• Question: When did you realise that you wanted to be an engineer and why? what was the most interesting you've built and why?

    Asked by Qdigger to Fe, Joe, Lauren, Olivia, Pete on 9 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Lauren Dransfield

      Lauren Dransfield answered on 9 Mar 2015:

      I guess it would be when I found that engineering was a career choice that suited the particular set of skills and interests I had really well. Before then I’d have considered almost anything, but knowing what I was good at and what I liked doing really drove me into engineering as a career.

    • Photo: Peter Roskilly

      Peter Roskilly answered on 10 Mar 2015:

      Well that’s a challenging question!

      I realised I wanted to be an engineer in my late twenties after I decided I wanted to change career (I used to work in banking which was _awful_)
      Civil Engineers help to design and build pretty much everything, but Infrastructure (roads, rail, Airports etc) really appealed to me.
      The scale of the projects is always huge, and your goal is always (almost always) to make things better for people just trying to get about.

      As for the most interesting thing, that is tricky. What’s interesting for me, could sound REALLY dull to someone else.
      That said, the most interesting thing I have done so far is help design the hard standing areas (car pack, footways etc) for a new Train Station here in Edinburgh. It’s the most responsibility I have had so far and as it gets built I’ll be able to watch out of my office window.
      I’ll be satisfying to be able to go and visit when it’s done and see people using something I help make happen.

    • Photo: Olivia Stodieck

      Olivia Stodieck answered on 10 Mar 2015:

      I don’t know exactly when I decided to become an engineer; maybe when I was 13 or 14. I realised that I was good at maths and physics, but I didn’t really like solving the abstract maths problems in school. So I joined a local science youth club; we built a small rocket one year and a stratospheric balloon another year – it was great fun actually building something. So that’s why I went into engineering.

      I guess the most interesting and fun project I have been involved in until now, was building a C-Class catamaran for the UK Team Invictus (see http://www.teaminvictus.com). It’s basically a scaled-down version of the large America’s Cup rigid sail catamarans (big racing boats on two floaters). I was in charge of calculating the loads in the wing (rigid sail) and making sure the design we built wouldn’t brake. I was great seeing it on the water – and knowing that it didn’t break! These types boats are much faster and more efficient than any normal sailing boat out there at the moment – that made the project really challenging.

    • Photo: Felicity Harer

      Felicity Harer answered on 11 Mar 2015:

      I didn’t really decide to be an engineer until my careers advisor in sixth form told me not to be one…Not very good at being told I can’t do something!!
      The most interesting thing I’ve ever built is probably the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle I made in a group project at University. It didn’t really work very well but it was fun trying and seeing how it all went together 🙂

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