Category: Engineering Tools (Page 2 of 3)

As mentioned in a previous post, Engineering Equation Solver (EES, pronounced ‘ease’) is one of the most useful tools in my toolbox. Let’s describe in more detail how access to this tool changes the way you think about solving engineering calculations and how systems behave. For several reasons, this software is my ‘secret weapon’ at work, and I think engineers that don’t have access to something like this, or have never learned to think in a way that users of it can, are at a bit of a disadvantage. We should move more people to the ‘enhanced capabilities’ camp if we can. Here are advantages to consider, if you haven’t picked up capabilities with EES through your education or work already.

A Badger Product

Continue reading

When younger, I was off hunting along a swamp, and came across those sets of little grass hillocks in a bog. They might keep your boots dry, if you could hop from one to the next. I tried for a while to be tricky and pick out a humpy path to cross more comfortably, but soon just decided it was far better just to slog straight through the water to get where needed. My micro-lesson to myself was that it’s often better to embrace a bit of physical discomfort in exchange for a better outcome.

Friendly Wisconsin Swamp (Photo: Joshua Mayer)

To start off with a brief disclaimer: I’m not a nutrition expert, and I’d be perfectly satisfied if it were practical just to eat carrots and peanut butter. However, as one grows older and increasingly incapable of eating junk food and soft drinks without feeling the aftereffects, it makes sense to explore more diet options. You are welcome to be vegetarians, vegans, pescatarians, paleo, etc as each suits you. But one nutrition plan in particular – the ketogenic diet – seems to line up with some of my personal objectives, and it has characteristics that might appeal to an engineering mind. I’m exploring it, before the impacts of my [bad] life choices catch up to me.

THE BEAST IS WAITING

Continue reading

Let’s face it, engineers may not all be the best communicators. One of the (fine) engineers I work with has a difficult time forming coherent sentences before 09:00. We usually agree to postpone any project discussions until after then and a couple cups of coffee.

Translation device. Apparently

Take the difficulty of communicating with other engineers, or, heaven forbid, non-technical staff, in your own organization and culture, and then multiply that by several orders of magnitude to communicate with other organizations, across time zones, possibly in second languages. How can we employ some simple hacks to the structure of our language so it does not become a barrier?

Continue reading