Question: how many times a day do you say what and why

Emma Ryan answered on 6 Mar 2017:

Hello!

That’s a really great question!

It depends. If I’m doing experiments, all the time!

I ask – “What am I seeing?” and “Why am I seeing it?”. This is related to the scientific method. You have an observation, you make a hypothesis (you think of a reason it’s happening) and then you test that reason to see if you’re right.

For example, I thought that different wire diameters during 3D printing was causing it not to build. I then tested this by 3D printing two walls with wire of 1.2 mm diameter and wire of 1.0 mm diameter. The builds were the same! I was wrong. ): This happens a lot. Now, I think it may be contamination on the surface of the wire causing the problems so I’m going to test that instead.

I also ask it when I’m using bits of equipment – I say ‘Why aren’t you working?’ or ‘Why aren’t you giving me the answers I want?’ That happens a lot too. When you work as an engineer, you have to come up with the answers yourself though. You don’t have a teacher to ask and Google doesn’t always help.