• Question: what is it that made you interested in this subject/career to begin with?

    Asked by mullerj to Amit, Emily, Joanne, Martin, Paige on 13 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Amit Pujari

      Amit Pujari answered on 12 Mar 2012:

      My undergraduate degree is in Instrumentation and Control Engineering (combination of electrical and electronic engineering). In the third and final year of my degree course, I came across a module named ‘biomedical engineering’. I was fascinated by the subject! I was amazed to discover that our heart behaves like a four chamber pump. I was surprised to know that our body generates electricity though in tiny amounts. When you tap into this electricity (signal) near your heart, it tells you quite a lot about your heart’s working; its rhythm, whether it is beating faster or slower due to any problems.

      I was inspired to learn that engineering can be used to know more about human body. Engineering can be used to treat or cure diseases. Therefore, engineering can be used for improving health and well being. From that point onwards, I decided to opt for a career in Biomedical engineering. Simply, I wanted to do something useful and Biomedical engineering seemed like a right choice.

    • Photo: Emily Bullen

      Emily Bullen answered on 12 Mar 2012:

      A combination of what I liked at school (Maths and chemistry), and people telling me what engineering is all about. I’ve always known I wanted to do something involving science, but what exactly took a little longer.

    • Photo: Martin Wallace

      Martin Wallace answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      I became interested in engineering and how things work through playing with construction toys like lego and mechano. That’s why what I think I’ll do with the money (if I win!) is to buy a big set of lego mindstorms or something similar, and take it round schools so that the students can play with it and find out what incredible things can be acheived with a few gears and motors.

    • Photo: Joanne Davies

      Joanne Davies answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      Lots of things mullerj, here are just a few:

      I took my first trip down a steel mine at two and a half years of age when I used to go to work with my grandfather every day (he was a civil engineer). He had a builder’s yard with a huge workshop and offices. As I grew up, I used to play with tools and machines in the workshop to keep me busy. I was allowed to drive JCB’s and everything.

      That was great fun.

      My dad had a workshop at our house as well. We had a wood lathe, circular saw , bandsaw and all sorts of tools and materials, so we could fix and make lots of different things ourselves.

      My dad used to take me to lots of different places where they made things too.

      One day he took me to see a car that fried sausages and eggs! :):):) It was amazing and it was designed by Rowland Emett, the same guy who designed the car in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

      You can see a photo of it here. http://madamepickwickartblog.com/2010/03/a-fetish-for-movement/

    • Photo: Paige Brown

      Paige Brown answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      Good question!

      I got interested in Biological engineering after I heard a college student tell me about her career as an engineer of artificial hearts! She helped to design an artificial heart, and she traveled around the country helping doctors and surgeons put this heart into people in the operating room. I thought, how cool!!! 😉

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_heart

      So I decided that I wanted to be in biological engineering, because I loved medicine and biology but I also loved designing things and understanding the physics behind them and what made them work.

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