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I thought this one was interesting: > 30. (von Tiesenhausen's Law of Engineering Design) If you want to have a maximum effect on the design of a new engineerin

by elihu 9y ago

I thought this one was interesting: > 30. (von Tiesenhausen's Law of Engineering Design) If you want to have a maximum effect on the design of a new engineering system, learn to draw. Engineers always wind up designing the vehicle to look like the initial artist's concept. I suppose a lot of new ideas come with a lot of "filler" details that weren't consciously decided on but end up as a permanent fixture of the design, and that whoever tries first to communicate the idea to others has a lot of unintentional influence over the final product.

InitialLastName 9y ago
This was the best advice I got in undergrad (as an EE). We had a seminar from a mechanical engineer who argued that the best thing we could do for our careers was take a drawing class or otherwise get to a point where we were competent at sketching an idea. People, especially the non-technical, are so visually oriented that, no matter the engineering field, the ability to draw a coherent picture of a concept can be enormously valuable. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.
- ghaff 9y ago
  There used to be more emphasis placed on technical drawing. I came in at the tail end but I still worked with a lot of blueprints for a number of years.
  - ams6110 9y ago
    When I was in Middle School, my shop class had a large unit devoted to mechanical drawing / drafting with pencil and paper. It was fun but also frustrating because the teacher was very particular about the details. If two lines were supposed to meet at a corner, and either one of them extended a little too far, he would mark down for that. Also any erasures prevented a perfect grade. Yes this was before computer drafting was practical, at least in schools.
    - MrEldritch 9y ago
      When I was in high school, we also had a drafting class. Half of it was devoted to old-school pencil-and-paper drafting. (The other half was Autodesk Inventor.)
uryga 9y ago
Tangentially related: every now and then I do some graphic design, and I've seen this "okay I'll just throw down a quick mockup → the client likes it so it basically becomes the final version" progression so many times...
geomark 9y ago
I wish I had gotten good at sketching early in my career. Too late for me now, but not too late for my kid as I involve him in STEM education activites. Interestingly, learning how to sketch is featured in several robotics curriculums for kids, for example Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Academy.
mamon 9y ago
This approach comes with hidden cost of adding unnecessary complexity. Think about B2 bomber design: it looks like some "artist" wanted to recreate a Batplane, or other sci-fi spacecraft and then it took a lot of engineering effort to make the thing of such ridiculous shape to actually fly in stable, predictable manner.
- gonzo41 9y ago
  just on that.The B2's design is mostly about decreasing its radar footprint and nothing else. its curvy because they finally had the computers to design it that way. The nighthawk was all angles because they didn't have the computing to build the thing in a more aerodynamic fashion.
- WJW 9y ago
  Actually the shape of a B2 is very much influenced by it's function and only mildly by the desire to "look cool". (Though that is important too, apparently the F35 contract went to Lockheed Martin instead of to Boeing because the specs of both proposal were nearly identical but the LM one looked much better) A "stealth" aircraft is not stealthy from all directions (nor does it need to be) but is optimized for bouncing the radar waves away from the direction of its target. The best shape for this would be to build the plane in the shape of an infinitely long flat surface, but since those are too expensive the "infinitely long" part is usually scrapped. Even shorter flat surfaces have terrible aerodynamical properties though, so there's often a compromise to make it more like a triangle. Then of course it needs to carry stuff like pilots, engines and bombs, so it can't be extermely flat but has to be bulbous. The engines need air intakes but radar waves bouncing off the rotating blades of a jet engine compressor have a very distinct signature in the frequency spectrum, so it makes sense to move the air intakes to the top of the plane where ground based radars can't shine into them. A similar thing goes for the outlets, but those need to be extremely heat resistant as well. To prevent the hot gases from flowing over an extended area of the fuselage you move the trailing edge of the triangle a bit forward. Then there are some more requirements like visibility for the pilots during take off and landing that put bounds on where the cockpit can be. Looks were very much a last consideration for the B2 and pretty much all of of its shape is due to its mission requirements :)

by elihu 9y ago

InitialLastName 9y ago

This was the best advice I got in undergrad (as an EE). We had a seminar from a mechanical engineer who argued that the best thing we could do for our careers was take a drawing class or otherwise get to a point where we were competent at sketching an idea. People, especially the non-technical, are so visually oriented that, no matter the engineering field, the ability to draw a coherent picture of a concept can be enormously valuable. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

ghaff 9y ago
There used to be more emphasis placed on technical drawing. I came in at the tail end but I still worked with a lot of blueprints for a number of years.
- ams6110 9y ago
  When I was in Middle School, my shop class had a large unit devoted to mechanical drawing / drafting with pencil and paper. It was fun but also frustrating because the teacher was very particular about the details. If two lines were supposed to meet at a corner, and either one of them extended a little too far, he would mark down for that. Also any erasures prevented a perfect grade. Yes this was before computer drafting was practical, at least in schools.
  - MrEldritch 9y ago
    When I was in high school, we also had a drafting class. Half of it was devoted to old-school pencil-and-paper drafting. (The other half was Autodesk Inventor.)

uryga 9y ago

Tangentially related: every now and then I do some graphic design, and I've seen this "okay I'll just throw down a quick mockup → the client likes it so it basically becomes the final version" progression so many times...

geomark 9y ago

I wish I had gotten good at sketching early in my career. Too late for me now, but not too late for my kid as I involve him in STEM education activites. Interestingly, learning how to sketch is featured in several robotics curriculums for kids, for example Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Academy.

mamon 9y ago

This approach comes with hidden cost of adding unnecessary complexity. Think about B2 bomber design: it looks like some "artist" wanted to recreate a Batplane, or other sci-fi spacecraft and then it took a lot of engineering effort to make the thing of such ridiculous shape to actually fly in stable, predictable manner.

gonzo41 9y ago
just on that.The B2's design is mostly about decreasing its radar footprint and nothing else. its curvy because they finally had the computers to design it that way. The nighthawk was all angles because they didn't have the computing to build the thing in a more aerodynamic fashion.
WJW 9y ago
Actually the shape of a B2 is very much influenced by it's function and only mildly by the desire to "look cool". (Though that is important too, apparently the F35 contract went to Lockheed Martin instead of to Boeing because the specs of both proposal were nearly identical but the LM one looked much better) A "stealth" aircraft is not stealthy from all directions (nor does it need to be) but is optimized for bouncing the radar waves away from the direction of its target. The best shape for this would be to build the plane in the shape of an infinitely long flat surface, but since those are too expensive the "infinitely long" part is usually scrapped. Even shorter flat surfaces have terrible aerodynamical properties though, so there's often a compromise to make it more like a triangle. Then of course it needs to carry stuff like pilots, engines and bombs, so it can't be extermely flat but has to be bulbous. The engines need air intakes but radar waves bouncing off the rotating blades of a jet engine compressor have a very distinct signature in the frequency spectrum, so it makes sense to move the air intakes to the top of the plane where ground based radars can't shine into them. A similar thing goes for the outlets, but those need to be extremely heat resistant as well. To prevent the hot gases from flowing over an extended area of the fuselage you move the trailing edge of the triangle a bit forward. Then there are some more requirements like visibility for the pilots during take off and landing that put bounds on where the cockpit can be. Looks were very much a last consideration for the B2 and pretty much all of of its shape is due to its mission requirements :)