious passion amongst us and not a life sentence of proud servitude, then we will control our destiny, our businesses and our freedom to innovate.

I make no predictions here, it is happening. Get on board, add me on Twitter, follow each other AND KEEP INSPIRING ONE ANOTHER.


Engine[er]

As promised, an additional post came to my attention. Please feel free to check out this link  written a few years ago by Jeff Asher, S.E., M.ACSE for the STRUCTUEmag. It is because of editorials and posts like these, that we must try and find a way to join in and push each other on...

2 Months in - Starting up an Enginee[er]

UPDATE: Almost 100 views for this month for this post alone! Thanks so much for your interest and please remember to comment!

This is a quick stock take of what's been happening to me over the last 2 months, and what is currently on my mind. It finishes off with a bit of a rant. Many apologies.

1. On doing Stuff
I love doing stuff. Who doesn't love waking up and doing lots of stuff all day long? Since I started working for myself, in amongst the productive hours of a new working week, doing stuff has become my life [I call them productive - my accountant may call them fee earning hours]. Truth is that all my week is productive of a kind, and working for yourself causes a major shift to your perception of what work actually is. The basic principle though is that every moment you spend thinking, considering what to do next, acting upon it, listing, dreaming, prioritising or learning, then you are working. So there.

2. 30/70 split seems fair
You need to earn a wage, and doing this in the shortest possible time gives you more time to brain storm a better delivery system, network, improve your service or re-adjust your attitude towards your chosen market.. I currently run at about 30% practical fee earning work to 70% dreaming and learning. I've been told by an accountant that this is a poor level of output, and I intend on doing something about it once I have crossed a few goals off my 'magic' to do list first.

3. There are 2 halves to every story
Before I started out on my own, I was told that if I can earn a wage on 40% of my time during the week then I would be doing very well! [TOP TIP: price your hourly rate to deal with this eventuality]...but that's not what my ex-bosses have told me over the years. Sweating it for a large company saw me 100% utilised on fee earning projects - which perhaps goes a long way towards why it is that large consultancies have trouble, especially in holding onto key technical personnel, and possibly this is why they are my ex-bosses? The lesson here is that you cannot sustain a 100% productivity without a cost. This could be to your general health and well-being, or it could be your creativity. Both add up to major burn out issues though. It is lucky then, that the majority of us were born with two halves to our brain - and our left-hand side would be screaming "GET US OUTTA HERE YOU MORON!" especially since this portion of the brain is very good at predicting our future. If my future = depressing [then] I re-adjust my environment to suit. In other words, make some changes. All my decisions are not as life changing as this though.

4. Be Proud of who you are
If you are an Engineer like me, but not me, then you are a very very lucky person! You keep good company [Steve Jobs, Sir James Dyson, Bill Gates, Henry Ford etc.] . Some of the last centuries most prolific inventors, designers, and entrepreneurs were Engineers of some sort. We get introduced into jobs where our insane ability to focus completely on a single process gives us a steady role in most organisations. We also make others lives better, because we are such useful people and are deeply influenced to serve the communities around us. Naturally we are creative creatures, but the majority of the time we take it upon ourselves to capitalise upon our technical skills. Why? Because to put it simply - we can. We can do both.

5. Do it to be on the A-Team
Being solely technical is not the kind of existence that we would wish upon ourselves for the entire length of our careers, it just happens that we are very good at solving problems. Importantly, the longer we stick at carrying out this unselfish, non-egotistical existence, the more successful our projects are as a result. It's a symbiotic partnership. We get to build stuff, design stuff and breath life into more stuff... the rest of team get to practise their creative, managerial and other useful organisational skills etc. Skills we have also.

6. Engineers serve society best by continuing to innovate
Most non-engineering types will not have the same dedication to continually plugging away at some new skill until they are the expert in a field, because they don't understand the pain and the eventual pleasure of being able to speak 'engineerish' on any given technical subject. Non-engineering types will be quite happy handing over this responsibility. We must not lose interest in the world around us, because this may incarcerate our freedom to innovate freely. The minute that we give up learning and stop applying all these cool talents to any given real world problem, is the exact same 60 seconds that commits us to a life long of slaving away nine to five, slowly losing the will to learn or worse... revoking our responsibility to pass on our great enthusiasm to a new wave of prospective engineering students.

I realise that the above points could  fill several blog posts of varying subjects, but I apologised for my  crassness already. There is no doubt that I will eventually pick one or two of these and expand upon them further... have you any preferences?

Have a great day.


Engine[er]

Late Announcement

Sorry for the late news cast - (but most of you know already) as from Monday 1st August 2011, I have finally stepped into the business world lock stock and barrel! After deciding to leave full-time employment to chase my dream of running my own business, I now have free reign to work on my own projects. The moment has arrived and I'm feeling kinda weird and excited :-)

I have been running my business during my spare time for a few months now... but right here and right now... I feel that I have finally made a full-time commitment and taken the final step.

Many thanks to everyone who has ever worked with me and given me the confidence to make this happen; my Dad for being an 'immovable object' and painfully right all the time, my mum for making me feel special, my first bosses and mentors Peter/Howard/Taz/Shauny for listening and giving me a chance at a career when it looked pretty useless for me, my best mates Paul/Neil who stuck with me when I was being an idiot and successfully squandering every chance that life threw at me, Sgt. Tommo in the RAF (2620) for teaching me that life is a team sport, and I had what it take to do whatever I put my mind to... but he mostly swore at me though. Thanks to Kevin Barter who really gave me the passion for Engineering and for doing a proper job in the face of adversity/idiocy, my friends in Bristol for helping me enjoy many extra curricular activities and everybody else who has listened to me rant, rave and spit and swear about life, love, friends, and family - but still believed in me and gave me the confidence to go it alone.

Big thanks to my last employers too for showing me (to their detriment) that I was ready to spring into action and make it happen for myself.

Finally a huge heart felt thank-you to Sammy for putting up with me and continuing to be there whilst I slowly found my business 'sea legs'.

This is only the beginning.

Engine[er]