Engineering Design Philosophy
Centre Island Bridge. See Bridge Inspection for further details.
“Engineering is a great profession. There is the satisfaction of watching a figment of the imagination emerge through the aid of science to a plan on paper. Then it moves to realization in stone or metal or energy. Then it brings homes to men or women. Then it elevates the standard of living and adds to the comforts of life. This is the engineer’s high privilege.”
~ Herbert Hoover
Engineering and Engineering Design:
When I first chose to go into Engineering, my first issue was “what exactly is engineering?” We all know the glorified side of medicine through T.V. shows such as Grey’s Anatomy, or law through shows such as Scandal, Judge Judy, and many others; however, engineering is never featured as much. After one year of battling Calculus problems and spending sleepless nights over design projects, I have come to the same conclusion as Seyyed Khandani:
~ Herbert Hoover
Engineering and Engineering Design:
When I first chose to go into Engineering, my first issue was “what exactly is engineering?” We all know the glorified side of medicine through T.V. shows such as Grey’s Anatomy, or law through shows such as Scandal, Judge Judy, and many others; however, engineering is never featured as much. After one year of battling Calculus problems and spending sleepless nights over design projects, I have come to the same conclusion as Seyyed Khandani:
“Engineering is the creative process of turning abstract ideas into physical representations (products or systems). What distinguishes engineers from painters, poets, or sculptors is that engineers apply their creative energies to producing products or systems that meet human needs. This creative act is called design.”
~ Seyyed Khandani, PhD.
The Engineering Design Process
If design is the foundation of engineering, then there must exist some process by which every engineer generates their designs. After one year of Engineering, I have developed a personal engineering design process that is an amalgamation of my writing process, other standard design processes, and idea generation techniques. The overarching structure of my design process models that of the “ 5 steps of the writing process," a model of which is on the right.
Translating this into the Engineering Design Process, we have the following flow chart:
Please go to the next page for a description of each of the steps.
