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Will Technology Ruin Your Career?

August 2, 2010 By Leave a Comment

William Merunka

Featured Guest Blogger: William Merunka

Follow me on my journey to become a great engineer.

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As time passes, new methods are developed and tasks that used to take up valuable time or would be tedious have become fast and simple.  One such item is the internet.  While it may have caught on slow, the internet is a necessity in almost everybody’s life.  Whether it is communicating with clients through email, research for a project, ordering gifts, or even ordering lunch for the office staff, we all use the internet.

While the internet is a useful tool, it has its flaws.  One of the bigger problems is that it does not come with a lie detector.  Whenever we have a question to answer and none of our friends or colleagues know the answer, or can convince us that their solution is correct, we Google it.  Instantly, we have multiple, sometimes hundreds of websites with information related to our research topic.  How do you use this information?  Do you trust it is 100% or do you do further research to validate it? [Read more...]

Filed Under: Calculations, Career Development, Professional Development Tagged With: ,

Apathy, the Professional Disease

June 15, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Featured Guest Blogger: Robert Mote

Motagg’s Blog by Robert Mote

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This can attack at any time in your professional life. It is a cultural disease and fairly contagious without treatment. Even if it is successfully treated it there is a chance of relapse. It is not just the peril of students life.

The symptoms are identifiable:

• Boredom

• Stressed

• Impatience

• Agreeing without checking [Read more...]

Filed Under: Calculations, Career Development

The battle between Excel and MathCAD

May 12, 2010 By 13 Comments

Featured Guest Blogger: Robert Mote

Motagg’s Blog by Robert Mote

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One of the interesting habits I’ve seen along the way through my career is the abnormal attachment some structural engineers have for MathCAD. I understand some of the reasons, it may be something learned at university and the interest kept alive. It might be that it adds value intrinsically to the experience, the engineers enjoys using it because it is supported by many examples. The MathCAD software library is loaded with engineering examples so it seems a natural extension of oneself as an engineer.

As an engineer, I have used MathCAD in pursuit of research, calculating free-convective heat transfer properties or the Boussinesq Bulb of Pressure. I must admit I would never use it to calculate the theoretical wind load to be applied to a piperack in StaadPro. If truth be told, in a profession where the only mathematical excitement may be an occasional square root; as a practicing engineer, I haven’t yet found a power use for MathCAD. [Read more...]

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Should I Stay or Should I Go?

April 19, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Featured Guest Blogger: Robert Mote

Motagg’s Blog by Robert Mote

Let’s connect on LinkedIn: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/robertmote

A graduate engineer has been working for two years in the drawing office and has reached breaking point. Comes to you and ask for advice, should I stay or should I go?

What would you say?

This happened to me when I was a graduate engineer going into my first drawing office role. I had been looking for work for eight months and snapped up this job as the first opportunity. It was an engineer-in-training arrangement which seemed to be another excuse not to pay me a fair wage. There was no mentoring or training, only the sense of being dumped in the deep end. I did not mind the deep end part, that was refreshing and stimulating but I did have a problem in that I didn’t understand the engineering business; the business did not reflect anything of what I was taught in university. [Read more...]

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The Power of Great Calculations

April 4, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Featured Guest Blogger: Robert Mote

Motagg’s Blog by Robert Mote

Let’s connect on LinkedIn: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/robertmote

The path I have taken through my career stems from the power of great calculations and making sure I achieve that on every job. It has become a habit. A great calculation is far better than the drawing.  It has the power to show confidence, clarity  and communicate across disciplines and task-specific roles.  It has a greater role to educate. To educate the graduates, the client and the average person. I am aware many clients, project managers and engineers have never seen such possibilities or will ever believe the attributes of great calculations will be necessary in their project.

A question I often surprise engineers with is, do you like doing calculations? How would you answer? How much power and impact do your calculations create? [Read more...]

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Have we been here before?

March 8, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Featured Guest Blogger: Robert Mote

Motagg’s Blog by Robert Mote

Let’s connect on LinkedIn: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/robertmote

In my last post, I demonstrated how calculations are prepared using MS Word 2003. I get many engineers saying they would prefer to learn with Word 2007 or claim it is a better product. I am astounded to hear that they believe this but I also understand why they think that. I have gone through the process of learning to achieve the same result with Word 2007 and I would never claim Word 2007 is a better product. It is more problematic with graphic handling, the defaults are worse and there is more clicking action of the mouse button. Do not believe the hype.

Anyone who has gone through the computer age from the mid-1990’s is aware of the endless cycle of MS Office upgrading. It is looking stale now. We can expect a future of it too. The constant revision of MS Office products has strained credibility. Succeeding generations of engineers have given up on MS Word with each upgrade. “Upgrade” is not equal to “improved” or “better”. Upgrading to 2007 is fundamentally different to anything you have used before. Do you think you will get training from your company? I doubt it. Do you think it will be intuitive enough to learn on your own? Good luck!

Let’s rewind the clock and consider the selfish perspective of an engineering user, stuck in a time warp. [Read more...]

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Are you Conventional?

February 8, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Featured Guest Blogger: Robert Mote

Motagg’s Blog by Robert Mote

Let’s connect on LinkedIn: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/robertmote

The engineering analysis is always a hot topic, in any drawing office, on any project. Applying national standards, to the letter, and increasing levels of sophistication into the analysis to prove the design is adequate, is often revisited and debated throughout the project life. However, the process of preparing the engineering calculations is an unspoken subject almost anywhere in the world. Proving your design, on paper, to the same degree as the analysis, is  often in the way and a matter of faith. The engineer is only concerned with proving to themselves, rather than the reader, that the design is fit-for-purpose.

Engineers doing conventional calculations, often have to number the pages themselves, add titles, collect and arrange different software outputs.  These reports are often long on quantity, time-consuming to handle and short on quality. [Read more...]

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Look in the Mirror

January 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Featured Guest Blogger: Robert Mote

Motagg’s Blog by Robert Mote

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I work in the Oil and Gas industry and I know there will be many exceptions and variations on what I write but I can only write about what I know and what I have learned. Please take the time to add comments where you feel the exceptions and variations may apply, or if you agree. My views are indeed a narrow slice of the broad spectrum.

Before we look at the building blocks to our calculations, we need to look in the mirror first. How has the engineering profession stood the test of time of the last fifteen years? That is not a long period of time is it?

We will look at transformation, traditions, technology, talent drainage and toxic habits. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Calculations

Open up Your Calculations

December 14, 2009 By 10 Comments

Featured Guest Blogger: Robert Mote

Motagg’s Blog by Robert Mote

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If you are like me, an engineer with some years’ experience working in a drawing office, then you know the value of what you do is often tied in the calculations. Many of us say how we specialize in certain types of designs but can you show it? How do you prove it?

Calculations are the cornerstone of your credentials as an engineer. From the very first time, I walked into a drawing office to start my career as a graduate Structural engineer, I realized I knew nothing about calculations, my mind was a blank. I knew only what I had submitted in my tutorials at university. I knew nothing about the considerations and preparation I should undertake in my professional role.  I had my eighth edition Steel Designer’s Manual (1978) as my preferred model. I was put straight to work checking calculations in the QA department for seismic designs; calculations that streamed in from over forty engineers. Remember, this was in the days before desktop computers. I saw a variety of styles of the pen-and-paper tradition. My first two years in QA checking was an interesting experience that I can appreciate now. As much as there are differences in people’s character, so is there in their calculations. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Calculations