Developing Engineers

This year has been the first full year for us here at developingengineers.com, and what a year it’s been!  We’ve been posting on a whole range of issues, engineering in the news, exciting new and incredible historic innovations, we’ve reported on science and engineering events, as well as sharing some of our own experiences.  So let me take you through our year in blogs…

In January we started off discussing specialisms in engineering, first asking how you discover or decide your own area of expertise, before discussing the value of doing a PhD.  Hardly surprising looking back, when higher education was big in the news, still reeling from the decision to triple tuition fees for undergraduate students (which to date has resulted in a 15% drop in UCAS applications, although ‘thankfully’ only around 8% for engineering subjects).  We also posted on the upcoming Formula 1 season, which while slightly one-sided has still been one of the most technologically remarkable to date.

Early in the year we also shared a number of our experiences and advice on job interviews, and in particular answering those tricky STAR questions that employers love to fill their application forms with!  March saw us highlighting some of the exceptional work done to inspire young people into engineering, in which we commented on International Women’s Day as well as The Big Bang Fair.

Inevitably, we waded in to the debate around nuclear power that started after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and the resulting meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant.  Along with the rest of the engineering profession, our writers tried to rationalise the debate by highlighting the inherent safety of modern nuclear plant designs and the exceptional circumstances experienced at Fukushima.  Even so, in the aftermath of the disaster a number of prominent countries have decided to abandon nuclear power altogether, which presents yet another challenge in trying to combat global emissions, and led us to try and assess the impact of the Japanese earthquake on the energy industry.

Rounding off the first quarter, we even got an early sighting of the Airbus A400M!

In April we looked at how both historical and state-of-the-art engineering can inspire us, with a look at the SS Great Britain and the Bloodhound Super Sonic Car.  Both got follow ups, with a two-part tour of the SS Great Britain and a piece on the phenomenal Bloodhound SSC project – I think it goes without saying that we can’t wait to see the car come together during 2012 ready for it’s 1000mph world land speed record attempt in 2013!

Another issue never far from the fore is that of sustainability, and before Easter we discussed not simply the technological, but the ethical and philosophical aspects of sustainable development.  Whilst innovation will allow us to reduce our energy and material requirements, perhaps more important is a cultural shift towards re-using and recycling the resources we have.

Over the summer I’m sure many people enjoyed watching the latest BBC series of The Apprentice, however many engineers took exception to comments a certain Lord Sugar made when ‘firing’ a contestant.  Interestingly however, Lord Sugar redeemed himself by hiring an engineer at the end of the competition!

A big event this summer (which we surprisingly covered!) was the quadrennial World Scout Jamboree, which attracted almost 40,000 Scouts from over 140 countries to a site near Kristianstad in Sweden.  Having been lucky enough to be asked to act as an ‘external expert’ to design and build a range of bicycle powered activities, I thought I’d share my experiences through a trio of posts covering the design, prototyping and final manufacture of the bike rigs for the Jamboree!

Getting ‘back on track’, we were also lucky enough to experience the IMechE’s annual Formula Student competition held at Silverstone.  Attracting over 130 teams from around the world, this year was particularly special as it featured, for the first time, a team from Gaza University who spoke of the added challenges of designing, manufacturing and transporting a working race car, when subjected to such severe restrictions.

During the autumn we covered a number of issues facing engineers, both current and future, as we commented on the case against 6 Italian seismologists for failing to predict the L’Aquila earthquake, as well as discussing how we can communicate our passion for engineering to inspire the next generation.

As a suitable finale to the year was our coverage of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, which is hoped to become established alongside the Nobel Prizes with its £1,000,000 prize for engineering innovation.  In an unprecedented show of support, the leaders from all three of the UK’s biggest political parties appeared together to announce the new prize, which will be administered by the Royal Academy for Engineering and supported by a number of prominent engineering companies.

It’s been a busy year for us here at Developing Engineers, but we’re thrilled with the sheer number of visitors we’ve had from across the world.  In 2012 you can look forward to more articles covering the vast spectrum of engineering, a revamp of the site making it more accessible, and perhaps even a non-English blog post or two!

Thanks for reading this year, we look forward to seeing you back here in 2012!

A few days ago, I received a job vacancy email from Gradsouthwest (thanks Mayo!). The role was with a company called Engineering Arts, who are based in Cornwall and deal with creating interactive shows with RoboThespian robots. The vacancy reminded me about several issues discussed on this blog about the nature of engineering, and I thought that I might share some of my feelings with our readers.

Firstly, like engineers, artists are also in a profession that is hard to define in terms of recognition. Its easy to say that somebody like Leonardo da Vinci (also an engineer!) is an artist, but what about your four year old niece who finger paints random drawings that no one but her can make sense of? Can she be considered an artist?

In my opinion, they both are artists. And, forgive me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think Leonardo da Vinci or your niece would care about whether or not they were being considered an artist, because to them it’s all about their own work. This brings me to the points made about whether or not the term “Engineer” needs to be protected, or at least differentiated, so that some sort of recognition could be made. To me, the title of “Engineer” can be applied to any human being or creature on the planet that demonstrates the creative spark, the ingenuity, and the motivation to transform the resources around them for some socially beneficial purpose. And since when did engineers become so insecure about themselves that they prefer to be recognized by their titles rather than their work?

Secondly, the recent hikes between courses at university, will add fuel to the fire that the arts and engineering industries don’t mix. For the sake of diversity, it is important to show that engineering is much more than fixing engines, doing calculus, or even using a screwdriver. It is important to develop courses at university that highlight just how important and far-reaching engineering is so that it can attract more students from various backgrounds. This should include its impact on not just the arts industry, but its impact on issues in politics, business, economics, media, and even literature (see here).

According to WhatUni.com, the top three most popular courses last year were Medicine, Business and Education with Engineering coming in 9th, just behind Arts and Design (which came in at 6th). After the increase in fees for STEM based subjects, I believe that gap will increase. The question is are we more concerned about differentiating ourselves from others that we begin to alienate new students, or are we going to work with other courses/industries to provide a clearer and more unified approach to engineering?

P.S. I really hope I get that job because I love robots!!

Now that leaks are emerging concerning the fate of higher education funding in the UK, it is beginning to become clear what the ‘masterplan’ behind increasing tuition fees, reducing teaching funding and reducing research funding really is.  But will these changes ultimately improve the standard of teaching at our universities, create more specialist and demand-driven institutions and make our research efforts inherently more efficient?  Or simply saddle graduates with mountains of debt, discourage poorer families from considering a top university education for their children, and place an unfair burden on those that have recently been termed the ‘squeezed-middle’?  Will some less renowned institutions go to the wall?  And will the UK lose some of its most valued researchers?

In the whirlwind of media coverage on this issue (including, I feel obliged to add, footage of a number of my peers from Sheffield University Students’ Union outside Nick Clegg’s Sheffield Hallam constituency office) it is difficult to pinpoint any conclusive answer – the Government is clearly hoping for market forces to shape higher education, whilst the student movement is fighting any increase in fees at a time when student satisfaction has remained static.  The Russell Group wants higher fees and a market in HE but are worried about teaching and research funding cuts, a concern which is shared by academics and Vice-Chancellors across the country, while the institutions represented by the university think-tank million+ believe the impact will be much worse for them; without an international reputation to support them, they could get dragged into a divisive and destructive competition for students looking to pay lower fees, whilst facing the same teaching funding cuts as everyone else.

Given the Government’s market-driven approach, it is incredibly worrying to see reports suggesting that commercial firms and charities will not fill the funding gaps left by the proposed changes to the HE system.  Perhaps just as indicative of the severity of the situation, given the Russell Group’s aversion to criticising the Government recently, is when one of its own Vice-Chancellors warns staff that university cuts would be a “national tragedy”.  The head of Universities UK, Professor Steve Smith sent a similar message to Vice-Chancellors around the country, saying that the figures set out by the Browne Review “confirm our worst fears” – a £3.2bn or 79% cut to teaching funding and a £1bn cut to research.

“George Osborne’s aim of cutting Whitehall department budgets by between 25 and 40 per cent over five years could leave universities out of pocket by as much as £6.6bn” – Michael Savage commenting on statements by Universities UK in The Independent

Renowned scientist and Chair of the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, John Krebs has warned that research funding cuts will lead to a new ‘lost generation’ of scientists, highlighting the lack of top researchers in their mid-50s thought to have been lost as a result of cuts during the Thatcher years.  It seems common sense to suggest that cutting funding to research will just cause our best scientists to take their research elsewhere, namely the better funded institutions of our competitors in the United States, France and Germany.  In all this there does appear to be some respite for those of us of a STEM persuasion though – both the Browne Review and the Government have suggested increased subsidies for ‘strategically important’ subjects, although it appears this is at the expense of almost all funding for Arts & Humanities.  This is presumably one of the factors that is expected to result in smaller, specialised institutions as suggested by a recent Times Higher Education report, with ‘non-profitable’ departments being re-organised, merged or closed as a result of the loss of teaching funding.

Regardless of specific provisions for particular social groups or specialisms, all stakeholders and users of the higher education system in this country have grave concerns that need addressing before these monumental changes are pushed through Parliament.  With organisations, businesses, services and individuals from across the country fighting their separate corners after the Comprehensive Spending Review is published on the 20th October, half the battle for students, universities and higher education will simply be, to be heard at all.

I’ll leave some final thoughts to Professor Geoffrey Crossick, on his report entitled, ‘The future is more than just tomorrow: Higher education, the economy and the longer term’.

With the wide range of engineering software used in the industry, it’s hard to know which ones you should develop your skills in. Matlab, ANSYS, MathCAD, AutoCAD, Pro-Engineer, SolidWorks… the list goes on. The aim of this article is to give the developing engineer a recommendation on which software skills they should focus on, and the ones that potential employers value.

The truth is that you’ll never know which software you’ll be using in your career whilst at uni, unless you’re planning on becoming a FEA engineer or CAD technician. So unless you have a preference to a specific industry, which uses a specific type of software, I recommend you spread your bets and dabble in my top 3;

Excel.    No firm can live without using this flexible tool from Microsoft. You may use it daily and think you know it like the back of your hand, you may be surprised to find that you’ve only touched the surface of its endless capabilities. Enhance your skills for free online advice at sites such as Ozgrid. 

CAD sotware, AutoCAD.  You may not produce drawings for a living but 2D CAD software is essential in engineering. Being able to read a drawing is also invaluable. I’m not going to be drawn into a debate about which 3D package is best, just be aware that there are several out there that the industry uses. So at uni I recommend becoming competent but not an expert, unless you know it’ll be useful.

Power Point.   Learning how to use and not abuse the functions of Power Point can make the difference between a success and failure of a presentation. Not limited to just software skills, poor presentation skills make the best presentation unbearable death by power point.

The Browne Review (or Independent Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance) is due to report back next week with constant media speculation that the overarching recommendations will be to raise tuition fees to £7000 a year and allow selective institutions to charge even more for ‘elite’ courses.  This will undoubtedly be welcome news for Dr. Wendy Piatt, Director-General of  the Russell Group of leading research-intensive universities, who have long advocated a competitive market system for tuition fees – but what about everyone else?

The opposite can be said of Aaron Porter, President of the National Union of Students – having campaigned for years against tuition fees, against top-up fees and against a ‘free market’ in HE, even advocating a graduate tax in recent times to increase the contribution graduates make towards their university education.  But so far all of these arguments, that HE gives a ‘free boost’ to the economy, that as a developed nation we are dependent on our ‘knowledge-based’ economy and that HE should be free and open to all, appear to have fallen on deaf ears.

“For every £1m spent by higher education, £1.35m was generated by universities for the economy” – The Impact of Universities on the UK Economy

Whilst the major partner in the Coalition Government appears opposed to the latter idea, the Liberal Democrats recently voted for a ‘graduate tax campaign’ at their party conference.  This idea is supported by groups such as million+, who historically represent former polytechnics and colleges – but why the difference with the Russell Group?  The obvious (or cynical?) answer to that is simply this: leading research universities will be able to charge the highest rates for the courses they offer, whilst those with a lower international standing will be forced to charge much less to remain competitive, whilst also bearing the burden of funding cuts in HE (see my post on research funding) that will likely result from the Comprehensive Spending Review, which coincidentally reports back later this month.

For those of you from outside the profession, you may think of this as an odd topic for a ‘developing engineer’ to weigh into, but it’s not – organisations such as the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), along with other professional engineering and science bodies are dependent on a stable flow of qualified graduates from a wide-range of backgrounds.  Major changes to tuition fees and higher education funding will impact their future membership.  Worries such as those highlighted by a study commissioned by the Sutton Trust, that higher fees will deter those from poorer backgrounds, must be shared by all.

“Only if sufficient young people are motivated to pursue careers based on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) can we maintain and progress the  technological developments that underpin our health, wealth and security.” – Education for Engineering – IMechE Policy Summary

Let’s be clear, whilst the tuition fees debate is sometimes portrayed by the media as an internal dispute between students and universities, it should be of concern to everyone.  A well-funded, stable and open higher education system for anyone with the right abilities is essential for the future prosperity of our economy.  The outcomes of the Browne Review, the Comprehensive Spending Review and the subsequent decisions made by Government will not just affect students, universities and academics – they will affect us all.