• Question: What do you like most about engineering?

    Asked by katie to Alex, Chris, Harriet, Jed, Ken on 12 Mar 2012. This question was also asked by mystrawberrymilkshake, jade1999, evan, cookiehuff01, hannahgrimes, beth.
    • Photo: Ken Gibbs

      Ken Gibbs answered on 9 Mar 2012:

      Engineering provides endless surprises. Like discovering that while water only flows downhill, it can be made to do some spectacular things if you add energy. Check out the “Jet d’eau” on Lac Leman in Geneva. Like working on the largest dam project in South Africa where concrete had to be cooled because it gets so hot after it has been mixed that you can almost boil your tea on it. Yet it becomes so hard that when water runs over the spillway and crashes on to the concrete apron, it doesn’t break up. Like the “qanat” system in Iran and other countries nearby, which allows for water to be brought many miles underground in tunnels that are hand dug, to provide irrigation water for fruit orchards and other crops. The longest underground tunnel is over 50km long before it emerges ! Engineering is likely to allow us to get our drinking water from the sea with specially engineered plastics, using very little energy. Engineering can be immensely complicated or it can be very simple, and what I like most about it is the range of things that can be done with engineering.

    • Photo: Alexander Zacheshigriva

      Alexander Zacheshigriva answered on 10 Mar 2012:

      Engineerin as a discipline is really down to earth and it really makes things work. Engineering is all about solving problems and about doing it efficiently. As a job engineering is great because it has a good balance, on one side you know that modern society needs engineers, so you have job security, but at the same time as an engineer you can do so many different things and your job can change so much that there is plenty of excitement. There is no such thing as a standard engineer carrier. I know many engineers that moved between: design engineers, project engineers, researchers, operation manager, directors, sales people, etc

      I have been working as an engineer for only two and a half years and I have already done a lot of different things and I have no idea what I will be doing in 10 years time, but sure it will be something fun.

    • Photo: Jed Ramsay

      Jed Ramsay answered on 12 Mar 2012:

      I think I like the problem solving best, which is never ending! One of my projects was to repair a long section of river bank that was collapsing on the River Thames. I had to solve so many problems to do this, like
      – how to repair it?
      – which material will make the best repair and also be good for the environment?
      – how do I get all the materials there when there are no roads?!
      – how do I get the materials in place when they weigh more than a car?
      – what do I do if the river floods whilst we are working?
      – can I do all of this with £90,000 of money to spend?

      The list of questions goes on and on and you can see that being an engineer isn’t just about purely engineering things, but there’s a lot of other things to think about! What’s great is when you manage to solve all these problems and then at the end of it build something that looks good, works well, improves the river and lasts for years.

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