• Question: what is the most challenging thing you have done as an engineer

    Asked by 968rbte29 to Abbie, Melanie, Paul, Stu, Tom on 5 Mar 2016. This question was also asked by AcDcSri, 747rbte45, Amirah, Steffi.
    • Photo: Stuart Inglis

      Stuart Inglis answered on 5 Mar 2016:

      Engineering certainly keeps you on your toes with challenges! My most recent challenge was installing a system I had helped design on a ship in a Korean ship yard.

      Not only did we have to deal with multiple different languages used on site, but we had to make sure lots of different parts of the system, designed by lots of different people and companies all worked together as it should. When things didn’t quite mesh together, it certainly made things difficult, however everyone worked together to adapt the system to make it work.

      That’s the beauty of engineering, there’s lots of team work involved so if you’ve got a problem, everyone mixes in to find a solution.

      What’s the most challenging thing you’ve done at school? Did you use teamwork and those around you to come up with a solution?

      Stu

    • Photo: Paul Webb

      Paul Webb answered on 5 Mar 2016:

      I ran a project to remove a multi million pound production line and all the machines and reassemble them, in another factory and ensure they all go together correctly and wire all the parts up and ensure each part works

      With only a small team of 5 engineers we had a week to remove a machine the size of a football pitch load it into the Lorries, was great team work and we all helped each other, long days and sometimes into the night

      Was one of the hardest projects I have ever ran but was one of the most challenging an rewarding

      And made me grow and learn as a person

      Paul

    • Photo: Abbie Hutty

      Abbie Hutty answered on 7 Mar 2016:

      I think the most challenging thing I’m going to have to do is actually this week!

      I’ve been working for the last 3 years on designing the structure for our Mars Rover, and this week is what’s called Critical Design Review. That means loads of Experts from the European Space Agency, which is our customer on the mission, review every aspect of my design, and then come along to this big review and tell me if there’s any bits they don’t like! I’m then going to have to justify why they have to be like I’ve designed them, and hope to change their minds so that my design gets passed and approved.

      So it’s a busy week for me! It sounds like loads of work, but actually, as I’ve been working on this work so long I know it all inside out, and I know exactly why things have had to be designed as they are, so I’m feeling pretty confident!

      On a totally different level it was pretty challenging when I went on live TV! I was on Stargazing live with Brian Cox and Dara O’Briain, discussing our rover. I never wanted to be on TV or famous or anything when I was younger, and I knew it was going live to 8 million viewers so I was pretty terrified of saying something stupid that would haunt me forever. I survived though and didn’t fall over or make a fool of myself so it’s all good! :o)

    • Photo: Melanie Zimmer

      Melanie Zimmer answered on 18 Mar 2016:

      Difficult question! There are a lot of things that seem to be really challenging at first – some of them are in the end, others turn out to be simpler to do. I honestly cannot say what my most challenging situation has been so far, but there have been a lot of challenging ones – once I had to look into software developed by another company. Getting to the code and understanding it was really difficult. Then we had to test it and see how we could modify it. Thousands and thousands of lines of code to read and a few hundreds to write. That really got to my nerves. 😀 And although it might not sound like a great breakthrough, it really helped us in the project. 🙂

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