• Question: What is the best part of being an engineer? The fiery explosiony stuff seems appealing to me. im not a psychopath I promise.

    Asked by Barack O Llama to Adam, Eloise, Iona, Jarrod, Yip on 13 Jun 2016. This question was also asked by Dr Trayaurus, 982kgrf52.
    • Photo: Man Hang Yip

      Man Hang Yip answered on 13 Jun 2016:


      For me, the best part is taking things apart piece by piece and understand how the pieces work together. It can be physically taking something, such as taking apart a car engine using different tools. It can also be taking apart a process apart. Let me give you an example. How does an apple get from a farm to the supermarket? (1) picked by a farmer (2) put in a storage area in the farm (3) wrapped and packed (4) waiting for a lorry to pick up (5) lorry takes the boxes of apples to a fruit distribution center (6) another lorry pick up the box of apple to the local supermarket.

    • Photo: Iona Strawson

      Iona Strawson answered on 14 Jun 2016:


      The best part of being an engineer is putting your design together and it working. For me this means no explosions I’m afraid. We actually send machines into explosive atmospheres such as wheat mills and the idea is for them not to explode. Dust is extremely explosive, so if the machine creates a spark, like if a PCB blows or a light goes or something, then we have a major problem. We have to make sure all electronics are sealed from the outside environment.

      So sorry, no explosions here.

    • Photo: Jarrod Hart

      Jarrod Hart answered on 23 Jun 2016:


      Nothing wrong with explosiony stuff I say!

      It’s also nice though if you can make a contribution to society – it is satisfying to see people’s lives improved in some invisible way they will never know about.

      Somebody designed the little springs in the keys in your keyboard right in front of you, and somebody else decided how many pixels to put on this screen.

      These unnamed people are legion, and they make the world go around… I want to be them, and they could be you too.

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